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The videos of the crash site did not seem to show evidence of a fire upon impact. It was a two hour flight so one would have expected the plane to explode in flames on impact or some sort of fuel fire.
I don't think you can guard against this type of internal attack by making changes to the door to get it open from outside. The co-pilot intent on this type of murder would just change his form of attack. This was just the path of least resistance this time.
The fact is that you have to guard securely against the passengers so that door needs to be impossible to open. Because of that you need to trust that the pilots and other flight personnel that are allowed on the cockpit side are trustworthy.
Doesn't matter if a flight attendant goes in there in the pilots absence. A little knock out drug on a napkin could have them out in seconds.
To get the pilot out this time he could have easily bought the pilot a coffee with a diuretic in it. Or put something in the pilots drink while his head was turned. This could cause a predictable run to the bathroom.
Making the door open able from the outside would have just caused him to add to his form of attack by lowering the cabin pressure to knock everyone out.
Basically what I'm saying is that if you have an internal attack like this you likely can't defeat it by changes in procedure or physical means like door modification. You have to make sure that your physiological evaluations, employee procedures and grievance procedures head this sort of thing off.
Exactly, this type of incident can better be guarded against with better mental health testing for the crew . These type of cockpit doors are doing their job. Any changes to them would just make it easier for other mentally unstable individuals to get into the cockpit and interfere with the crew. That would just multiply the chances of an incident.
The guy is crazier than we think if he thought he could pass this off as an accident.
He is dead .He does not care. Maybe all new planes should have access to a restroom directly from the cockpit. How about a porta potty on existing planes?
Door locks or lavs in the cockpit won't solve anything. He could have crashed it on landing or take off if he wanted with the pilot sitting next to him.
Remember Auburn Calloway? The FedEx jump-seater who tried to take down a FedEx heavy with a speak gun and, I think, a hatchet? He wasn't a pilot on that flight but at least they could overtake him and land safely, even with horrendous injuries. Scary day in Memphis.
Point being, if the pilot had entry he might have been able to save the plane.
On talk radio they were discussing an Air Marshall should have "OnStar" capabilities to unlock the flight deck door, but it wasn't a US flight so that flight wouldn't have had an Air Marshall anyway, is that right? Plus there's nothing on aircraft like that. It's not like it's a Buick...
I suppose it's possible that the pilot had some medical condition like very low blood sugar that can make someone confused without actually passing out, and locked the door from the panel instead of opening it when there was pounding on it. Maybe he then in confusion thought that he had to immediately lower the altitude for some reason, thinking his problem was from depressurization? Or that he was landing normally at destination?
However, at this time, I'm putting down my quarter on the pilot deliberately committing suicide for whatever reason, whether personal or terrorist. But on the personal level, he'd have had to be a total sociopath to want to take so many people with him ......... and if it was terrorism, why didn't he get a message out saying so? It would have been wasted in it's purpose of creating terror if it was never found out what happened or who did it.
Furthermore, it probably wouldn't have been a passenger forcing his way in or getting let in as part of a plot, since the other pilot wasn't concerned at first, just tapping at the door. If someone strange had gone into the cockpit, the other crew members would have noticed and raised the alarm.
Certain health conditions would guarentee a pilot in the USA would flunk his annual flight physical and lose his commercial pilots certification. Diabetes is one of them. We don't let rail engineers operate a locomotive and states will pull a commercial truckers or bus drivers license if you have diabetes.
This is so much like Egyptair Flight 990 (NY-JFK to Cairo) where a pilot flew a 757 into the Atlantic Ocean off of Cape Cod.
The videos of the crash site did not seem to show evidence of a fire upon impact. It was a two hour flight so one would have expected the plane to explode in flames on impact or some sort of fuel fire.
Fires don't always occur when aircraft crash at high rates of speed. Look for the video on YouTube of the P-51 that crashed in Reno.
He is dead .He does not care. Maybe all new planes should have access to a restroom directly from the cockpit. How about a porta potty on existing planes?
or equip commercial pilots with what the US Air Force fits its flight crews and NASA its astronauts. There are no toilets in an F-15 or a Soyuz manned spacecraft.
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How about a porta potty on existing planes?
