John Hostettler: “this amendment that I am proposing today would clarify what I believe this bill infers. Air carriers would simply be…”

“this amendment that I am proposing today would clarify what I believe this bill infers. Air carriers would simply be prevented from firing or otherwise discouraging those pilots who join the flight deck officer program. It also ensures that air carriers cannot prohibit Federal flight deck officers from flying their aircraft. This amendment simply ensures that the brave pilots who volunteer to protect the citizens of this country will not be discriminated against by airline carriers. I want to ensure that terrorists know that if they attempt to hijack one of our airliners, in all likelihood they will not succeed. Given that pilots are not yet armed at this point, we have to ask: If an armed pilot is not the last line of defense against hijackers, where does that leave us? In a recent Committee on Armed Services hearing, I asked the commander in chief of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, General Ralph Eberhart, about what happened on September 11 when it was determined that the fourth plane, Flight No. 93 which crashed in Pennsylvania, may in fact have been aiming to target our Nation's capital.”