Also of note Lufthansa saying they are "aware" of NYT story but have no comment - according to CNN.

maybe a flight attendant banged on the cockpit door
 

Both pilots were well trained, experienced Lufthansa pilots. They knew what they were doing. I would wait for more official answers, whilst the silence sounds like a loud confirmation. I don’t know their protocol, i.e. if one of the flight attendants is able to access the flight deck in case of an emergency as pilots could be incapacitated due to toxic fumes
Is there any possibility that actually not a pilot, but a flight attendant banged on the door after noticed that the aircraft is descending towards Alps?

If a lone pilot suffered a major medical issue ( heart attack, stroke, etc) the possibility of throwing a switch up instead of down is very real. Not saying this is the case, but I can't say I've ever met an experienced driver that hasn't got switch bit at least once in their career under normal conditions, let alone a person dieing.

It seems like about the time we say something can't happen in aviation, it does.

People need to take a breath and back off. There is just not enough info that is verified to come to a rational conclusion.

CNN are crossing a line. There is too much discussion about security details for my liking.

One other question comes to mind - it seems I might not be able to post on threads but I'll give it another shot...

...can you guys think of/list all incidents (an admittedly tiny tiny list) where pilot 'suicide' is either known or largely suspected, and of that list, which ones (SilkAir 185? any others?) did the 'suicidal' pilot pull the CVR bus during or before the incident?

Half of me thinks the (eminently rare) 'suicidal' pilot would want to disable the CVR so as maybe to avoid being tagged as the cause, the other half says that pilots are very bright and all know full well that almost always - a cause of a crash is going to be discerned regardless of CVR status. And frankly, probably a suicidal crew member doesn't really care if hes going to be found as the culprit because basically he is nutso (at that moment) anyway and knows he'll be dead.

As an aside, I really really hope that crash investigators determine that something happened to 'disable' to the lone crewmember in the flight deck and for whatever reason the other guy couldn't get in . . . vs. a premeditated lockout situation - because as noted above by someone this sort of thing is so exquisitely rare yet the lay flying public will start casting stones where none should be hurled. This guy (if suicidal) will have marred a profession merely by virtue of his own mental insufficiency. And I hope that's not the case. We'll see.

if you have a comment for cnn, post it on their twitter site or contact them in other ways.

same for the new york times.


I have to think that a legitimate incapacitating event, happening exactly after the other pilot left for a brief bathroom break, at the top of climb, is a little too coincidental for my liking.

it is interesting to me that the wording indicating that the conversation prior was considered cool.

cool can mean many things. she was cool to my advances. fonzie is cool.

etc.

I think we have a nefarious, well thought out act. surprised too that no one noticed my visine comment.

this page alone gives me the opportunity to "believe" in the NY Times or "Twitterati".

thats quite a choice.

:D

Fixed it for you.

If this horrific scenario described by the NYT is true (and I sincerely hope this is a case of rotten journalism), then the passengers at the front of the plane would have been recording the attempted re-entry into the cockpit on their cameras and cell phones. Would the memory storage in these devices, SD cards and so on, survive this severe impact sufficient to be readable?

The scenes inside the plane if the passengers were not incapacitated are beyond imagination, and the possibility that these are recorded and can be replayed is the stuff of nightmares.

Please let this not be the explanation of the crash......

Assuming current information is correct regarding the PNF's re-entry to the cockpit, some serious questions will now need to be raised as to how this security measure after 911 has royally backfired.

Like in the US, if one of the two pilots needs to leave the cockpit, a crew-member should take their place until said pilot returns.

There should never be a situation where one pilot gets left in there with the capability to prevent the other returning.

It could be as simple as a heart attack surely, rather than a suicidal or terrorist pilot?

What a damn shame...

I'm not seeing how the presence of another crew member prevents this scenario. Let's be realistic, if the pilot leaves the cockpit, and the FO has nefarious intentions (or vice versa), the extra crew member is very likely to be a female flight attendant. Not much of a deterrent against someone intent on doing harm.

UK TV news - 'expert' suggesting that 1 component of CVR was so badly damaged in the impact, the timeline data was missing, so they can hear the audio but without knowing when it was recorded. More worrying was report that FDR casing had been found sans internal recording apparatus. Back to good old fashioned crash investigation then. I guess Lufthansa and Airbus Ind CEO's are 'bricking it'.

Maybe that's how it outta be but this is nothing new, the Captain was locked out of the cockpit on the Ethiopian 702 pilot hijack to Geneva last year:

Authorities: Co-Pilot Took Control of Ethiopian Airlines Plane, Wanted Asylum - WSJ

LASJayHawk.....


Remember, all an incapacitated pilot has to do to allow cockpit entry is simply do NOTHING. The cockpit door lock has a fence built around it so even if you are slumped over the centre console you cannot prevent the door being opened from the outside.

The door can easily be opened from the outside without ANY action whatsoever from the inside. It's specificially designed this way of course for the incap situation.

I have flown the A320 for three separate UK operators. NONE of these required a member of Cabin Crew present in the Flight Deck when a pilot leaves for physiological reasons. What would be the point? The ONLY case that requires a member of Cabin Crew to be present is when the CCTV is broken and hence a second pair of eyes is needed to look through the peep hole to verify entry when the other pilot is returning from his toilet break allowing the remaining pilot to stay in his seat flying the aircraft and monitoring the radio at all times.

Absolutely. There appears to be very little heat damage. It would be bad luck for something as small as the chip in an SD card to be damaged by being hit so directly that it would be scratched or cracked. Even if damaged, there are methods for extracting some of the information.

That would be a non-issue, as long as they can match even one word with ATC comms. The rest could be easily sync'ed from that.

Is it possible that the remaining Pilot in the flight deck was incap, and the other crew on the aircraft simply forgot the appropriate code to regain access to the flight deck?

Highly unlikely I think for an experienced crew in a respected operator. Certainly in my airline, we regularly train for this and I sometimes ask my FO at the brief the procedure to gain access to the flight deck In these circumstances.

This would however alievate the theory of the pilot outside being ' deliberately ' locked out. Such a horrifying thought. . . . . .

I have advocated (as annoying as it is) for a cabin crew to be present in the flight

deck whenever a pilot is out of the cockpit. Very hard for a pilot to deny entry to

his companion if the cabin crew is at the door and can open it in a second if the

sole pilot at the seat starts to get out of his seat.

Pilot suicides do occur.

And what happens if the cabin crew grabs the fire axe and kills the remaining pilot, then flies the plane into a nuclear plant's spent fuel pool?

The door itself is the cause of the problem - because it introduces a single point of failure in the pointy end of the plane. One rogue crew member is all it takes to commandeer a plane.

Even on 9/11, there was a chance to correct the situation - passengers could have fought the hijackers, and on UA93, they at least prevented deaths on the ground. In fact the only reason why it happened was that obeying hijackers was the standard practice back then.

With the new cockpit door, you have no such chance. And it is not impossible for a motivated terrorist to become a pilot or an FA - the 9/11 hijackers were not dumb either.