Mr. Slagle's opinion on the issue of arming pilots notwithstanding, his facts on the effect of a bullet being fired in an airplane are doubtful at best and plain erroneous at worst ("... or Half-Cocked," Sept. 28).
Mr. Slagle implies that unconsciousness immediately follows the puncturing of the aircraft by a bullet.
A bullet hole in the side of an airplane would hardly cause decompression that is dangerous to the occupants; the air system could probably compensate for a small hole.
If the bullet shattered a window or created a much larger hole, decompression could be rapid or explosive.
However, in either case, loss of pressurization would cause the oxygen masks to deploy, avoiding unconsciousness.
Even if the masks did not deploy -- either automatically or manually by the flight crew -- the pilots, who have an independent source of oxygen, would initiate a rapid descent to below 10,000 feet where there is enough oxygen. Firing a bullet would not result in a planeload of unconscious people.
Mr. Slagle further states that the plane "is violently jarred and can fall into a nosedive." Even if jarring occurred, a nosedive is neither an inevitable nor even a probable result. Planes are jarred by bumpy air and don't come close to nosediving.
Even if a nosedive occurred, and presuming that a pilot was still at the controls, there is absolutely no reason why a recovery could not be made from such a dive. Indeed, even with no one at the controls, the plane would probably pull out of a dive on its own (though without a pilot, what would happen thereafter could indeed be dire).
To be sure, there are many risks of the use of firearms within a flying airplane. But the chances of survival of those on board is zero percent with suicidal terrorists in command. I prefer better odds!
