There is a lot we still don’t know about the tragic crash of the Germanwings plane in France. But what we do know suggests that airlines can take steps to reduce the risk of pilots deliberately or inadvertently crashing a plane.
Based on recordings recovered by investigators, officials have said a co-pilot on the flight Tuesday from Barcelona, Spain, to Düsseldorf, Germany, initiated the plane’s descent when he was alone in the cockpit and then failed to open the door for the captain, who had stepped outside. The captain could be heard on the recording trying to get back in.
French investigators believe the co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, was conscious, but we may never know for sure. We do know that things might have turned out differently had there been another person in the cockpit. The chief executive of Lufthansa, which owns Germanwings, said on Thursday that European regulators do not require two people to be in the cockpit at all times.
By contrast, two people are required to be in the cockpit on United States airlines, according to the Federal Aviation Administration and an industry association. If one pilot has to go outside for any reason, flight attendants or off-duty pilots flying on the plane can step in. Such a policy makes sense and all airlines should adopt it. In an emergency, a flight attendant could try to open the door or call the other pilot back. Their presence would be useful not just in cases of deliberate sabotage but also if the pilot at the controls was incapacitated, by a heart attack, for example.
After the 9/11 attacks, lawmakers and regulators did the right thing by requiring airlines to increase the security of cockpits with armored doors. That decision seems to have made it harder for the captain of the Germanwings plane to get back into the cockpit. On Thursday, several airlines, including Norwegian Air Shuttle, said they would require at least two people to be in the cockpit during their flights.
Air travel over all remains incredibly safe, and the incidence of pilots using planes to commit suicide and kill passengers is exceedingly rare. In a study published last year, the F.A.A. identified eight such cases from 2003 to 2012, but all involved small private planes, not commercial jets operated by airlines, and in only one case did the pilot have a passenger on board.
No safety policy will ever anticipate every situation. But requiring two people to be in the cockpit during flight is a sensible step to reduce the risk that comes with leaving the lives of dozens or hundreds of people in the hands of just one pilot.