Potential Friendly Fire Puts Fear in Fliers

If you've flown out of Dallas/Fort Worth recently, you might have heard that someone nearby "aims to please."

This is not because the airport has been upgraded to one of the best in the nation (which it has). It's because of a neighbor who has an anti-aircraft gun in his front yard.

The vintage gun, according to an NBC newscast, is from the Korean War and faces the airport. According to the report, our government checked out the gun and determined it's not a threat. But having it appear to scan the sky is a bit unnerving.

"I've seen it," said one passenger who was seated next to me in the gate area. "It's been there for a long time. But nobody paid much attention. It's really not a big deal."

While this particular gun might not be blowing anyone away, terrorism puts the fear of God into most travelers. Only it's not just the terrorists that worry us.

"It's the reaction to a terrorist threat that worries me," said Lynn Johnson, who felt the squeeze a couple of years ago when two fighter jets escorted her plane into the Washington, D.C., area.

Lynn said the planes were so close she could pick out the color of the pilots' eyes. If one of them had turned left when he was supposed to turn right, they would have all been statistics on the 6 o'clock news.

"And if some pilot or gun-carrying agent onboard gets trigger happy and overreacts, there could be a disaster of a completely different kind," added Lynn, who was also on a flight when a passenger became irate because the zipper on his luggage wouldn't open.

According to Lynn, the man seemed a little too upset. When crew members questioned him, he became agitated and blamed them for the broken zipper.

Nearby passengers jumped from their seats and had the man pinned before he could make a move. Apparently, he wasn't planning to highjack the plane. He was just having a bad day.

Last April, when a bomb-threat note was found in a magazine on a Ryanair flight, the plane was diverted from Dublin, Ireland, to Glasgow, Scotland. The Royal Air Force sent in fighters to escort the plane, which I'm sure freaked out many passengers. The passengers were evacuated and the airport was closed for several hours before the authorities decided the threat was a hoax.

Bomb threats have never been a laughing matter. During the 1960s, threats were called in at an alarming rate. The FAA would send in the dogs and the planes would be carefully searched. It become so common that, after deciding it was safe, the captain might choose to take the flight and give us the option of flying or going off schedule.

And when a bomb threat was discovered en route, the flight might be diverted to a nearby airport, but the fighter planes were never required for escort - although there was one time in the late '60s when two Soviet fighter planes tailed our Boeing 707 as we traveled south in West Germany. They paralleled us from the East Germany side.

When the Cold War ended, so did the enemy planes. But fears are heating up over our own in-flight security. Like Lynn Johnson, Steve Cross also worries about a mid-air collision when escort jets are used.

"Our airlines have strict rules about keeping airplanes a safe distance apart," said Steve, who has also flown with an Air Force escort. "But the Air Force has a different set of rules. It worries me to have planes in such close proximity."

Although terrorist attacks are still foremost in most travelers' minds, friendly fire can be just as lethal. While keeping the enemy at bay, we have to be careful we don't shoot ourselves in the foot, both literally and figuratively.

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