Guns on Dragonair Jets Worry Pilots

Dragonair pilots have protested at being instructed to carry VIP bodyguards armed with pistols and plainclothes security guards armed with knives when they fly domestic routes on the mainland.

Politicians' bodyguards carrying military-issue QSZ-92 guns and security guards armed with 7cm-8cm knives and handcuffs are being allowed on six Dragonair planes leased with their cockpit crew to Air China to operate on its mainland domestic routes.

The bodyguards' semi-automatic pistols are supposed to be unloaded when they are taken on board but on the only known occasion when a Dragonair captain checked a gun brought into the cabin, he found it fully loaded.

Security guards board every flight and the VIP bodyguards, assigned to protect senior government officials but also allowed to fly armed en route to assignments, have boarded leased Dragonair planes at least five times.

Guns and knives are strictly banned from Hong Kong-registered planes wherever they fly, under rules agreed by the government, pilots and airlines after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the US.

Dragonair sought and obtained dispensation from the Civil Aviation Department (CAD) allowing armed guards on board after it secured a wet-lease deal to provide Air China six Airbus A330 and A320 jets to fly between Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou.

A wet lease is a deal under which a plane is leased to another operator with at least one crew member.

Pilots say they were not consulted about the dispensation and are concerned that the bodyguards are not answerable to the captain and carry unmodified pistols that could blow a hole in the side of a plane.

Air marshals in the US, by contrast, are placed on planes to protect passengers as a whole rather than individuals and carry guns that have been modified so as not to put the aircraft's structure at risk.

The Dragonair pilots' case has been taken up by the Hong Kong Airline Pilots' Association, which has asked to see the terms of the CAD dispensation and called for talks with the body to establish a protocol for the armed bodyguards.

In the wake of the September 11 attacks, most countries decided the risk of having firearms on board a plane outweighed their usefulness in a terrorist attack and decided not to allow them.

Air marshals carry guns on US domestic flights and Israeli carrier El Al uses armed guards. El Al's guards are also there to protect all passengers, not any individual.

In a letter to the CAD expressing "serious concern" over the issue, the pilots' association said: "The carriage of armed personnel not responsible to the commander [of the plane] is the cause of particular unease. There appears to be no legal indemnity for the commander should one of the security personnel take actions that result in the death of or injury to passengers."

A CAD statement said the dispensation had been granted so that Dragonair could "meet the requirements of the mainland's authorities".

"The current regulations and practices ? require that all domestic flights within mainland China should be deployed with in-flight security officers and that for flights carrying senior government officials, armed bodyguards should also be deployed," it said.

Dragonair said in a statement it applied for the dispensation so it could "operate in accordance with the regulations of the relevant authorities of the Chinese government". "Our air crew and their representatives have been fully informed of the situation," the statement said.

Pilots' association president David Newbery said the no-guns rule for Hong Kong-registered planes had been unanimously agreed by the CAD, his association, the airlines and the Security Bureau.

"We decided if the risk was such that we couldn't take off without guns being carried in the passenger cabin, we would rather cancel the flight," he said. "That is why what is happening on these Dragonair flights on the mainland is a matter of such concern for us."

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