Sigwx

Bingo! Exactly what a lot of us up front think. Knee-jerk reactions are just there to feed the media. This will not make flying any safer or prevent accidents. I will give it a few weeks until we see the first complaints on service levels due to reduced crew compliment owing to flight crew comfort breaks.

GUWonder

I expect that in-cabin service levels will decrease as a result of this. I don't expect that the security risks will be be better managed as a result of such a cockpit staffing rule change.

By the way, an interesting detail about the Germanwings co-pilot who seems to have become the target of French prosecutor's investigation for the recent crash: he was previously a flight attendant. That may be why he seems so much more familiar to many more than the typical pilot.

jackiedada

That can happen even now - you don't need an FA for that; one of the pilots incapacitates the other and takes the plane down.

I think the point of always having 2 people in the cockpit is to avoid a situation where the entire plane (and lives) can under the 'absolute' control of a single person. How things play out after that is a matter of chance and opportunity, but what you can try and avoid a situation where someone can 'plan' for it in advance and just execute when he has absolute control of the a/c.

GUWonder

That situation to be avoided is still possible even with a 2 person rule. And the more people who have access to the cockpit during the flight, the more potential bad characters to disrupt the flight in very serious ways. An FA coming in with a scalding jug or two of water/coffee can quite easily make the remaining pilot's life impossibly difficult and lock out the other co-pilot.

As with people with guns in cockpits, so with people in the cockpit during flight: generally, the fewer such people with access to the cockpit, the better.

subject2load

You've summed up the thinking behind the rule modification (or the rule as already followed by some airlines in fact) pretty succinctly.

That said, if an FA had been in the cockpit with only the co-pilot in the case of this horrendous Germanwings incident, then it seems to me (?) that the co-pilot could more than likely have still been able to do what he did - simply because the FA would not have had the knowledge to 'unlock' the security code - which the co-pilot refused to do in response to the banging on the cockpit door by the Captain.

Okay, so the FA might have then become involved in some sort of physical struggle with the co-pilot ; but that too can only have ended in one way if the co-pilot was so minded.

Even as I write this, it reminds me how as armchair pundits we all like to make judgements, put forward ideas and (even if unwittingly) imply that we have some sort of total solution - in contrast to those actually making the decisions & setting policy, who are of course on the wrong track......

And whilst it's true that no one person can claim a monopoly of knowledge, the reality, IMHO, is that over a long period of time, the various Federal/Civil aviation authorities, the regulatory bodies, aircraft manufacturers, and the airlines themselves have, together, done the most tremendous job of making air travel unbelievably safe for all of us when measured in cold statistical terms.

Safety and minimisation of risk is a matter of constant evolution, so it makes sense that (fully considered) procedural changes are made ; and that further such changes are then made as & when deemed appropriate/necessary in response to specific events.

There can never be a system which covers every eventuality, whether that be related to technical mishap or an isolated aberration involving human behaviour.
You try to cover as many angles as possible, whilst also maintaining a viable commercial service. But when all said & done, anyone looking for/demanding risk-free travel is best advised to never leave home.