This week’s incident involving a flydubai aircraft forced to divert to Saudi Arabia has highlighted the potential risks of “insider attacks” by a crew member.
While the sequence of events on the Dubai to Tel Aviv service remains under investigation, it appears that one pilot attacked the other before being subdued by passengers. If so, it is not the first instance of a pilot “going rogue” – and sometimes the consequences have been devastating.
Perhaps most notoriously, in 2015, a Germanwings co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, locked the cockpit door after the captain had stepped out to use the lavatory, and then deliberately flew the aircraft into the French Alps, killing all 150 people on board. After the crash of the Barcelona to Düsseldorf service, reports indicated that Lubitz had a history of mental health problems.
Lubitz’s ability to securely lock himself in the cabin was, in a cruel irony, the consequence of safety measures introduced after the September 11 hijackings, when the attackers entered the cockpit and took over four airliners.
After 9/11, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) mandated that cockpit doors be reinforced to prevent unauthorised entry and withstand small-arms fire. Crew members could enter the cockpit by typing in a code on a touchpad, but entry could still be denied by those inside.
Two in the cockpit
Because of the vulnerability to an insider attack highlighted by the Germanwings disaster, regulations were introduced requiring two people to be in the cockpit at all times during a flight.
As a result, if one pilot had to use the bathroom, he or she would be temporarily replaced in the cockpit by a member of the cabin crew. However, Elmar Giemulla, an honorary professor of aviation law at the Berlin University of Technology, said this rule could be difficult operationally. Pilots may want to leave the cabin for a toilet break when the plane has reached cruising altitude, but this is the time when in-flight service typically begins and the cabin crew are busy.
Some flight regulators, such as the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), scrapped the two-person requirement, giving airlines discretion on whether to continue with it. In 2017, Germany’s Lufthansa Group, for example, lifted the requirement on its services.
The Germanwings crash was not the first involving a suspected pilot suicide. In 1999, shortly after taking off from New York, an EgyptAir Boeing 767 crashed into the Atlantic because of what were suspected to have been the deliberate actions of the first officer.
The case caused controversy over many years, and the Egyptian authorities pushed back against the suggestion that the aircraft had been deliberately crashed. In the US, the Federal Aviation Administration is introducing a requirement for there to be a secondary barrier to prevent the cockpit from being stormed when the main door is open.
Regulations forbid passengers from entering the cockpit during flight. US aviation authorities launched an investigation in 2024 after the baseball coach Hensley Meulens was pictured sitting in the pilot’s seat on a United Airlines flight.
Crew screening
A case from 1994 involving an Aeroflot aircraft showed the dangers of allowing unauthorised people into the cockpit just for fun.
Flight 593 from Moscow to Hong Kong crashed, killing all 75 people on board, after the relief captain’s teenage son inadvertently disengaged the autopilot while briefly being allowed near the controls. The aircraft became unstable and the pilots were unable to fully regain control.
In this week’s incident, it is believed that one of the flydubai pilots attacked the other pilot before being subdued by passengers, but it is still not known what object was used as a weapon during the attack.
“Pilots are not allowed to take dangerous items on board,” said Prof Giemulla, who is himself a qualified helicopter pilot. “They are not allowed to take a knife on board.”
ICAO rules require everyone on board an aircraft to have been security screened, but the exact provisions for crew may be different to the blanket screening that all passengers must go through. Depending on the jurisdiction, crew may be subject to random screening.
Writing in The Conversation this week after the flydubai incident, Jeff Price, a professor of aviation and aerospace science at Metropolitan State University of Denver, said that in the US, flight crew access airports through a “designated crew member access point”.
“Although this means they technically bypass the passenger screening process, crew members are subject to random physical screening by the Transportation Security Administration,” he said.
The flydubai plane was reportedly landed safely in Saudi Arabia by two off-duty pilots travelling on the service. If both pilots are incapacitated and there is no other pilot on board, Prof Giemulla said it is “usually not possible for the stewards to fly the plane”.
“The autopilot of the plane can fly OK, but the crucial thing is, it has to land. This is very close to impossible,” he said.
There have been reports of people successfully completing a “talk-down” landing when taking instructions over the radio, but these have involved small aircraft, not large and immensely complex commercial airliners, and the person taking over the controls has often had previous flying experience.
If just one pilot is incapacitated, Prof Giemulla said it is “difficult, but possible” for the remaining pilot to carry out a successful landing. He suggested that in such circumstances, a cabin crew member may be required to assist by carrying out basic tasks under the pilot’s instructions.
“I would make a holding pattern, depending on the amount of fuel, for an hour or so, and train the crew member – ‘We have to do this and that, and please do that,’” he said. “If the plane has enough fuel, it’s possible to do it and land at an alternative airport in the vicinity.”
