by Workingman » 26 Mar 2015, 19:58
It is a difficult one for Airlines, manufacturers and rule makers.
Reconfiguring cockpits to accommodate a lock-in for the crew, including toilets and food facilities, will be nigh on impossible. Securing the crew quarters in flight to avert a takeover, as per 9/11, has to be in place.
Carrying a third pilot to take over for toilet breaks would be massively expensive, and that would have to be passed on to passengers - would we pay for a one-in-a-million chance?
Having a cabin crew member with limited flying abilities to replace the pilot or co-pilot so that there are always two people on deck sounds good, but what if they are overcome? Statistics say the crew member would be a woman.
Psychological profiling is not fool proof and never will be. A person can be trained to give the right answers and if that person is a terrorist they will almost certainly have been trained.
The best I have come up with, so far, is that a cabin crew member is chosen at random per flight and has an override code for the cabin door via an innocent looking mobile phone kept well away from the door itself.