Germanwings plane crashes in French alps with 150 on board

Just playing devil's advocate here but if there was a female flight attendant in the cockpit of this plane don't you think the demented co-pilot would have still found a way to take the plane down?

He could have pushed her out of the cockpit, choked her out or restrained her to the point where he could begin the process of making the plane take its tragic nosedive.

As much as we'd like to think having a flight attendant sit in the cockpit while one pilot stepped out would prevent tragedies like this from happening, I don't think they are as fail proof of a preventive measure as you're making them out to be.

 

All of what you said is true, but I think it would at least make it THAT much harder for him to succeed. There would be a large risk of him not being to lock the door with her inside, or somebody at least hearing the ruckus caused by the fight and intervening. Eventually it might not deter somebody hell-bent on crashing the plane, but it would be a large hurdle at the very least.

 

This is essentially what happened to Air France Flight 447 that crashed off the coast of Brazil a couple years ago. The plane automatically shutoff its auto pilot when its airspeed sensor malfunctioned, forcing the pilots to try to diagnose and fix the problem themselves. They failed spectacularly.

Check out the Vanity Fair piece on the incident, its a very interesting read on the implications of the increasing automation on airplanes.

 

What about a female pilot or a male flight attendant?

Or if the co-pilot was a big guy, he could take down 2 co-pilots too?

No solution is going to solve all problems.

 

like the fedex flight where the dude was going to kill everyone with hammers then crash the jet.

 

The best way to avoid situations such as this is to have cameras in the cockpit which could be viewable from ATC towers and flight crew.

Instead of having a 3rd person in a cockpit, they could have ATC personnel who could watch the inside of a cockpit in the event of a failure to communicate/not normal flight descents/off grid flight paths, etc and visually see what is going on and how they could be of assistance (similar to ON-STAR but with a camera). If ATC detect terrorists in the cockpit call F-22 Raptors shoot them down before the plane heads for a landmark. If ATC detects a pilot unconscious or doing harm to the plane, have the autopilot kick back in manually over-riding the pilot. If the flight crew could see inside the cockpit they could have some understanding of what is going on rather than seeing absolutely nothing and assuming everything is ok in there. Instead of having code words of the radio "10-4" (how do you even know if it's a terrorist or pilot saying this?) all they would need to do is raise their thumbs up or down to the camera. Also this camera would very useful for detectives/programmers/designers of the plane to see what occurred and how the plane went down. As of now it's all speculation and how do we (the real world) know what is on that "black box" - they could edit/cut/delete audio parts and we wouldn't even know about it. A picture paints a thousand words.

This system could be totally independent and could do two way communication via amplified microphone/speaker in the event the pilot/co-pilot takes off their head set (which probably happened in this situation) to avoid communication. Imagine an ATC officer or flight crew telling the co-pilot "hey it's not worth it what you're doing please think about the other 149 passengers on board" "you will regret doing this" "I have kids and a family please don't do this to all of us" rather than just being in the cockpit by himself contemplating his next suicidal move.

Not having cameras is mind boggling since there's literally cameras being recorded everywhere these days. They could record to a black box (indestructible) type DVR system or to a dedicated server that would stream live video to any computer in the world. The camera and microphone could be encased in a bulletproof housing that is tamper-proof so that terrorists/disgruntled pilots couldn't disable it. Having a low-tech radar system (I have seen this technology up close and its pathetic) and "audio" to hear what happened after the fact is like living in ice ages compared to the technology we have now. Do you rather listen to Rockets games on the radio or watch them on TV? Hell a simple iPad with facetime could have perhaps prevented these catastrophic events from happening. Think about it.

 

^^I don't think pilot's union would stand for video recording or microphones in the cockpit. It's a form of violation of privacy.

Also not sure about the technology of having real time video transmitted to the ground from so high in the air.

 

If only they had some sort of very strong box on the plane that could store that much data -- i'm afraid though that it would have to be so large it would weigh the aircraft down too much.

 

Black is supposed to be slimming. Maybe a black box?

 

Your whole idea sounds like your main interest is seeing video after the fact, so the Internet can see for their own eyes, and then we can make our own decision. Pics or it didn't happen. Nothing else that you say sounds like it can actually prevent pilot high-jacking any better than several other ideas tossed around in this thread.

For instance, you are forgetting one thing: No computer or autopilot can win a battle against gravity and no fuel.

Even if the auto-pilot can remotely be kicked in, you still have to land that plane before running out of gas. All the suicide pilot has to do is take over the cockpit, and since they can't be opened, the plane will eventually fall from the sky.

Cool ideas though. Most likely the Professionals have talked through all of these, and surely have technology lobbyists begging them to implement their untested systems. In the end, they probably favor sticking to the idea that Major is explaining,,,you must trust the pilots to not high-jack planes.

I mean, rogue fighter pilots could shoot down 747s if they were so inclined, or kamikaze them to pieces. But they don't.

 

This.

You have to keep in mind any sophisticated piece of equipment will have its weaknesses. Why else do you think transponders are able to be turned on and off by a flight crew at their discretion (or at the request of ATC)?

In the wake of 9-11 (and more recently, MH370), there have been calls to make transponders stay on & transmitting permanently, but like any piece of equipment they're prone to failures and anomalous readouts. It would be the same situation with a much more complex, fully automated flight system.

Plus, for anybody that's actually ever flown a plane, you would understand there are certain situations (mainly in bad weather, but more specifically, emergencies) where you want the yoke in your hands. Trusting a computer in these situations is much easier said than done.

 

I think there is a lot of uncertainty and misinformation in this thread about what the rules really are. I spoke to a friend of mine tonight, who is a 20 year flight attendant with United who mostly works on international flights on 777's. According to her, if there is a camera in the cockpit (and there are on 777's) one pilot is allowed in the cockpit with no flight attendant or anyone else. I am not sure if the camera communicates with the ground or not but I suspect it does.

My point is maybe we should let the dust settle to figure out what the rules really are because it sounds like no one really knows. On the other hand, in the meantime those who feel like it can carry on with misinformation, rumor and innuendo.

 

I am an FAA certified Air Traffic Controller and my thoughts on this post is a resounding NO! We have enough to deal with deconflicting multiple aircraft at a time, following laws written by lawyers that leave enough grey area to save, or hang yourself, and knowing most of the a-holes flying in our airspace (sorry if anyone is a pilot) think they own the sky and are priority #1.

I won't even get into the fact you want cameras to monitor every cockpit, 24-7. You do realize how vast of an enterprise that is? Cost vs need would never get support.

I like the idea of finding a solution to what might be a growing problem (as rare as it has historically been) with trusting pilots not to endanger the lives they are suppose to ensure the safety of.......but your ideas won't fix anything. They will cause more to die. The sky is complicated.....

Mental health evaluations are critical. And many companies fail to see that......that's a start......

 

I think the airline should go ahead and be transparent about the person's hiatus from training. This would have been when he was about 21 or 22, and while I hate to speculate, that is a classic onset age for a certain set of major psychological disorders.

I understand why they would never do that, but the truth will come out with the world's collective attention now asking about it.

 

Burnout according to relatives. Don't see why you'd forbid someone from continuing his training/education because of a burnout.

 

All German airlines agreed to implement this today, rule is effectively in place from today on. At least some change.

 

Keep in mind this isn't really all that much. In the US, we average about 1.5 fatalities per 100,000,000 miles driven. Obviously accident rates in general would be much higher, but going 400,000 miles without an accident under relatively normal conditions is not unreasonable for an excellent driver that never makes basic mistakes, which we can presume the Google technology is. The issue comes in the very rare and unique circumstances and how the car reacts.

What is a drunk crazy person is tailgating you on a one-land road? Or what if you identify a dangerous driver ahead of you where you might slow down just to be careful but there's no logical reason for a computer to do so? Or a person next to you driving normally pulls a gun out and points it at you in a fit of road rage? What if there a small child on the sidewalk - does the car slow down just in case? Continue to drive normally? What if that child were holding the mom's hand or in a stroller? Or what if it was a deer instead? Can the car tell the difference and understand to react differently in all these situations?

Until Google's cars have tens of millions of miles on all different types of roads and under different conditions, there are still way too many questions out there. It's not just a cost issue preventing adoption right now - it's still a technology in the development stages. That's not to say it won't work soon, but it's not there just yet.

 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/germanw...-condition-says-spokesman-1427450383?mod=e2fb

 

400,000 miles is more than most people drive in 20 years and most people driving over that period of time have probably at least been in an incident that caused a common injury like whiplash or caused moderate to substantial damage to a vehicle. Even excellent drivers get rear-ended or cut off by stupid drivers.

Sensor technology is built to react to many variables and calculate erratic motions in close proximity and react accordingly. Trepidation is normal, but the autonomous car will eventually be the standard and wipe out the need traffic citations and automobile insurance. There is already a small town in Europe that is currently setting themselves up to use a fleet of 20 - 100 autonomous cars as public transportation by 2017.

I agree that the technology still needs years of testing to be able to account for every variable imaginable, but the system already put in place seems to point to the fact that autonomous cars are already safer than the average human driver.

 

I'm not sure why they are concealing his records now (at least for the time being), he's dead - his privacy is a moot point.