Safety Question

[MarcJF]

I returned from a trip to Europe today on a large UK airline. During the flight the captain came to talk to one of the pax for five or six minutes. Nothing unusual in that probably, but it did get me wondering. We're told that you can't get into the cockpit from the cabin, unless the crew let you in, fine.

If the captain was in the cabin, and say for some reason the co-pilot became incapacitated, how would the captain get back in? This was a 2 crew aircraft by the way.

Got me thinking, either he shouldn't have been there - probably not as even crew will need the bathroom at some point. Is there a key or other release device? If so then the cockpit is not as secure as we though. Or would he just hack through with the fire axe?

I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation, would be interested in your thoughts.

[spoilers yellow]

although not encouraged on a two crew flight deck, theres nothing wrong in visiting the pax cabin during flight.( thats a seperate discussion)
In the unlikely event that the F/O became totally incapacitated at that moment there are ways to access the flight deck without the door being unlocked from the inside.....for obvious reasons I'm not going to go into any more details than that. If this method of access was atempted with all being well in the flight deck, access would be manually denied by the flight crew.

[TightSlot]

I'm going to close this now - spoilers yellow is on the money, and that's as much discussion on this subject as is appropriate for a public forum.