I read in the Daily Mail today that there is no psych. screening process for hiring pilots for Germanwings.

About two years ago I was sitting in 1B right behind the cockpit door on a Delta flight. I can't remember what plane it was, but it was probably an Airbus A320 or one of their related variants. My routes are lousy with the old Airbuses except for when I get really lucky and they use even smaller regional jets.

It was windy and the rollout was very rough and we were bouncing around badly during the takeoff and even worse on the initial ascent. The cockpit door kept knocking back and forth in its frame like it was loose. Sure enough, maybe a minute into the flight the cockpit door popped open completely and started banging back and forth like a cheap screen door in a hurricane. I could see directly into the cockpit with two extremely busy and not happy pilots working the controls. We were in steep enough of an ascent that the flight attendant couldn't get up to close the door.

The captain looked over his shoulder and saw me looking at him. He shouted in a very command presence voice not to get up. I wasn't sure if he was worried that I would rush the cockpit or if he was worried that I'd get hurt if I tried to close the door in such turbulence. Either way, his tone of voice did not invite questions or suggestions. He looked ready to hand the controls to the co-pilot and come out of his chair at me if I moved. I appreciated his dedication to keeping the plane flying. I just looked back in the isle to make sure no one crazy enough to rush the pilots saw that the door was open. I figured that if someone did get up I'd be the last barrier before the cockpit and I'd better be ready to jump up if necessary.

Fortunately not very many passengers even noticed. The plane leveled off in a minute or two and the flight attendant was finally able to unstrap herself and close the door. I think one of the pilot's concerns was that if someone did try to close the door they my get thrown into the cockpit by turbulence and hit the controls.

The whole incident left me less than confident in the strength of cockpit doors and makes the whole German Airbus tragedy that much harder for me to comprehend.

Suicide airliner accidents and incidents - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Further indication of intent...

Germanwings pilot ordered jet down to 100 feet, trackers say

It may depend on the airplane. I've seen that, and I've seen them bring a service cart out and stand in the aisle with it until the crew member is back in the cockpit. I think it depends on where the can is relative to the cockpit door.

This should be carved in stone. :mad:

There had better be a dead man switch for the steward/stewardess. If the remaining pilot has intentions of crashing, I would think he has no issues incapacitating the second person.

I see no perfect solutions short of making the crew wearing Depends so neither has to leave the flight deck.

German paper Der Spiegel says the pilot had taken a several month break during his education to treat depression. The break is confirmed by Lufthansa but the reason was given through the pilots personal circles - Lufthansa is not commenting citing medical confidentiality.

I also read that there are no psychological evaluations of pilots. :eek: I am pretty sure that is going to change very soon.

Horrible way to go for the passengers and crew. Run into the ground in a perfectly good airplane by a madman.

G

Maybe they should think about the door being opened and maybe even flight controls taken over via comms from Airbus head quarters. Not sure how they'd go keeping comms secure but I'm sure there is a way. The military can do it.

It's like anything in life.

There is risk of dying every day. You can't wrap all airplanes in giant prophylactic bubbles so they bounce harmlessly off the mountain.

When some idiot psycho wants to kill you, you are probably going to die. That sounds harsh, but reality is sometime harsh. We have the best we can do, and guess what? You can't control everything in life. I would even go as far as to say that you can't control most things in life.

Further reasons for remote-controlled air flight in our near future. The sooner the better.

Until it gets taken over by terrorists, similar to what the Iranians did with that top secret US drone, although apparently the security of the drone was lacking.

Europe needs to adapt the US carrier policy of always two people in the cockpit.

I still don't see that as a viable solution. A determined male pilot/co-pilot can disable a female FA quite easily.

There are steak restaurants in US airports that server meals with real steel knives. There has to be a million ways for a pilot to bring an effective weapon into the cockpit.

Anything from a sun fart, cloudy day, flock of geese, or kid on a laptop can still make you splat into the ground like a watermelon.

The conspiracy-theorist in me wonders if European aviation investigators would ever blame a flaw (like software) in a European-owned airline manufacturer.

Yep, crew suicides with no known motive and terrorists with known motive. It would be interesting to get a profile on all of them and connect the common traits that lead to this madness. Might be a useful screening tool for airlines and others.

Rather than all the conspiracy/terror theories and suggestions for Triple-armored padlocked security-clearance fingerprint double dead-man switches and remote-control robot future-planes,

I suggest that we consider the SCALE of this incident related to the amount of flights flown daily in the world, shake your head, and mourn for the victims and their families, and move on.

Psychological evaluations for pilots seems like a good idea though.

You feel the same way about remote controlled cars?

Nothing is ever 100%. But another person in the cockpit might be that factor that stops somebody from their intentions of doing harm.