Originally Posted by
BaronVonBarnstormer
Actually its along the right lines. I work in the access control business and we had this discussion over lunch today.
Bio-metric ID could be used in conjunction with a PIN to access the door. So like Pace said you have they key (your iris or fingerprint), and then a PIN. This PIN/Key arrangement is quite common in high security buildings. You would have to remove the ability to prevent valid "keyholders" from being denied access from inside the cockpit, which is currently the case.
In a duress situation the PIN would be changed slightly by the keyholder to trigger a "duress alarm" whereby access is still given. The "duress alarm" could then be used to trigger a distress signal, possibly a squark 7500, to allow a controller to see that someone has gained access to that cockpit under duress.
Certainly the knee-jerk reaction we are currently seeing could present more problems than it solves.
BVB
What if for legitimate reasons you do not want to allow access?
A person might be threatened to allow access to FD.
The GermanWings crash is a very strange scenario, although these events have happened before. Is there a sure fire solution, well at present I don't see one. Whatever scheme one could think of to prevent this from ever happening again can be defeated.