Government says it's arming pilots faster

WASHINGTON -- After a slow start in training pilots to carry guns, the government said Tuesday that it has filled its weekly classes and expects to arm all qualified pilots who volunteer within a year.

An association of pilots says, however, that the government is discouraging volunteers by insisting on psychological testing, requiring lockboxes to carry weapons and holding training at a single remote site.

Fewer than 200 passenger airline pilots were trained and deputized to carry a weapon since Congress ordered the program in November.

"We should have thousands, not hundreds," said Capt. Bob Lambert, president of the Airline Pilots' Security Alliance, a grass-roots organization with members from all major U.S. airlines.

Lambert spoke at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport during one of several press conferences held by pilots around the country to urge the Bush administration to speed up the program.

John Moran, who heads the program, said it's meeting the demand.

"The great majority of those who have volunteered will be trained within a year," Moran said.

Full classes of 48 are booked through the end of September, he said, and the agency plans to double its classes in January.

The government checks pilots' backgrounds and gives them written psychological tests and interviews to qualify them for a week of classes, weapons instruction and hand-to-hand combat drills before they're given a gun.

Sen. Jim Bunning, a Kentucky Republican who sponsored the bill to arm pilots, said that isn't fast enough.

"TSA must do better," Bunning said at a news conference at Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport. "Pilots volunteering to receive this program's training are not receiving it in a fair and timely way."

TSA chief James Loy called the psychological testing an important tool in determining a pilot's aptitude for using lethal force while flying an airliner.

"That is not a small thing for anyone to think about in a cowboy fashion," Loy said. "That is a dramatically important thing for us to get right."

The Transportation Security Administration says only a few dozen pilots who applied failed the psychological tests. The agency stresses the test doesn't measure whether pilots are competent to fly a plane.

Lambert doesn't believe the testing is objective. "We've seen people turned down with exemplary backgrounds," he said. "How can they explain turning down people who've gone through federal law enforcement training?"

TSA spokesman Robert Johnson said confusion may have resulted because a rejection letter was mistakenly sent to 160 candidates. "It was just a clerical error," he said. "It was corrected within three days."

Pilots estimate 40,000 of them would sign up if the agency didn't insist on the testing, which they view as unnecessary because they endure exhaustive screening just to become commercial airline pilots.

Pilots say the agency is dragging its feet because it didn't want the program in the first place.

Loy admitted he had wondered why the government would introduce weapons into airplanes when so much effort was going into making them safer. But, he said, "it's the will of the people."

"We have worked diligently to build the right program," he said.