Authorities in Dallas are trying to trace the source of what has been termed a stray bullet that hit a Southwest 737 while it was taxiing at Love Field late Friday. The aircraft was on its way to the runway just before 10 p.m. local time for a flight to Indianapolis when the bullet hit the right side near the flight deck. There were no injuries.
How can it be certain that the bullet was stray. Stray is to infer a random unintentional or unaimed bullet when in fact the bullet could have been intentionally aimed to inflict damage and harm.
Probably âstrayâ because it was a handgun round and there were no follow up shots. That, and there are plenty of gunfire incidents in that part of Houston after 10pmâŚ
Considering that there are over 400 million guns in civilian hands in the US, I am honestly surprised that this sort of thing does not happen more often. Inner city airports like Dallas Love, Houston Hobby, Chicago Midway, etc. are surrounded by lower end housing and light industrial occupancies right up to the fence lines, so taxiing aircraft would be a tempting target for some nut with a gun.
Well, Iâm going to have to take exception to the âHey, itâs Texasâ comment. My wife and I lived south of Houston for 32 years while working for a large aerospace company supporting NASA at Johnson Space Center. There are crackpots in every state. At the small GA field Iâm currently based at in Colorado, there can be a large presence of of fire fighting helicopters during the fire season. This last season I was talking to one of the pilots who mentioned that he had taken ground fire while working a fire in one of the western states one of the yearâs prior. Maybe 4-5 years ago another pilot mentioned that he had taken ground fire while working a Colorado fire. There are nut cases all over.
Killers often exhibit very negative or violent tendencies. The shooter of a Congresswoman in AZ had a shrine with skull in his back yard. Several mass shooters were negative or known dangerous people.
Vote for more police, which requires electing officials who care and can do something. Unlike Seattle whose new mayor claimed to support more policing but has not achieved much - shootings way up in the past year, home of president of a university was vandalized by pro-Iran âprotestersâ, âŚ
No, it doesnât. Given the millions of flights into and out of thousands of airports, reports of a bullet hitting an airliner is hardly fear mongering. Put your dog whistle and politics away.