A former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board makes the case for putting cameras in the cockpit of airplanes in a story published Thursday.
Jim Hall's Time.com story follows the Germanwings Flight 9525 crash on Tuesday that killed 150 people — a crash that preliminary reports say was caused by the
co-pilot deliberately putting the plane into a fatal descent.
"There are two simple solutions to the problem of unstable pilots," writes Hall. "The first is a recommendation made by the NTSB 15 years ago and renewed in January: Require cameras in the cockpit. Currently, the cockpit voice recorder allows investigators to listen to the cockpit. But without video, they cannot fully understand the actions of the pilots or make safety enhancements to prevent similar events from occurring in the future.
"The second solution is to require at least two crew members in the cockpit at all times. During the crashes of the Mozambique Airlines, EgyptAir, and SilkAir flight, co-pilots compromised the aircraft while their partners left the cockpit, deliberately crashing the aircraft and leaving hundreds dead. We still do not know what happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, and an intentional crash is possible in that case, as well."
"In the U.S., standard policy is that a flight attendant enters the cockpit if a pilot steps out. If two members of the flight crew were present in the cockpit, it is possible these tragedies, as well as Germanwings Flight 9525, could have been prevented."
Citing data recovered from the cockpit voice recorder, investigators claim the co-pilot in the Germanwings crash, Andreas Lubitz, locked himself in the cockpit when the captain briefly stepped out. With the captain knocking on the door, and then trying to break it down, Lubitz pointed the plane downward. It crashed in a remote section of the French Alps.
A report claims Lubitz suffered from depression six years ago. Investigators have been looking into the details of his life since the revelation that he may have committed mass murder by crashing the Airbus A320 on purpose.
In the European Union,
there are no rules that say two people must be in the cockpit of commercial airliners at all times. However,
several airlines hastily created policies on Thursday to make that a requirement.
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