Passengers speak after Southwest Airlines plane hit by gunfire at Dallas Love Field Airport
https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/gun-shots-fired-near-dallas-love-field-airport-plane-struck/3699053/
Seriously?
“I had my son with me. He was sitting in the window seat... And we were just in row 13. So, we were pretty close to the cockpit," Shannon said.
Row 13 is over the wings. A 737-800 is 129'-7" long and the wings are about halfway back. In this context, I don't think 60 feet away is really "pretty close." To be candid, if somebody is shooting at airplanes I would prefer not to be in that airplane at all, but in this context I think the statement is ridiculous.
And then this dude -- an "aviation expert." I drive a car every day -- that doesn't make me an "automotive expert."
"So, my first thought is like, 'Holy cow, somebody just shot a gun and it hit a commercial aircraft!" said Armen Kurdian, a retired Navy captain and Naval flight officer.
He said investigators will start by figuring out where the bullet came from.
"So, what was the orientation of the aircraft when it was actually hit? How deep did the bullet penetrate? That'll tell you what its speed was. And that'll give you an idea of the range from which it was fired," he said.
:duh:
Kurdian said they'll also be looking into whether or not the shot was intentional.
"The fact that it hit so very close to the cockpit seems too much of a coincidence. The odds of that happening, I think, got to be really, really high," he said.
That's an idiotic statement. If it was accidental, the odds against hitting a taxiing aircraft at all are astronomical.
Kurdian said the damage could be wide-ranging, from something benign, like a light switch not working, to the GPS not working.
"Now, if it hits something more vital, say like a hydraulic system, then the pilots would be alerted rather quickly that there would be... a pressure drop in the hydraulic system," he explained.
He said aircraft have a lot of backups, and it's likely a bullet to the cockpit would not have caused a crash.
Another :duh:
But he said it all still opens a security vulnerability.
"Did this put an idea into, say, a non-state or a state actor as, 'Oh, maybe this is something we can do to disrupt air travel'?" Kurdian said.
He said it's prudent for the airport and other agencies to consider safety measures.
Like they haven't ever considered security measures before.
This is the level to which "journalism" has fallen. They're in a rush to put out a story, they need some authority figure to give them some verbiage they can quote to show they've done their homework, and somebody on the team says, Hey, I know a guy who used to fly in the Navy. I'll ask him."
