A-320 crash

[Mickey1992]

Am I correct that in the US there are always two people in the cockpit?  I have seen pilots leave the cockpit (after precautionary measures) to hit the head and each time a flight attendant enters the cockpit  to take their place temporarily.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

With time and technology we can hopefully remove these irrational, emotional, fallible, sometimes suicidal stick monkeys from the cockpit altogether.

I think that with a little push this would already be achievable.

[Rich46yo]

Am I correct that in the US there are always two people in the cockpit?  I have seen pilots leave the cockpit (after precautionary measures) to hit the head and each time a flight attendant enters the cockpit  to take their place temporarily.

Yeah but whats a 130 lb girl going to do to stop a guy from going bonkers?

[Mickey1992]

Yeah but whats a 130 lb girl going to do to stop a guy from going bonkers?

Hopefully she could open the door.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Yeah but whats a 130 lb girl going to do to stop a guy from going bonkers?

She could show her boobs to distract him. 

[MiloMorai]

She could show her boobs to distract him. 

Not all flight attendants are female these days.

[Toad]

With time and technology we can hopefully remove these irrational, emotional, fallible, sometimes suicidal stick monkeys from the cockpit altogether.

LOL

[Toad]

And what prevent that guy from flipping out and kill the pilots?

This. You have as much or more of a chance of getting a whacko in that cadre of watchers.

[Rich46yo]

Not all flight attendants are female these days.

Maybe not on the outside. Bottom line is if you have a Loon at the controls and he wants to take a dive into the dirt what is there to stop him? Very difficult I bet, even if you have a male Pro-wrestler in Loafers as a stew. I bet it only takes a few seconds to make the air craft unrecoverable, or, make the G-forces to high to even get to the door. We kinda saw this on 9/11 with the Jet the brave passengers forced into the dirt in PA.

[Traveler]

No, I don't think it would be different. I'm not going to discuss openly the FAMs or their operation but an FFDO is enough.  Someone jumpseating all the time who is supposed to shoot you if you do something weird?  What do they know about what's weird or not? 

Bad idea not withstanding where are you going to find them?  You're not able to staff every single flight.

There's a certain irony that these doors are meant to keep bad guys out of the cockpit.  No thought given to what happens if they are in the cockpit already.

How about a third pilot working for the airlines.  You honestly believe that flight would not have ended differently with a third person on that flight deck?  There would have been a ton of guys that could have continued to fly had forced retirement not been 60 years of age.   

[Gh0stFT]

If thats true then unfortunately, the door safety system failed here. Something will change in the future for sure.
Its beyound me that nobody from the engineering team imagined/trained for such an extreme case.
The captains leave the cockpit and have absolutely no chance to enter it again? (not in 8min.)

[pembquist]

If thats true then unfortunately, the door safety system failed here. Something will change in the future for sure.
Its beyound me that nobody from the engineering team imagined/trained for such an extreme case.
The captains leave the cockpit and have absolutely no chance to enter it again? (not in 8min.)

From the news coverage: I understand that US regulations require 2 crew members in the cockpit at all times, European regulations no. The captain on the outside entered some kind of combination to open the door but was over ridden by the man in the cockpit, (some kind of time out delay.)

Every addition to a complex system brings with it new failure modes. It can be hard to anticipate what those will be and evaluating their probability is fraught.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Not all flight attendants are female these days.

We were talking about a 130lb girl.

[DmonSlyr]

Came here to see what you all thought about this. So far I've gathered that the pilot may have deliberately crashed the plane on purpose. He adjusted the course to 100 feet from 32K, then overrides the door lock so the captain cannot enter. Pilot only had about 625 hours of flying time -seems low for international flight but I don't know the regulations. There was no intention of this being a terrorist attack or any such thing. Pilot was quiet for 8 minutes as plane descended, while captain was beating on the door. IMO it was a mass murder/suicide.

Scaryyy scarryy tradgedy here.

[Golfer]

How about a third pilot working for the airlines.  You honestly believe that flight would not have ended differently with a third person on that flight deck?  There would have been a ton of guys that could have continued to fly had forced retirement not been 60 years of age.

I honestly believe that individual would have been successful in crashing the airplane if they really wanted to even with a third individual on that flight deck.  It would've been in the ground or in water eventually regardless of jumpseat occupation.

Airlines can't fully staff their schedules now with 2 pilot crews. Where are they going to find a third?

Bunch of old guys with guns on jump seats isn't the answer to any problem I can think of.