Co-pilot sabotages Flight 9525: what to do to about it?

One of the solutions that the authorities seized upon after 9/11 was to barricade the pilots into the cockpit. The thinking was, even if the hijackers manage to take over the passenger compartment of an airliner they still can’t control the aircraft because they can’t get to the cockpit. The recent crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 illustrates the flaw built into the plan: what if the real danger lies among the crew?

For this reason, the crash of Flight 9525 in the Alps creates a dilemma for the aviation authorities: how should cockpit procedures be modified to both stop Mohammed Atta as well as a suicidal pilot? Gaming out the various scenarios illustrates the difficulty of preventing willful sabotage. Because somebody must be in charge, it seems that, at the end of the day, you will be forced to trust somebody. By this logic, beyond finding the most trustworthy people possible to fly your airplanes, there is nothing more you can do.

Or is there?

I submit that the solution to the dilemma posed by Flight 9525 can be found on the very day the procedures that helped cause it were inspired: September 11, 2001. To see this, we must first ask the question, what worked on 9/11? The answer is the passengers on United 93. Entirely upon their own initiative, they overpowered the terrorists and prevented United 93 from crashing into its intended target in Washington, either the Capitol or the White House. Their only shortcoming was that it took time for them to mount their counterattack. Initially, they followed the then-conventional wisdom that cooperation is the surest course of action. We now know this isn’t always true. The next United 93-style spontaneous militia won’t make that mistake. They will attack immediately. Indeed, this has already happened a number of times. Indeed, last week an airline passenger started yelling, “Jihad, Jihad” as he tried to storm the cockpit. He didn’t make it.

This tactic has been one of the indisputable success story of counterterrorism within the past 15 years but it is one that the authorities in charge of preventing terrorism are determined to ignore. Instead of disempowering the passengers by confiscating their penknives and nail clippers, and locking the flight crew into the cockpit (thereby enabling any suicidal co-pilots that may be on board), we should instead be enabling the passengers.

A pack of a hundred passengers can identify and eliminate the threat posed by both Mohammed Atta and Andreas Lubitz. The solution doesn’t have to be either-or.

Comments

[WiseGuy]

Typical of our "big government" leaders, the lesson they learned from flight 93 was that they must stop ordinary people from defending themselves by treating them as the problem, disarming them and virtually imprisoning them during a flight.

Even unarmed, 150 ordinary people will successfully overcome 1 to 4 terrorists, now that they know it will be a matter of life or death.

[WiseGuy]

I was flipping radio talk show channels yesterday and found that all of them were discussing mandatory reporting of pilot medical issues by doctors.

These clowns are thinking that they can plug every hole in their top down, big government security system, while the dangerous people continue to find ways to exploit weaknesses. I can predict that pilots will now stop going to see their doctor, for fear of their, soon to arrive, catastrophic powers. I also foresee a future conspiracy between a co-pilot and a stewardess to hijack the next plane-load of restrained and disarmed passengers.

All the while, we continue to use 60s technology to analyze flight data of crashed aircraft, after the event is complete, when we can find it. Live streaming of flight data could have saved this plane by allowing the flight controllers to listen live to the sounds of the Captain trying to return to the cockpit after the unexpected descent had begun. Once a hijacking was detected, this airplane was equipped with the anti-hijack feature of remote flight.

We are lead by incompetent politicians, who always choose the "magic pill", without ever considering the consequences of their simple minded "solutions".

[Autoguy]

WiseGuy, just remember the Alynski premise, "Never let a crisis go to waste". The things talked about - mandatory doctor reporting and all that - aren't necessarily about solving this problem. It could very well be about control. If we have to have mandatory reporting for airline pilots, how about bus drivers? How about teachers? How about anyone 'in charge' of public groups of people? Certainly, calling for a solution to this tragedy is understandable, but the implications of state control are horrific.
We have fallen into the trap of "this must never happen again!" THAT always winds up with us handing power over to more bumblecrats.

[WiseGuy]

Autoguy, I think you may have it right. These politicians are not incompetent so much as they are despots, aiming for ever more control.