The Cockpit.. The Danger from Within

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The cockpit is the most protected area in the aircraft, and anyone sitting inside it has gone through a long series of qualifications, training, security checks, and professional tests.

All of this is to protect the aircraft and its passengers from any external threats, but the Flydubai plane incident last week brought back a difficult question: what happens when the source of danger is inside the very place designed to protect against danger?

This is not a completely new problem in the aviation industry, but it is one of the most challenging safety and security equations within it.

After the events of September 11, 2001, the cockpit changed; at that time, hijackers were able to reach the pilots and take control of the planes, so one of the most important lessons learned was that access to the cockpit should not be easy. Subsequently, cockpit doors became more robust, and systems and procedures were put in place to make opening them from the outside extremely difficult. The logic was that if an attacker could not reach the pilots, they would not be able to take control of the aircraft, and indeed, the door became an essential part of modern aviation security systems.

But after years, the problem emerged from the other direction. In the Germanwings disaster in 2015, the captain left the cockpit while the co-pilot (who was planning to commit suicide) remained inside. The captain was unable to return after the door was locked from the inside, and the flight ended with the plane crashing in the French Alps, killing all on board.

Here, the door that was designed to protect the cockpit became part of the reasons for the disaster itself. Therefore, the European Aviation Safety Agency quickly recommended after the incident that no one should be left alone inside the cockpit, before later moving to a more flexible approach based on risk assessment by each company, rather than reducing the problem to a single rule.

The recent Flydubai incident raises the question again, but in a different way. We are faced with a security system built on the assumption that the threat will try to reach the cockpit from the outside, but what if the threat begins from within?

Are the selection mechanisms, medical and security checks, and psychological evaluations of pilots sufficient? Do we need better monitoring of behavioral changes that may occur in a pilot during their years of service?

Can procedures be designed within the cockpit that allow for quick intervention in the event of an attack among crew members, without simultaneously weakening its protection against external intrusion? This is the real dilemma.

The solution is not to make the cockpit door easier to open, as this could reintroduce the danger for which the fortified door was originally created. It is also not logical for the cockpit to become a place where the pilot is under constant surveillance and suspicion. The aviation industry relies every day on thousands of pilots who safely transport millions of people, and incidents where a crew member is a deliberate source of danger are exceptional and extremely rare.

However, the philosophy of aviation safety does not only deal with what happens frequently; it also concerns what happens rarely but could have catastrophic consequences.

Therefore, I do not expect the outcome of the Flydubai incident to be merely a single measure such as (adding a third person to the cockpit) or (making it easier for pilots to open the door), because simple solutions to such problems do not last long.

After the Germanwings incident, the rule of having two people in the cockpit at all times was proposed, and then the European Aviation Safety Agency concluded that it is better to address the issue with a broader system that includes psychological and security screening, pilot support programs, a stable work environment, and the company's ability to detect and address psychological and social risks.

Here, perhaps, is the next turning point in making the safety system more capable of detecting abnormal signals before they reach the aircraft. This opens many files related to pilot selection mechanisms, periodic psychological assessments, confidential reporting programs, support for those experiencing psychological or professional pressures, and sharing information between security agencies and airlines when there are real indicators, as well as possibly reevaluating some operational procedures within the cockpit itself.

However, each of these solutions carries another problem; if psychological examinations are tightened too much, the pilot may fear asking for help lest they lose their job. If the exchange of security information is broadened, it may intrude into sensitive areas related to privacy. If access to the cockpit is made easier in emergencies, it may become more susceptible to intrusion.

This is precisely where the nature of aviation safety lies; it is not a choice between safety and danger, but a continuous balancing act between different risks.

The aviation industry has succeeded for a quarter of a century in making the cockpit a fortress that is difficult to access, but the Flydubai incident brings back the most challenging part of the equation.

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) established standards years ago to address insider threats, including background checks, risk assessments, vulnerabilities, and monitoring access to sensitive areas. However, the recent incident raises a more complex version of the question: what do we do when the source of the threat is one of the two individuals for whom the most protected area of the aircraft was designed to be under their control?

The fortified door can prevent a dangerous person from entering, but it cannot know anything about the person behind it.