Sleeping Gas on Planes Would Stop Terrorists - Really? Posted: Sep 25th, 2017 - 10:09 pm
Donald Trump suggested commercial airline pilots should be able to use "sleeping gas" to stop terrorists during a conversation on The Howard Stern Show shortly after the 9/11 terror attacks. But employing such a gas could prove deadly.
"You have a red button in the plane, and the pilot has a huge problem in the back. He's got two or three terrorists, you know, going crazy," Trump said in comments revealed in a conversation he had with Stern that is one of dozens being archived by Factba.se. "He presses a button and sleeping gas comes out, the entire back of the plane goes to sleep."
"You now wake up at Kennedy Airport, LaGuardia Airport, they come in, they take the terrorists, knock the crap out of them, hang them from the black of the plane. The rest of the people wake up and they have a nice rest," Trump added. "They have a gas, that's a beautiful sleeping gas, that puts people to sleep."
As part of Trump's plan, the pilots would have gas masks to protect themselves from exposure. "We do not want the pilots to fall asleep," Trump said.
At the time, the future president admitted he had not read much on the subject of sleeping gas but claimed "everybody that's heard it loves the idea."
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Roughly a year after Trump made these comments—in October 2002—Russian security forces employed knockout gas in an attempt to subdue Chechen militants who seized a Moscow theater and took over 700 hostages. Ultimately, 130 people were killed, but not by the hostage takers. The gas has been widely cited as the cause of the majority of the hostage deaths, though Russian forces were able to eliminate the Chechen militants.
It's believed Russian forces had used a derivative of fentanyl, an opiate-based narcotic 100 times more powerful than morphine, which is typically used to prevent pain during surgeries. Dozens of hostages died horrifying deaths: They choked on their vomit, suffocated and swallowed their tongues.
The tragic incident in Russia highlights the dangers in using chemicals that incapacitate people, regardless of how benevolent the intentions behind their use might be. In short, the risks arguably outweigh the benefits.
LINK/URL: Sleeping Gas on Planes Would Stop Terrorists
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