27 March 2015
Lessons of Germanwings
It now seems pretty obvious that the Germanwings air disaster is a
classic example of the Law of Unintended Consequences. After the 9/11
highjackings, it was thought paramount to secure cockpits from invasion
by possibly bad actor passengers seeking to seize control of commercial
aircraft. But that in turn made it nearly impossible to prevent a bad
actor pilot from seizing an opportunity to crash a plane. All he had to
do was get the other pilot out of the cockpit, lock the door,
and crash the plane. In the US, they have the rule of 2, where someone
else is supposed to be in the cockpit when one of the pilots leaves, and
that probably would've prevented this tragedy. But it seems to me,
again, pretty obvious, that a comprehensive review of aircraft control
security is in order. What about having an emergency override by Air
Traffic Control, that would enable them to take control of an aircraft
remotely? (In addition to new protocols to ensure than authorized flight
deck crew can get in when they need to).
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"What about having an emergency override by Air Traffic Control"
ReplyDeleteThis seems even more dangerous. You still have single point of failure, but now the attacker doesn't even have to kill themselves in the attack. Also depending on how it's setup, a single breach could lead to multiple intentional crashes rather than just one.