Human Trust Overpowered High-Tech Security in German Air Plane Crash

The horror of a pilot allegedly downing Germanwings flight 9525 is an example of high-tech security caving to trust. Government regulators contemplating technical or policy changes as a result of the crash should objectively examine human training first, some aviation experts say.

Technical safeguards in place to thwart hackers from manipulating flights and blocking hijackers from storming cockpit doors apparently could not deter a vetted employee from piloting an Airbus jetliner into the French Alps.

Much remains to be determined about the crash that ended the lives of 144 passengers and six crew members. But recovered evidence suggests the flight's co-pilot, without a captain present, "activated the button that commands the loss of altitude," Brice Robin, chief prosecutor handling the criminal investigation, said Thursday. 

In other words, this seems like the classic case of an insider threat.

As with protecting computer data from careless or malicious employees, protecting fliers from negligent or malevolent employees depends more on following procedures than deploying a new piece of technology.

After ex-intelligence systems administrator Edward Snowden raided classified information at the National Security Agency, NSA initiated a buddy rule. It’s a procedure that prevents administrators from accessing key information without another authorized individual present.

An equivalent two-person regulation reportedly does not exist for European commercial aircraft cockpits.

According to The New York Times, there is no rule in Europe for a cabin crew member to be present in the cockpit when one of the pilots leaves for “physiological reasons," which would appear to include visiting the restroom. It is still unclear why the captain on the Germanwings flight left and closed the door.

In the United States, there is a requirement that there always be two crew members in the cockpit. If a captain leaves, a flight attendant, for example, would replace that pilot, according to aviation experts.

That's one nontechnical approach to reduce the risk of a pilot going rogue. Government or corporate surveillance of the cockpit might be another. 

One could take the position of "you cannot trust anyone because this kind of thing may happen," or be of the opinion "that it’s not worth crumbling society and spending tens of hundreds of billions of dollars because it happens so rarely," said Gary Church, an aviation consultant and former Federal Aviation Administration air traffic control specialist. 

USA Today reports that 1999 was the last time investigators determined a pilot deliberately steered a big passenger plane to crash. EgyptAir Flight 990 from New York's JFK airport to Cairo fell into the ocean 60 miles south of Nantucket, killing 217 people aboard.

Authorities and airlines should consider whether the remedy for insider threats is worse than the threat itself.

"We have to be very careful that we don’t react and do things that we will subsequently regret as being debilitating to our ability to function as human beings," Church said. 

U.S. airline industry association Airlines for America officials said all member flights have two people in the cockpit at all times.

In a statement emailed to reporters, an association spokeswoman added: "While working at an airline, all pilots have to regularly undergo thorough medical examinations to maintain their license. In addition, all U.S. airlines can and do conduct fitness for duty testing on pilots if warranted."

There is no way right now for an operator on the ground to override a passenger plane's flight management system. And perhaps there are some good reasons for barring remote-controlled piloting, including proof that hackers can crash drones.  

“Which airline is going to step up to that and say, ‘We’ve decided that pilot suicide is such a major problem, we’re not going to provide you any pilots at all?'" Church said. 

Yet, society may very well see the day where drone passenger jets do take flight, at least according to one Google executive.

On Monday, 54-year-old Dave Vos, head of Google's Project Wing, which is developing unmanned commercial drones, told reporters in Montreal, "I'm completely confident it's going to happen and I'm going to be a part of it — there's no question.”

Church expressed doubts that drone airliners right now would attract many customers.

"This generation is never going to be able to accept a commercial aircraft being flown without a pilot on board,” he said. “Not in our -- I won’t say our lifetime -- but not in our generation."