Pilots say TSA disrupting gun training By Fred Bayles, USA TODAY Two pilots groups and key members of Congress are blasting the=20 Transportation Security Administration for moves they fear could delay=20 arming pilots. Last week, the TSA fired Willie Ellison, the head of the TSA= =20 academy, despite high praise by the pilots who received firearms training.= =20 This week, the TSA revealed plans to move the training from Georgia to New= =20 Mexico. "It's one more bureaucratic disaster devised by those who want to=20 make this more complex and expensive than it has to be," said Rep. John=20 Mica, R-Fla., head of the House aviation subcommittee. "I don't know what=20 their ulterior motive is, but it is very frustrating." Congress authorized= =20 guns in cockpits last fall over the objections of the Bush administration=20 and the airline industry. The law provides training for airline pilots in=20 firearms, hand-to-hand combat and legal issues. Pilots are then deputized=20 as federal officers and allowed to use deadly force in defense of their=20 cockpits. The first class of 44 pilots graduated in April. TSA officials=20 told the 50 people who provide the training that the program would be moved= =20 from the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Ga., to a=20 facility at Artesia, N.M., in a remote southeast section of the state. Both= =20 centers, on former military bases, provide training in firearms and tactics= =20 to law enforcement personnel from 74 federal agencies. The Georgia facility= =20 has seen enrollment grow by 30% a year since 2001. The TSA training staffers, many of whom moved to Georgia in the past year,= =20 were offered the chance to relocate to New Mexico. TSA spokesman Robert=20 Johnson said courses would resume in Georgia in July as scheduled. Then the= =20 training would move to New Mexico in the fall because of "a surge of other= =20 training" in Georgia. "They are running out of space there," Johnson said.= =20 He said attempts will be made to find other jobs for the trainers, but many= =20 fear they will be laid off soon. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., the ranking=20 Democrat on the aviation committee, complained that the changes came as a=20 surprise to Congress. "No attempt was made to rationalize the waste of=20 money spent setting up the program in Georgia and then moving it to New=20 Mexico," he said. "It's just another attempt by the administration to=20 disrupt the program at the behest of the airlines who have always opposed=20 arming pilots." Johnson declined to comment on Ellison, citing privacy=20 issues. Ellison also declined to comment. Pilots worry about what the=20 shake-up means for those awaiting training. Bob Lambert, the head of the Airline Pilots Security Alliance, an=20 organization of pilots who have campaigned for the right to arm themselves= =20 against the threat of terrorist attacks, charged that the changes were a=20 "delay tactic" by TSA officials opposed to arming pilots. Lambert and other= =20 pilots also questioned the reasons given for firing Ellison, a firearms=20 expert and former deputy assistant director with the Bureau of Alcohol,=20 Tobacco and Firearms. They said the TSA removed Ellison for "unacceptable=20 performance and conduct," but that the specific reasons listed made no=20 sense to them. Ellison's bosses criticized him for holding a dinner for the= =20 pilots, providing them with baseball caps with the program's logo and=20 asking them to evaluate the course =97 all standard practices for training= =20 seminars, the pilots said. "The reasons they fired him do not reflect what= =20 I observed in the program," Stephen Luckey, the chairman of the Air Line=20 Pilot Association's national security committee, said. "Someone was=20 obviously unhappy with the program, but there's got to be more to it than=20 this." Mica said his staff is investigating Ellison's firing. He also will= =20 push for changes in the program that will take it from TSA authority and=20 use private training companies instead. *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Mas Site: www.tntisland.com/tntrecords/mas2003/ Site of the Week: http://www.natalielaughlin.com/ TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************