• partial_accumen
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    1322 years ago

    The FAA sent alerts to airlines after the Horizon Air incident saying “a validated jump seat passenger attempted to disable aircraft engines while at cruise altitude by deploying the engine fire suppressions system.”

    This is what I was looking for. From the title it seems like he just tried to throttle down but he was looking to incapacitate the engines. If he was successful it would have meant the airplane would have been in a glide without power. It seems likely as a pilot he’d know when to do this in a flight too to remove good chances of a safe landing. Truly terrifying!

      • @Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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        412 years ago

        I’d think that in the majority of emergency situations, having an extra person who knows what’s going on in the cockpit would be more of a benefit than a risk. Especially given that one of the actual fight crew could decide to go all murder suicide on their flight, and unless the odds of any pilot doing this is greater than 50%, the more people in the cockpit, the more people to fight the bad ones off and take control of the plane and monitor things that would need monitoring in the event that someone successfully disables the engines.

        • @Dultas@lemmy.world
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          112 years ago

          Majority, probably not. Most emergency checklists are going to assume the cockpit crew is the normal count and throwing an extra person is is going to cause more harm than good. The only exception I can think of is UA Flight 232 which while tragic probably would have been worse without someone else in the cockpit.

      • @derf82@lemmy.world
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        242 years ago

        I doubt it. Aviation would grind to a halt is pilots and flight attendants can’t commute in jump seats. Besides, this guy was a captain. He could have done the same thing as a pilot, much like the Germanwings flight several years ago.

        • @Tangent5280@lemmy.world
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          32 years ago

          Grind to a halt? Can’t they just reserve one seat in premium economy or wherever is closest to the cockpit for jump passengers?

          • @derf82@lemmy.world
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            52 years ago

            That would cost airlines a ton and raise airfare for everyone. As it is the jumpseats are only used when the aircraft if full.

            And all for what, pulling someone that will just be in a cockpit later in the day or the next day?

          • Xyre
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            32 years ago

            But what about their profits?!