Guns and Dragons

HongKong based and Cathay Pacific owned Dragonair is facing an unarmed rebellion by its flight-crews. They are protesting the requirement to carry military garbed guards armed with regular military-issue semi-automatic pistols and knives. The guards are being carried compulsorily on Air China planes leased through the Hong Kong airline. The pilots appear to be anxious that the guards are carrying regular fire-arms, unlike those packed by US Federal Air Marshals (FAM's). Their guns are specially modified so as not to pierce the aircraft fuselage. The FAM's are also trained marksmen, picked for their ability to not puncture the paying passengers in a shoot-out.

One Dragonair captain said that he'd checked one guard's weapon and found it to have been fully loaded. The understanding had been that the weapons would be empty-chambered. The South China Morning Post reported on Friday that the HongKong Civil Aviation Department had approved the carriage of armed military guards as a concession to the security requirements of the mainland government - who, after all's said and done, now call the shots in HK.