Egypt Air 990 was (likely) put into the water by a suicidal pilot with no one else on the flight deck (somewhat covered up by political correctness).
This aircraft was put into a mountain by a suicidal pilot with no one else on the flight deck.
The jury is still out on MH 370 so no one knows who was where or what happened.
Likewise on Silk Air 185 which could have been either a suicide or rudder PCU malfunction.
It's likely that there will be some mealy-mouth nonsense about background checks, psych testing, monitoring, regulatory intervention, etc. which would do no good whatsoever because someone always slips through the cracks and armchair quarterbacks later scream about red flags that no one ever sees until after the fact. No gee whiz batman stuff can fix a clever person intent on doing harm to himself and others. What CAN help is when one takes care of his friends and mates as he should and folks watch out for each other. But this can in practice only go so far.
One thing that CAN be done relatively easily is require (as many carriers already do) a F/A replace a pilot who leaves to go to the back so there are always 2 on the flight deck. It's not foolproof by any means, but does provide an additional level of safety at minimal trouble and is a good practice no matter what. In addition, having someone else there might have potentially kept this guy off the ledge, or at least had someone who could have tried to open the door.
Last edited by Shep69; 27th Mar 2015 at 03:12.