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In reply to the discussion: One Pilot Was Locked Out of Cockpit Before Crash in France [View all]The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,661 posts)that if a pilot leaves the flight deck for any reason (bathroom, etc.), a flight attendant or other qualified crew member has to come inside until that pilot comes back. That's to ensure that a pilot is never alone in the flight deck because of the possibility of incapacitation (or something more nefarious). The door is supposed to be locked from the inside, so if someone were in the flight deck all alone and fell over dead nobody could get in right away. The FAs know the door code, and if they want to come in they first call the flight deck. If nobody answers they can enter the code and the door will unlock, but only after a period of time has elapsed with no response (there is also a way of preventing the door from unlocking if a hijacking is suspected). But, since this was not a US airline, maybe they don't have the same rule about requiring two people to occupy the flight deck at all times.
So maybe one pilot goes to the bathroom and in the meantime the other one becomes incapacitated. If that's what happened, why wasn't the FA or the other pilot able to get the door open? Why did the airplane go into a controlled descent? If I'm a crazy pilot who wants to commit suicide I'm going to auger that thing into the ground right now before anybody can get the door open, instead of cruising relatively slowly into a mountain - unless maybe he didn't want anyone to know it was suicide? Or maybe he fell over dead from a heart attack and somehow disconnected the autopilot, but that seems unlikely too because the A320 has a sidestick rather than a conventional yoke - unless he collapsed sideways instead of forward. If that happened, maybe he was leaning on the sidestick and causing the airplane to descend. But if he was leaning sideways on it, the airplane would probably turn as well. And why wasn't anybody able to get into the flight deck? The news report says there were sounds of someone trying to break it open.
Curiouser and curiouser.