Questions are being raised about in-flight security protocols, after French officials concluded that the Germanwings airliner co-pilot deliberately locked the captain out of the cockpit and sent the plane crashing into a mountain.
Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin said Thursday, that 28-year-old Andreas Lubitz "intentionally" sent the Airbus A320 into a mountain in the French Alps, while the plane’s captain pounded on the locked cockpit door. Sounds of passengers screaming and alarms going off before the plane crashed were also heard in audio recordings retrieved from the plane's black box.
The horrifying scenario has prompted aviation experts to question what protocols and security mechanisms were in place during the flight.
Number of people in the cockpit
While it is standard practice on U.S. carriers to always have at least two of three crew members in the cockpit at all times, it is not the case for other international airlines.
McGill University aviation analyst Karl Moore said, in the event of an emergency when either the pilot or co-pilot are not on the flightdeck, the remaining pilot could continue to fly the plane while the extra crew member seeks the other pilot for help.
"There's always two people in the cockpit," he told CTV News Channel. "This is in case there's a heart attack, or a medical emergency (then) the flight attendant can get the (other) pilot to get back in.
"That's what they typically do in the U.S., and you might see that there's a bit of change after this (crash) in terms of what they do in Europe as well."
European airlines are not required to follow the same protocol. Lufthansa, the parent company of Germanwings, does not enforce the policy.
On Thursday, Norwegian Air Shuttle, Europe's third-largest budget airline, announced it is adopting new rules requiring two crew members to always be present in the cockpit during a flight.
Locking mechanism
It wasn't until after the 9-11 terrorist attacks that planes began to add security features, spurred by new standards from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration requiring flight operators to install temporary internal locking devices in the cockpit.
The Airbus A320 that Germanwings was using on the doomed flight had a cockpit locking mechanism with three different modes: unlock, normal and lock.
When the "lock" mode is activated by a crew member from inside the cockpit, no one may enter the area for a period of up to five minutes, even if another crew member enters an override code.
Retired Canadian Forces flight engineer Kevin Gray said locking mechanisms were put in place to prevent anyone trying to enter the cockpit under duress. There are also cameras in many cockpits that allow pilots to see who is trying to get in.
"The necessity to lock someone out of a cockpit is there, it's present," he said. "Unfortunately in this instance, they allowed only one person to maintain the cockpit."
