Flight Attendant Questions – Subdue or Kill?

Hello there.

I’m Churba. Ex-Flight attendant, Australian Expat, and terrible at writing intros.  So, on to the main topic.

I became aware of the Following Question Via Bobby of upupandagay.com -

“If the bomber on DL was on YOUR flight, do you subdue him… or kill him? What do you think you would do?”

The simple answer is No, you subdue and restrain. But the actual answer is a lot more complex than that.

Firstly, and most obviously, there’s the psychological impact. Sorry to say, boys and girls, but the whole debonair James Bond Kill-five-dudes-then-slip-away-for-two-martinis-and-a-good-shag is almost entirely a myth, and if it is not a myth for you, I suggest you immediately seek professional help, because you’re a danger to yourself and others.

Killing is an extreme psychological trauma for your average person, especially your first kill. Adding to that the fact that there are very few options for weaponry that kills quickly or cleanly on an aircraft. See where I’m going with this? If you are forced to kill to protect your Passengers and Fellow crew, then it’s most likely going to be both brutal and messy. It’s very unlikely for your average FA that you’ll get anything approaching a neat, clean kill – Such as a properly broken neck – unless you’ve already subdued them, in which case, you’ve crossed the line from self-defense to outright murder.

It’s also a trauma for your passengers – This is quite obvious. How would you feel if someone ended a bloke right in front of you, with their bare hands, brutally, messily, and essentially, for you? The person who was just serving you the Jack and coke with a smile off their tray has just staved in someone’s head with a coffee-pot, right in front of you. How do you think you feel? I’ll give you a hint – It’s pricey, involves you lying on a couch once or twice a week for a long time after, and has someone patronizing you while they doodle on their notepad and try to sneakily glance at their watch.

Also, there are some other effects that I’ll go into at greater length later on – for example, your plane is now an entirely different kind of crime scene, the Federal police are angry at you because you’ve just offed someone they could have interrogated for information, you’ve just lost your job, or at the very least, you’re looking at a long suspension pending investigation and lots of counseling, and your company now has to try to put a positive spin on “Hey, one of our Flight attendants just killed a guy!”

And, (for the moment) Last of all, Killing makes them a Martyr. They didn’t fail – they died for their cause, they laid down their life because they thought the cause was that important that they should. Congratulations, they didn’t blow up your plane. But you’ve turned them into a symbol, an inspiration, an encouragement, essentially, you’ve done half of what they were intending to do, except you did it to them, rather than them doing it to themselves. You capture them? They’ve failed, and now, they’re going to be interrogated, tried, and most likely thrown into a deep, dark hole that they won’t ever be crawling out of. Hardly an inspiration, is it?

Now, I’ll be updating this post later if I think of more to say, but that’s enough for now – it’s quarter past four in the morning, and I’ve got things to do tomorrow.

Goodnight.