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Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'

#141

Post by Htsthbjig »

This is the other side of the coin of giving someone too much power.

After 2001 the pilots were considered "good" and the rest of the crew and passengers "bad".

But what happens when pilot intentions are not good? In this case the crew and passengers are impotent to save their selves.

This is probably what happened in the last two missed airplanes too.

The same is happening with the Government, after 2001 the people have given too much power to the Government because they considered it "good" against the "bad" guys. But as the people in Germany knows, the people in the Government could be the bad guys.

Re: Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'

#142

Post by quonn »

Any ideas for future improvements to the current mechanism?

A possible idea is to release the lock (allowing entry using the PIN) if the board computer determines that a crash is likely. (This is safe, because it's unlikely that there is an attacker who wants to enter the cockpit and at the same time a situation likely to result in a crash.)

This clearly only helps against the problem with the locked door, but it seems comparatively easy to implement.

Edit: Another idea: The autopilot should prevent a crash and the only way to disable it should be by pressing two buttons at opposite sides of the cockpit (so two persons have to cooperate).

Re: Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'

#143

Post by frevd »

probably_wrong wrote: post #86
verytrivial wrote: post #17

These doors very effectively mean that control of the plane would be put into the hands of the cabin crew, but magnifies the cost of a rogue operator -- I am certain the risks were evaluated and the challenge of a determined suicidal pilot was ruled outside scope. And yes, there are emergency override codes, but there are also time override-overrides from within the cabin. Even if the protocol where two members of st…

Bruce Schneier has said several times that reinforced doors are one of the very few improvements when it comes to airplane security[1]. I think the deeper question would be, if your pilot is compromised, can you really do anything ? If the pilot of the EgyptAir Flight 990[2] could not keep his co-pilot from crashing the plane, what could a mob of random passengers realistically do? It seems to me like the DRM problem…

You can, using some biometric safeties on the controls.

Re: Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'

#144

Post by osullivj »

jordigh wrote: post #95
znt wrote: post #2

Can someone with aviation experience share how often pilots receive psychological evaluation? I just asked a friend who used to be a pilot for Ryan Air and he said he had never received one.

I am not a pilot, but my father was and I have a brother who is. When my dad flew, up until the early '00s and past the WTC attacks, there were only yearly medical exams. No psych exams. Like many other pilots, my brother is an alcoholic, and this has given him trouble with some airlines, so he has taken jobs in the Arab world and east Asia (we're Mexican, from Mexico). As far as I know, the airlines have never offer…

Your brother is an alcoholic in recovery, or a 'functioning' alcoholic? Don't the airlines breathalyse pilots before they fly? An old school friend who's now a commercial pilot told me they're not allowed to drink for 24hrs before flying. I guess if there are no actual checks they can ignore the rules til they get caught...

Re: Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'

#145

Post by toyg »

VLM wrote: post #80
znt wrote: post #2

Can someone with aviation experience share how often pilots receive psychological evaluation? I just asked a friend who used to be a pilot for Ryan Air and he said he had never received one.

From my memory of taking my 3rd class medical its trust based, if you don't have a written record in your med file of mental problems or tell the doc you have problems then there's no way for them to know. Also from memory a 1st class was pretty much a 3rd class with stricter limits and an electrocardiogram which is why it costs microscopically more. At least in the old days if you got a 1st after it expired, it acte…

Could a rise in this sort of accidents (4 in 20 years, unheard-of before) mirror the rise in number of pilots, and the parallel loss of social status? As flying becomes "just another job", you will naturally get a normalized number of whacko pilots.

Rather than banning what we cannot see, maybe we should just start seriously considering scenarios where one pilot is a malicious actor.

Re: Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'

#147

Post by tim333 »

backtoearth wrote: post #63
mg1982 wrote: post #23

I'm struck by how these pilots (chilling in itself that it's happened enough times to count as its own group) are described as being suicidal. While technically true, it detracts from the greater truth that they are mass-murderers. If someone shot up a mall and killed 150 people then ate a bullet, would we describe them as suicidal? I don't have a greater point I suppose, but it seems worth thinking about. Except, pe…

Intentional air crashes are rare. Last was in Botswana/Namibia. http://www.aeroinside.com/item/3416/lam-e190-over-botswana-n...

Assuming MH370 wasn't one which it quite likely was.

Re: Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'

#149

Post by jordigh »

osullivj wrote: post #144
jordigh wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a pilot, but my father was and I have a brother who is. When my dad flew, up until the early '00s and past the WTC attacks, there were only yearly medical exams. No psych exams. Like many other pilots, my brother is an alcoholic, and this has given him trouble with some airlines, so he has taken jobs in the Arab world and east Asia (we're Mexican, from Mexico). As far as I know, the airlines have never offer…

Your brother is an alcoholic in recovery, or a 'functioning' alcoholic? Don't the airlines breathalyse pilots before they fly? An old school friend who's now a commercial pilot told me they're not allowed to drink for 24hrs before flying. I guess if there are no actual checks they can ignore the rules til they get caught...

He's been... all kinds of alcoholic. He always was able to stop drinking two days before his flights, but I think he slipped once. I don't know if they breathalyse him. He doesn't like to tell me details about it. From what I can tell, he's doing better now.

Alcoholism is very common with pilots, though. This much I know, because I met many pilots through him and my father, and boy do they enjoy their drinks.

In my dad's time (he was "almost" a WW2 veteran, he was gonna fly on the second Mexican squadron, but the war ended before Mexico sent that squadron), being a pilot was comparable to being a movie star. So much prestige, so much partying. Some of that culture from the middle of the 20th century still lives on, and many pilots still, well, burn bright and burn fast.

Re: Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'

#150

Post by toyg »

frevd wrote: post #143
probably_wrong wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bruce Schneier has said several times that reinforced doors are one of the very few improvements when it comes to airplane security[1]. I think the deeper question would be, if your pilot is compromised, can you really do anything ? If the pilot of the EgyptAir Flight 990[2] could not keep his co-pilot from crashing the plane, what could a mob of random passengers realistically do? It seems to me like the DRM problem…

You can, using some biometric safeties on the controls.

How would biometrics protect from an authorized party controlling the plane he is supposed to control?
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