Audio recordings recovered from the crashed Germanwings Airbus A320 suggest one pilot was outside the cockpit and unable to get back in

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

The safety of cockpit doors on commercial planes has been brought sharply into focus with the reports that one of the pilots on the crashed Germanwings flight may have been locked out of the flight deck.

Audio recordings recovered from the Germanwings Airbus A320, which crashed on Tuesday, killing all 150 on board, suggest one pilot was outside the cockpit and unable to get back in, despite banging on the door from the outside, the New York Times has reported.

Germanwings crash: pilot locked out of plane's cockpit, say reports Read more

A spokeswoman for Airbus said the company was aware of the report but had no information which confirmed it. She said the company would not be speculating.

After the September 11 attacks, the US federal aviation authority (FAA) dramatically ramped up security on planes, and increased regulations around cockpit safety. Across the globe governments and the aviation industry made huge investments to enhance security in air travel, including strengthening doors to the cockpit.

An A320 operating manual for planes used by the Royal Jordanian airline shows a forward opening door with three electric locking strikes.

A locked door is opened by a flight crew inside the cockpit but can also be unlocked by cabin crew entering a keycode from the outside. Crew inside the cockpit can manually override it to keep a door locked for up to five minutes.

“In the case of an electrical supply failure the door is automatically unlocked, but remains closed,” reads the manual.

It is equipped with a manual escape hatch but that is only accessible from the inside.

Aviation expert Neil Handsford questioned the usefulness of keypad entries.

“The danger of the keypad is if the hostess knows the code and someone wants to get in there … I would think a keypad would be a breach of the international regulations,” he said.

“The integrity only works because the only people who can open it are the ones inside the flight deck.”

Protocols and standard procedures around what happens when a pilot leaves the cockpit mid-flight vary according to country and airline.

A flight attendant taking the seat of an absent pilot to ensure there are always two people in the cockpit, and/or blocking access to the open door with a trolley, are often seen on US flights, but not necessarily on others, Hansford said. For instance it is not a requirement on Australian flights.

Keith Tonkin, aviation expert and managing director of Aviation Projects consultancy, said the reports of the Germanwings flight are troubling in that they show “if one was outside and couldn’t get back in again you would be unable to influence the outcome of flight”.

Questions around how many people are in the cockpit and who should be in the cockpit at all times need to be looked at, Tonkin said.

“The situation raises a lot of questions and makes the processes in place seem inadequate ... if the person inside the cockpit decides to do something and prevent access by other people.”

Less than a month after the September 11 attacks, the FAA began publishing Special Federal Aviation Regulations “to expedite modification of cockpit doors in the US fleet”.

The first phase, which sought to “improve airplane security … immediately” included steel bars and locking devices installed on doors.

“The FAA determined that the security risk outweighed potential safety risks associated with the Phase I fix and granted short-term relief from certain airworthiness requirements, such as how the door performs during an unlikely rapid decompression,” read a 2003 press release.

Former FAA chief counsel, David Leitch, told a US law school in 2002 that doors were previously weaker because of concerns different air pressures in areas of a plane could cause it to break apart.

The A320 operating manual states the door is “fully compliant with rapid decompression requirements”.