The official Story on Jump seats

[Speedbird20]

I know this was raised some weeks ago, but I know for a fact now that BA have stopped all non uniformed crew and passengers from sitting in the jump seats on there aircraft. How do I know this becasue my dad works for BA, and so has heard the official new rulings from them. So no more "please stewardess can I visit the cockpit.....?"

[fantum farter]

With JMC It's only valid persons with a JMC ID to be there.
So no FD visits for the future(Wont be long)

[scroggs]

According to yesterday's papers, the UK Government has ordered flight deck doors to be locked in flight, and for only authorised personnel to be on the flight deck at any time. I haven't yet seen how this is to be interpreted (or what the exact wording of the Govt instruction is), but I think you can safely say that flight deck visits are well and truly over, probably for ever.

[LGL737]

I dont really understand why that is, does'nt that just add a more tense environment in the cabin, or on the aircraft as such. Has anyone ever heard of a plane which has been hijacked by a passenger who first asked if he could see the FlightDeck.If someone wants to hijack an aircraft, I dont think he/she is gonna ask first to get out on the flightdeck.

rgds
LGL

[Speedbird20]

Scroggs you say that this is probably going to be for ever, well I disagree with you.
Is it not human nature that as soon as this is over for security to become lax again. This was the topic at my 6th form debating society on friday. We all came to the assumption that it is pure Human Nature. I mean my dad sore it after the gulf, there was a step up in security after that BA 747 was held up and blown up in Baddad (sorry I cant spell it!),and then a year later it was back to the state it was before all this chaos.
Passengers will start to complain about check in times etc, I guarntee it, two years from now as long as nothing else drastic happens we will be back to the standard level of security as before. All though ID cards are not a bad idea anyway and have probably been on the cards for a long time.
Do you not agree?

[scroggs]

No, I don't agree. I believe this is just the first step on the road to more secure flight decks. This isn't about inconveniencing passengers, this is about making a successful hi-jack less likely, if not impossible. One of the elements of the 9/11 events was the hijackers successful ploys to get the pilots out of their flight decks. While locked doors won't stop that (and all US carriers operated locked-door policies long before this), it shows passengers a clear intent on the part of the carriers to improve security, and thus hopefully increases confidence.
The incident on the BA 744 was not an attempted hi-jack, but it did highlight some problems with our then-current flightdeck access procedures. Things on UK carriers did relax again thereafter, but then it wasn't the government that imposed the temporarily increased security, was it?
Another thing, this is only one visible security measure on the aeroplane. There are others, some not so visible, and there are many more to be applied on the ground. Passengers will be inconvenienced, slightly, but will accept it.
Don't expect any flight deck visits in the future.

[ 30 September 2001: Message edited by: Scroggs ]

[Wedge]

Sadly I think you are right Scroggs. It is a shame, but also very predictable following the US attacks. I don't think however that it will ever be possible to make a flight 100% hi-jack proof. It is possible to make it less likely and that is what any such measures would be aimed at achieving.

Before the attacks I had seen many debates on this website about the rights and wrongs of allowing pax on the flight deck. Even then some UK pilots thought it unwise to invite total strangers into the cockpit, especially for the take-off and landing. However I have been allowed to do this on several occasions, and have never been asked for any type of ID or flying credentials whatsoever. Pilots know pretty quickly if you know what you are talking about - ie are informed about flying as a wannabe or PPL, and it was nice that this was considered enough to trust me. The people who carried out these attacks had all trained as pilots to some degree, so this will no longer be viewed as enough evidence that you are not a danger to the flight.

I was once (on a foreign airline which I will not name) allowed to sit in the LHS during the cruise - and again the Captain allowed me to do this simply by chatting to me for a few minutes and deciding, rightly, that I was trustworthy.

The problem now after the US attacks is that you will find Captains much less willing to give such trust - assuming that FD visits are not banned altogether.

LGL737 - no as far as I know an a/c has never been hijacked by an invited visitor, but that does not mean it could not happen in the future. The airlines and the government I guess have to ban visits therefore just so that one day someone is not able to say that such an event could have been avoided.

The end of flight deck visits is a great shame for Wannabes - and in my opinion for pilots too who to me have always seemed very willing to allow informed visitors on the flight deck. It can be argued that flight deck visits actually make flights safer especially if the visitor is a pilot or a wannabe as an extra pair of eyes can never do any harm and may make the pilots concentrate more on the task in hand with someone watching.

The saddest irony of this is that the a/c involved in the US attacks were all American where the locked FD door and no pax ever on the FD policy has been in place for years. It has long been argued on this site that such a policy is useless because a determined hijacker will always get on the FD if he wants to. As if to prove this view right, on September 11th did it achieve its intended purpose? Did it f**k.

From my point of view, banning flight deck visits will not make an aircraft hijack proof. The only way to do that is to keep the door locked from the start to the finish of the flight, and how is that ever going to be workable? It may make an aircraft less likely to be hijacked but I doubt it. So it's not going to significantly increase air safety, but it's going to happen anyway. Bye-bye jumpseat rides :(