“an approved flight crew compartment door that is designed to resist penetration by small arms fire and grenade shrapnel, and to resist forcible intrusions by unauthorised persons. This door shall be capable of being locked and unlocked from either pilot’s station”.

Air New Zealand pilots stood down after mid-air drama sees first officer locked out of cockpit

• The two pilots (Captain and First Officer) had a quarrel whilst in-flight
• First Officer had to undertake a drug and alcohol test
• Captain was unhappy that the flight was delayed because of the First Officer needing to be tested
• After the First Officer’s break, the Captain did not respond to the First Officer’s access request

Thoughts - It looks like entrance into the cockpit is only granted from someone inside the cockpit. The First Officer was unable to enter the cockpit from outside. This may pose an issue if (like what happened) whoever is inside does not attend to the access request.

Germanwings captain Patrick Sondenheimer tried to break into locked cockpit door 'with an axe' as plane was descending

• The co-pilot sent the plane into a descent (eventually crashed into the into the French Alps)
• The captain, coming back from the restroom was locked out of the cockpit
• The co-pilot did not respond to the access request
• The captain used an axe to try break the door (not sure if successful or not)

Thoughts - Again, not being able to enter the cockpit from the outside seems like a very bad idea.

Swedish pilot uses axe to open locked toilet door

• A drunk passenger refused to leave the toilet cubicle during the plane’s touchdown procedures.
• The pilot prised the toilet door open with an axe.

Thoughts - Man, when you gotta go, you gotta go, hah!.
From my experience, the toilets are lockable only from the inside.
I haven’t exactly inspected the toilets very well (You don’t particularly want to be hanging around the toilet with wandering eyes staring you down…) - but I would think that (these days) there is an external lock override, that probably requires a key or similar to open.

Air India pilot locked out of cockpit after toilet break

• Co-pilot forced to land after the pilot was locked out of the cockpit
• Door was jammed
• Delay time up to 3 hours
• Air India had experienced other safety issues around that time too

Thoughts - Well, a jammed door - that doesn’t sound like good news.

Air India Airbus 321 Autopilot Accidental Switch-Off

• Both pilots took their 40 minute break at the same time, leaving two stewardesses in their seats to operate.
• One of the stewardesses accidentaly switched off the autopilot system

Thoughts - They did WHAT!?
Firstly, you shouldn’t both take a break at the same time…
SECONDLY, YOU’RE LEAVING UNTRAINED ‘PILOTS’ TO PILOT THE AIRCRAFT?
LIKE YEAH SURE IT’S ON AUTOPILOT - BUT THIS IS A NEGLECTION OF DUTY.

Also, I don’t think that any change in the plane control should be able to be done by ‘accident’.
Controls should only be able to be toggled via a forceful, intentional movement.

Airbus Reinforced Cockpit Door Description and Procedure

Video Source: YouTube - Airbus Reinforced Cockpit Door Description and Procedure

Inside the cockpit

• Audible buzzer to notify of alarms, access reqeusts, and faults
• Escape panels (emergency)
• Spy hole (to see outside)
• Momentary lever to (un)lock the door
• Access inhibitor (lockout)
• Access timer

Outside the cockpit

• External keypad
• Can request access
• Emergency unlock code

Pilots make miraculous landing after aeroplane is smashed in hailstorm

• Windshield was severely cracked by the hailstorm
• Auto-land

Thoughts - It’s good that the aircraft had an inbuilt autolanding mechanism - especially if the pilots had no forwards visibility due to their impaired vision. I guess something to consider was, were the crew aware of the hail storm that they were heading into - and if they knew the limit to how much impact the windshields could withstand, why didn’t they reroute their course?