I just returned from a business trip in the Midwest, and I saw something a bit unnerving on the flight back from Chicago to Boston.

As you're no doubt aware, the cockpit door is supposed to be shut and locked throughout the entire flight. Well, that's not exactly the case with this American Airlines crew and it could be a potentially dangerous flaw in the security.

About an hour before landing the stewardess picks up the phone (call from the cockpit). She moves the food trolley sideways at the front of the plane, and the pilot (or copilot) opens the cockpit door, and she hands him several meals for the guys in the cockpit. The pilot hands them to someone in the cockpit and then closes the door behind him.

I'm sitting there maybe 15 feet away thinking, "If I were an athletic, well-trained Al Queda terrorist, with 2 or 3 of my buddies along with me in first class, and we were familiar with this dinner routine these AA guys do on these flights, it would be relatively easy for us to jump up at the right moment and get into the cockpit (even if the food trolley is in the way). And the next thing you know this plane is headed down into the next major city"

Scary.