Tom
Quote:
that raises the question of how competent cabin crew members may be to identify and resolve such difficult circumstances... I find them remarkably capable of handling problematic and stressful situations and difficult people with speed and efficiency.
That's because they have designated authority over pax. Their primary function, in theory at least, is to ensure safety. The captain has overall command of the aircraft and all aspects of its flight. In the command hierarchy, cabin crew are far less likely to question a pilot's actions than those of an errant passenger.
Fair point - there clearly is a hierarchy which would have some impact on how cabin crew are likely to respond, and I'll accept that as a valid issue.
However, in this instance, given a first officer on the flight deck and a captain banging on the door for re-admission, wouldn't that very hierarchy be more likely than not to have resulted in the captain being let back in? In this instance at least, would it not increase the probability of 150 lives being saved?
There are too many variables in both circumstance and individuals/personalities to predict outcomes with any certainty, but introducing a cabin crew member to the flight deck where one or other of the pilots is elsewhere would certainly disrupt destructive intent in some scenarios.