Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Unfortunately, unless someone was forcefully committed, it may be hard to screen for mental illness.

And on the other hand, there are lots of folks with anxiety, depression, etc. that are otherwise high functioning and not a threat at all, when on their meds, that shouldn't be disenfranchised.

 KiloFiX wrote:
Unfortunately, unless someone was forcefully committed, it may be hard to screen for mental illness.

It's not just hard, it's impossible. Most screening for mental illnesses depends on the person cooperating with the screening because they want help, if you can't rely on the person being honest and cooperative then you're only going to catch the extreme cases that are obvious even without formal screening. The closest you can get is make a law requiring doctors to report any patients seeking help for mental illnesses to the FAA (or equivalent in other countries) which is a major violation of doctor-patient confidentiality and has the obvious side effect of discouraging pilots from getting help when they need it because they're afraid of losing their jobs.

And on the other hand, there are lots of folks with anxiety, depression, etc. that are otherwise high functioning and not a threat at all, when on their meds, that shouldn't be disenfranchised.

Actually it's the medications that are a major reason why those issues can get your license suspended. The side effects can hinder your ability to fly safely, so the FAA requires a period of documented stable use of the medication with no side effects before they'll clear a pilot to fly again (and that's a major improvement over the old policy of "if you take this you're grounded"). It might seem kind of unfair, but always erring on the side of safety is the reason why plane crashes are major news instead of a common event.

Looks like I ain't ever flying

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Looks like I ain't ever flying

...he says, as he gets behind the wheel of a car.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Looks like I ain't ever flying

The number of passenger planes that go down compared to those that don't is miniscule. The number brought down deliberately (as this one seems to have been) is a tiny fraction of that. Generally it is a maintenance issue or crew error.

Yes, every flight is a roll of the dice, as is every time you get in a motor vehicle on public roads. I think you'll find your odds are better in a plane. If you limit it to planes owned and operated by western airlines you are doing even better (they have better maintenance standards and records).

Don't sweat the things you can't control. When it is your time, it is your time. In my opinion, even 10 minutes or so of knowing you are going down in an airplane would be better than months spent with some aggressive cancer or years spent with something like alzheimer's.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Looks like I ain't ever flying

If you are afraid of flying, then you should never ever leave your home. Travelling by car, train or even on foot is more dangerous.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Looks like I ain't ever flying

If you are afraid of flying, then you should never ever leave your home. Travelling by car, train or even on foot is more dangerous.

problem with that logic is that, in the US something like nearly 80% of all major accidents happen within or around the home.


To fix that, Im taking the numbers off the front of my house, so that way it's no longer my address/home and I wont have an accident

 KiloFiX wrote:
Unfortunately, unless someone was forcefully committed, it may be hard to screen for mental illness.

Thing is, his mental state was a secondary issue until the very moment he decided to kill everyone. What I find more worrisome, is that he had serious sight issues related to a previous car accident. Doctors treating him were convinced he is not flying passenger planes, because he told them so, and they didn't contact Lufthansa with the information that would have grounded the man, potentially forever.

The whole system is utterly bizarre, as it put the burden of doing the right thing on the one person that happened to be keenly interested in not doing the right thing. How fething stupid is that? How many pilots out there have health issues that could potentially endanger passengers, and yet keep on flying just because they threw away a piece of paper they got from their doctor?

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Looks like I ain't ever flying

If you are afraid of flying, then you should never ever leave your home. Travelling by car, train or even on foot is more dangerous.

problem with that logic is that, in the US something like nearly 80% of all major accidents happen within or around the home.

Because, shockingly enough, that's where you spend most of your time?

Just like how that thing you're missing is always in the last place you look for it?

On topic here - what solution can there be to the very excellent Anti-Terrorism Locked Cockpit Door Solution?

 Alpharius wrote:


On topic here - what solution can there be to the very excellent Anti-Terrorism Locked Cockpit Door Solution?

Is one needed?



I would argue, No, it is not.

The solution I've seen touted is that if a pilot leaves the cockpit another crew member (the senior steward for example) enters and remains until the pilot comes back.

Seems like about the best thing you could do- lots of airlines do that already.

 CptJake wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:


On topic here - what solution can there be to the very excellent Anti-Terrorism Locked Cockpit Door Solution?

Is one needed?



I would argue, No, it is not.

Well, it would have prevented the events that spawned this thread.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:


On topic here - what solution can there be to the very excellent Anti-Terrorism Locked Cockpit Door Solution?

Is one needed?



I would argue, No, it is not.

Well, it would have prevented the events that spawned this thread.

Maybe. But locked/un-openable doors would have prevented 9-11 and a slew of of hijackings over the past few decades.

 CptJake wrote:
Maybe.

It's not really so much of a "maybe" and more of a "definitely."

But locked/un-openable doors would have prevented 9-11 and a slew of of hijackings over the past few decades.

And if a frog had wings it would bump it's ass when it hops.

Regardless, there have been hijackings of commercial airlines since 9/11 so making the cockpit door impenetrable didn't stop them all. I think it's pretty clear that there needs to be a way for the flight crew to enter the cockpit if needed, despite the current system.

There is really nothing stopping a rogue pilot from decking the steward that has taken the other pilots spot, or decking the other pilot even. If a pilot wants to crash a plane he will most likely succeed as long as there is a door that can keep the cockpit isolated even if there is another person present.

A "2-person at all times" rule is still a good thing to make sure there is a second person in case of any other emergency, and doors that lock (and can be disabled from the inside) are going to stay.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
Maybe.

It's not really so much of a "maybe" and more of a "definitely."

Yeah, because there is no way the nut job could have overpowered/knocked out the pilot had he been able to enter the cockpit, nor have damaged enough systems that he made the crash inevitable.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

But locked/un-openable doors would have prevented 9-11 and a slew of of hijackings over the past few decades.

And if a frog had wings it would bump it's ass when it hops.

Regardless, there have been hijackings of commercial airlines since 9/11 so making the cockpit door impenetrable didn't stop them all. I think it's pretty clear that there needs to be a way for the flight crew to enter the cockpit if needed, despite the current system.

Can you give one case where an airline using the locked doors with no cockpit access had a hijacker gain access? I can't find one. All I can find is where the airline did NOT follow that practice, or where the hijacking was done from outside the cockpit and the pilots retained control of the aircraft and landed where they wanted to, or the attempts failed. In short, the policy/practice works.

 CptJake wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
Maybe.

It's not really so much of a "maybe" and more of a "definitely."

Yeah, because there is no way the nut job could have overpowered/knocked out the pilot had he been able to enter the cockpit, nor have damaged enough systems that he made the crash inevitable.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

But locked/un-openable doors would have prevented 9-11 and a slew of of hijackings over the past few decades.

And if a frog had wings it would bump it's ass when it hops.

Regardless, there have been hijackings of commercial airlines since 9/11 so making the cockpit door impenetrable didn't stop them all. I think it's pretty clear that there needs to be a way for the flight crew to enter the cockpit if needed, despite the current system.

Can you give one case where an airline using the locked doors with no cockpit access had a hijacker gain access? I can't find one. All I can find is where the airline did NOT follow that practice, or where the hijacking was done from outside the cockpit and the pilots retained control of the aircraft and landed where they wanted to, or the attempts failed. In short, the policy/practice works.

As for the first part of your response, see the above picture.

The question was never "does it work?" but rather, "should there be a way for the flight crew to reenter the cockpit?"

And based on the fact that a copilot used an impenetrable cockpit door to aide him in murdering 149 people, that answer is "yes."

I think there may be a third way.

I'm aware that some aircraft can have the autopilot take over and lock the crew out of controls, and be landed wholly on auto as an anti-terrorism method. Perhaps a hardened communication link on both sides of the door would solve what happened here, although since what happened here is so statistically insignificant it probably doesn't warrant the effort. Also, how long does it take to crash an aircraft if you really want to, and don't care about subtlety? Probably not long enough for a third party to respond.

Although ultimately I think we all know there won't be anyone sitting up front anymore, anyway, on a long enough timeline.

 Ouze wrote:
I think there may be a third way.

Which is what I am trying to get across. However, Jake seems to think that I'm advocating for a complete removal of the current system, which I am not.

It clearly working as intended (which is why we are talking about it this thread), but that doesn't mean it's perfect (also why we are talking about it in this thread).

There is probably no way to control for all potential eventualities, but having a second person there at all times at least alleviates some of the risk. These events are very rare and the best we can do is make them rarer. Any system will have a flaw, unfortunately.

A good example of a similar situation with two pilots present:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990

 Ouze wrote:
I'm aware that some aircraft can have the autopilot take over and lock the crew out of controls, and be landed wholly on auto as an anti-terrorism method. Perhaps a hardened communication link on both sides of the door would solve what happened here, although since what happened here is so statistically insignificant it probably doesn't warrant the effort.

It would be very difficult to produce a system that is both reliable enough to function despite deliberate attempts to disable it and safe enough to use on civilian passenger aircraft. For example, one important safety feature is the ability to pull the circuit breakers and shut down electrical components if there's a fire. So do you remove the ability to shut down the override feature and just accept that if there's an electrical fire somewhere in the system everyone on the plane will die? Or do you include the ability to shut it down and make the system worthless against anyone who knows how to turn it off (which, for obvious reasons, will include the pilots)?

Also, how long does it take to crash an aircraft if you really want to, and don't care about subtlety? Probably not long enough for a third party to respond.

Very little time. And it takes even less time to put the plane out of control beyond any plausible chance of recovery before hitting the ground or catastrophic structural failure.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 d-usa wrote:
There is really nothing stopping a rogue pilot from decking the steward that has taken the other pilots spot, or decking the other pilot even.

Not if they're really determined to do so. But we've seen that adding seemingly trivial barriers to other suicide methods is enough to make a significant reduction in suicide rates. Would the pilot in this case still crash the plane if, instead of just locking the door, setting the plane on autopilot, and waiting for the end, he had to fight the crew first? Would he have decided that the chance of humiliating failure is too high and found a different method to die? Or would he have given up on suicide entirely?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 His Master's Voice wrote:
The whole system is utterly bizarre, as it put the burden of doing the right thing on the one person that happened to be keenly interested in not doing the right thing. How fething stupid is that? How many pilots out there have health issues that could potentially endanger passengers, and yet keep on flying just because they threw away a piece of paper they got from their doctor?

Ok, here's how it works. An airline pilot's medical certificate lasts one year, or six months if they're over 40. To renew it they have to be checked by a doctor that has been approved by the FAA, using specific tests to ensure that the pilot is capable of flying safely. So most of the time any potential health issues are going to be caught and the pilot will be grounded before it becomes a safety issue. And even in the case of a sudden issue that happens between renewals most pilots aren't suicidal morons and will ground themselves if they feel that they are not capable of flying safely (which is a lot clearer with physical problems than mental ones).

Also, don't forget that one of the reasons for having two pilots is so that if one of them is unable to fly the plane safely for whatever reason the other can take over and get everyone on the ground. So there's really only a significant risk in the unlikely case where one of the pilots has a hidden medical issue AND something happens to the other pilot that prevents them from taking over or catching the first pilot's mistakes.

 Peregrine wrote:
Not if they're really determined to do so. But we've seen that adding seemingly trivial barriers to other suicide methods is enough to make a significant reduction in suicide rates. Would the pilot in this case still crash the plane if, instead of just locking the door, setting the plane on autopilot, and waiting for the end, he had to fight the crew first? Would he have decided that the chance of humiliating failure is too high and found a different method to die? Or would he have given up on suicide entirely?

I agree with your points.

However, this wasn't "suicide," it was the murder of 149 innocent people.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
However, this wasn't "suicide," it was the murder of 149 innocent people.

Put whatever moral judgement you want on the methods, but it was still a suicide and the approach to stopping similar cases in the future should be based on understanding it as a suicide. Based on everything we know so far the pilot's primary motivation pretty clearly seems to have been a desire to end his own life, most likely due to a combination of depression and the news that he was about to lose his career. There was no public statement of why the victims deserved to die, no confrontation with the other pilot, etc. In fact the way he did it seems carefully chosen to avoid confronting the fact that everyone else was about to die and allow him to sit in his own little world until the end. Would he have still done that if his research into suicide methods had told him that he was going to have to fight and kill (or at least knock out) another crew member before crashing the plane instead of just pressing one button to lock the door and another button arrange the crash? Would he have been determined enough to go through with his plan when the moment came instead of taking the coward's way out and giving up until later? Evidence from other suicide methods suggest that there's a good chance that the answer to those questions is "no".

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
Maybe.

It's not really so much of a "maybe" and more of a "definitely."

Yeah, because there is no way the nut job could have overpowered/knocked out the pilot had he been able to enter the cockpit, nor have damaged enough systems that he made the crash inevitable.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

But locked/un-openable doors would have prevented 9-11 and a slew of of hijackings over the past few decades.

And if a frog had wings it would bump it's ass when it hops.

Regardless, there have been hijackings of commercial airlines since 9/11 so making the cockpit door impenetrable didn't stop them all. I think it's pretty clear that there needs to be a way for the flight crew to enter the cockpit if needed, despite the current system.

Can you give one case where an airline using the locked doors with no cockpit access had a hijacker gain access? I can't find one. All I can find is where the airline did NOT follow that practice, or where the hijacking was done from outside the cockpit and the pilots retained control of the aircraft and landed where they wanted to, or the attempts failed. In short, the policy/practice works.

As for the first part of your response, see the above picture.

The question was never "does it work?" but rather, "should there be a way for the flight crew to reenter the cockpit?"

And based on the fact that a copilot used an impenetrable cockpit door to aide him in murdering 149 people, that answer is "yes."

I'm not sure how pointing out the locked doors has done exactly what it was intended to do is moving the goal. You brought up there were still hijackings and implied the locked doors did not work. I pointed out that I cannot find a single hijacking where the locked doors were present that the hijackers got access and control of the plane, and in fact, all the ones I found the pilots did indeed retain control of the plane. That is not moving the goal, that is asking you to hit the goal you set when you pointed out some hijackings still occurred.

If the crew can re-enter the cockpit, someone can force them to open it and gain access. It defeats the whole purpose of having implemented the measure. That isn't hard to see.

As for if the pilot had been able to re-enter would it have prevented this case, you say Yes Definitely. I say that is an unknown. Neither you nor I know how desperate the copilot was nor what measures he was willing to take. If you think otherwise, you're kidding yourself. Again, I did not move a goal, I pointed out that you're being Definite is wrong. You don't really know.

 CptJake wrote:
I'm not sure how pointing out the locked doors has done exactly what it was intended to do is moving the goal. You brought up there were still hijackings and implied the locked doors did not work. I pointed out that I cannot find a single hijacking where the locked doors were present that the hijackers got access and control of the plane, and in fact, all the ones I found the pilots did indeed retain control of the plane. That is not moving the goal, that is asking you to hit the goal you set when you pointed out some hijackings still occurred.

Hit the goal? Do you even read what you write? You claimed that the current door locking system have "prevented a slew of hijackings in the past few decades." I pointed out that hijackings have indeed occurred since 9/11. You then asked me to name a specific kind of hijacking sine now the others that have happened don't count because of reasons. Also, saying that the current door locking procedure is the reason hijackings have been prevented is bunk by the way... it is but one of the major security overhauls that took place after 9/11. You're using to prove your case solely out of convenience.

If the crew can re-enter the cockpit, someone can force them to open it and gain access. It defeats the whole purpose of having implemented the measure. That isn't hard to see.

And since there is that measure, we're now discussing the deaths of 149 innocent people. That isn't hard to see.

As for if the pilot had been able to re-enter would it have prevented this case, you say Yes Definitely. I say that is an unknown. Neither you nor I know how desperate the copilot was nor what measures he was willing to take. If you think otherwise, you're kidding yourself. Again, I did not move a goal, I pointed out that you're being Definite is wrong. You don't really know.

You don't know how desperate the pilot was or what measures he was willing to take to regain control of the aircraft. If you think otherwise, you're kidding yourself.

The system isn't perfect and in our knee-jerk reaction to 9/11, a pilot intentionally downing an aircraft full of people wasn't on the minds of people who designed what we have today. Expect something to change, it's how airline safety works.

Either the cockpit doors can be secured from inside or not. I don't see many alternatives. The pilot being able to secure the doors and overriding the attempts of staff to open it prevents other crew giving access under coercion or other parties who have access codes. It's not an unsound system, it just means you can't prevent people determined to crash their own plane and take everyone with them. I can't see how to make it easier to prevent that without making it easier to access the cockpit. Overall the odds of a terror attack are greater than a pilot intent on killing everyone. The alternative solution is to intervene before people with mental conditions are allowed to fly.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
The alternative solution is to intervene before people with mental conditions are allowed to fly.

You might as well wish for magic crash-proof planes if you're going to ask for impossible things.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CptJake wrote:
If the crew can re-enter the cockpit, someone can force them to open it and gain access. It defeats the whole purpose of having implemented the measure. That isn't hard to see.

It reduces the effectiveness a bit, but it doesn't make it useless. A big part of why the 9/11 attacks succeeded was that previous hijackings were about getting hostages and making ransom demands, so the conventional wisdom for dealing with them was "do whatever they say, land the plane, and wait for the negotiations". Now passengers and crew know that they might as well fight to the death to stop the hijackers because if they don't there's a pretty good chance they're going to die anyway. So if the locked door lasts long enough for the passengers to subdue the hijackers the hypothetical scenario where the passengers sit peacefully and watch as the hijackers beat the crew into revealing the code doesn't really matter.

Well in this case the pilot hid his current problems and there was a history. Maybe more checks are required to be in place so as to prevent them flying sooner. Lots of people suffer depression and the like but they aren't all in jobs expecting hundreds of people to put their lives in their hands.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Well in this case the pilot hid his current problems and there was a history. Maybe more checks are required to be in place so as to prevent them flying sooner. Lots of people suffer depression and the like but they aren't all in jobs expecting hundreds of people to put their lives in their hands.

The problem with checks is that, unlike physical issues (vision problems, etc) that get in the way of safe flying, you can't identify depression without the depressed person cooperating and seeking help. And if you make it mandatory for doctors to report anyone seeking help with depression to the FAA (or your country's equivalent) then, on top of violating doctor-patient confidentiality, you make it even less likely that the depressed pilot is ever going to risk losing their career to get help. Which is worse, putting hundreds of lives in the hands of someone who is getting treated for depression "off the record" and not reporting it, or putting those lives in the hands of someone who isn't getting treated at all?

(And a lot of other things work this way with pilot medical certificates. The FAA can't monitor every part of a pilot's life, so the process depends on the pilot being honest about things like which medications they're currently taking. Adding more frequent checks adds more cost and bureaucracy but doesn't do much to improve safety.)