Thursday, March 26, 2015

One more for the bad guys

Barcelona to Dusseldorf air crash. This morning the most likely scenario seems to be that one pilot left the cockpit - perhaps to go to the toilet - and according to anti-hijack protocol the remaining pilot then locked the cabin door.

Some kind of medical emergency, perhaps a heart attack, occurs and the pilot slumps forward. Controlled flight into terrain follows.

I guess the risk analysts just figured this as an ultra low probability event.

No longer.

What's the fix? As we can't weaken the anti-hijack rules it seems an extension of ground-based surveillance and control is the way to go. Video cameras and remote door unlocking might have prevented this one.

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You know, I so didn't want this to be murder-suicide.