Gun-firing pilot identified

The pilot who inadvertently fired his gun in the cockpit of a US Airways airplane he was preparing to land in Charlotte, North Carolina has been identified as 55-year old James Langenhahn, a Pittsburgh-based former Air Force pilot. The pilot had remained anonymous until today, as was quoted as telling the press, “As much as I’d like to talk about it. I can’t right now.”

Pilots on commercial aircraft have been issued firearms since the terrorist attacks in Washington and New York on September 11th, 2001, and this is the first incident of a gun being fired. Langenhahn was stowing the gun before landing when it went off, piercing a hole in the cockpit wall, but he said nothing until he landed.

The holster of the gun itself is being investigated, as Airline Pilots Security Alliance president David Mackett explains: “The locking holster was designed to be used to lock a gun away at the end of the day. You need to put the firearm on an officer where he can control it and not touch it.”