After a co-pilot battling depression crashed his Germanwings aircraft into the Alps last month killing himself and 149 others instantly, several safety issues have come up again. In an interview with BusinessLine, Group Captain A K Sachdev (retd), the former COO of GoAir and one of the highly decorated officers in the Indian Air Force and the former command flight safety & inspection officer of IAF’s training command, Bangalore shares his views on how incidents of such nature can be prevented.
Nobody ever thought about having to protect passengers from pilots. But that’s exactly what has happened now. Isn’t it a much more dangerous situation to be in when the threat is from inside?
I agree with you that this particular accident has brought out this aspect of the pilot where he behaves more like a terrorist. But we need to put it in perspective. In 2014, airlines have flown 38 million flying hours. In that whole year and in this year too, there were only two accidents or may be three in which something like this has happened. Having said that, we cannot ignore this tragedy. We can already see every airline in the world talking about having two crew members at all times in a cockpit. But let me point out that neither IATA nor ICAO has made it mandatory because they have to follow a procedure. Eventually, they will make it mandatory.
22/04/15 K Giriprakash/Business Line
Nobody ever thought about having to protect passengers from pilots. But that’s exactly what has happened now. Isn’t it a much more dangerous situation to be in when the threat is from inside?
I agree with you that this particular accident has brought out this aspect of the pilot where he behaves more like a terrorist. But we need to put it in perspective. In 2014, airlines have flown 38 million flying hours. In that whole year and in this year too, there were only two accidents or may be three in which something like this has happened. Having said that, we cannot ignore this tragedy. We can already see every airline in the world talking about having two crew members at all times in a cockpit. But let me point out that neither IATA nor ICAO has made it mandatory because they have to follow a procedure. Eventually, they will make it mandatory.
22/04/15 K Giriprakash/Business Line
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