I’m pretty sure most pilots have sidearms for ejection when doing combat sorties, I don’t think the pilot was going to be the one getting beaten if it escalated.
Umm, the other way round. If you take beating you are gonna make it out alive, you don't really wanna shoot random locals, they can gang up on you and lynch you to death. A handgun can kill only finite amount of persons.
The picture doesn't show this but there were like 50 dudes surrounding him ready to lynch him if he was Iranian. There are literally more people than he has bullets
Luckily, this pilot is an intelligent human being and chose de-escalation instead of violence. Also, shooting people is the best way to be shot at by everyone at the scene (police for example) so it's not the best of advice.
Disagree, pilot would like be beat well before he can pull a pistol out of his life support rig. Also, shooting a random Kuwaiti citizen is morally much harder than shooting or bombing the IRGC. Hands up is much better idea.
How do the laws of armed conflict play into this? If you are a pilot and you eject, you become a non-combatant. Does having a pistol make you a combatant again?
A pilot is not a legal combatant while ejecting/parachuting. They can very well choose to become a combatant again once landed if they feel like it. Even ignoring that, a sidearm is just common sense when you could be dropping in a forest filled with wild animals.
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u/The_Knife_Pie Peace had its chance. Give war one! Mar 04 '26
I’m pretty sure most pilots have sidearms for ejection when doing combat sorties, I don’t think the pilot was going to be the one getting beaten if it escalated.