I think the first casualty will be the many Youtube videos detailing a 'cold & dark' engine start.

You could literally memorise most of it or have it on an iPad. Should cockpit doors be locked on the ground too?

I know it's human nature to discuss it, but why should this event have any impact at all on protocols and procedures? One time out of the multiple thousands of opportunities someone would have in a year to do such a thing doesn't mean you have to rewrite all your manuals.

NYPECO wrote:

neomax wrote:

T prop wrote:

Probably the brakes smoking. Someone who doesn't know how to taxi would use the brakes to control speed.

This is a really naive question, but how else would you control speed?

I'm assuming you could reduce the throttle to idle and let the plane slow down on its own if it isn't going very fast.

Or he left the parking brake engaged.

I’m curious to see if he had some flight training and didn’t make it to an airline for some reason. If he’d gone somewhere like UND or Riddle, he’d have had complex sim time. You don’t just jump into a turboprop, start it up and head out. You also don’t go out and barrel roll one either. I mean, the guy even asked about being at 3,000-feet before doing it. I’m sure it will come out in the investigation, but for now I’m having a hard time believing this guy was just a ramper.

Jetty wrote:

treetreeseven wrote:

He said "nah I'm a white guy" on the ATC audio. What does he mean by that?

I ussumed that to mean he expected to be a victim of affirmative action, not allowed in most civilized countries, but a real thing in the USA.

Glad to see the dog whistles out in use today!

DL717 wrote:

NYPECO wrote:

neomax wrote:

This is a really naive question, but how else would you control speed?

I'm assuming you could reduce the throttle to idle and let the plane slow down on its own if it isn't going very fast.

Or he left the parking brake engaged.

I’m curious to see if he had some flight training and didn’t make it to an airline for some reason. If he’d gone somewhere like UND or Riddle, he’d have had complex sim time. You don’t just jump into a turboprop, start it up and head out. You also don’t go out and barrel roll one either. I mean, the guy even asked about being at 3,000-feet before doing it. I’m sure it will come out in the investigation, but for now I’m having a hard time believing this guy was just a ramper.

I'm kinda with you on this one. He had some knowledge obviously, but to what extent who knows yet. Another factor is the fact that he had ATC up chatting away....so he had a headset on, he had a frequency tuned in, he knew how to hit the button to talk to ATC etc etc. If he had experience taxiing aircraft on the ground as a mechanic then that would explain that. I think all this talk about flight simulators and locking airplanes or having codes to start things is ridiculous. Nothing will change nor do I feel it needs to, this is an extremely rare event.

So real quick back to the smoking tires/brakes. I know this was touched on, but those with experience in this type of aircraft, do you think he was rolling with partial brakes applied and was causing the brakes to smoke? You would think it would take a little longer to get the brakes warm enough to start smoking and to be noticeable enough for other aircraft to see near the departure end of the runway. Then someone mentioned he may have had the parking brake set. Is that even possible to taxi the aircraft and get it airborne with the parking brake set? You wouldn't think so. So the smoking tires/brake thing seems odd to me.

Two Factor Authentication is a simple answer. It's something you know + something you have. Pilots are carrying around tablets nowadays for their charts, manuals, etc. Add a soft token app from either RSA or Google. It can be done. The question is, will it?

New to a registration but have been lurking on the forum for a while. This story really caught my heart.

A couple of people mentioned bipolar and I agree with this speculation. His loss of judgement (someone mentioned psychosis - bipolar is not only considered a mood disorder, but also a psychotic one), risk taking, very chatty and changing topics rapidly. The only thing that doesn't fit is his comment about being broken, as people with mania usually think there is nothing wrong and even that they are invincible. However, there is a less well known state called a mixed episode, which is a combination of mania and depression - it's a very dangerous state, as we have sadly seen. His family seemed shocked so if it was bipolar it may have been his first episode, and classically people outside of episodes usually seem entirely normal.

Although people with bipolar can indeed appear to be intoxicated I guess that is an alternative, that he was feeling suicidal and decided to go out on a high.

Either way I just wanted to say how shocked I was at how good the ATC was with him. Calmly building a rapport and regularly bringing up a safe landing. He did all the right things, when someone is in that sort of state there is nothing else you can do. It's a case of capture, hospitalize and treat, and luckily most people don't have access to a plane so this is often possible.

RIP Rich

travelsonic wrote:

ual763 wrote:

pwm2txlhopper wrote:

With the serious complexity of sims nowadays, he probably could. Pilots love to think it could never happen and that sims aren’t the same, which they aren’t, but procedurally anyways, they are now the exact same. Only difference being one is real and one is not. But, I sincerely hope this does not lead to restrictions on home-based flight simulators. I’ve already seen some so called experts calling for this on Twitter.

I would not at all be surprised if home computing has gotten to the point where at home we can have the amount of computing power needed to simulate the physics (just the physics) of an aircraft as accurately as in a full motion simulator from the 80s and 90s.

Do I dare look at the cringe festival that is so called experts calling for restricting flight simulators? Actually, I might be more amused than not - have any links?

This guy was one^

But, then on CNN, they had some audio from an “aviation expert” explaining how simulators have gotten so realistic and are accessible to anyone, resulting in this.

Revelation wrote:

As mentioned up thread, that night there was a stadium full of people watching a rock concert that could have been a convenient target.

Or, plenty of tall office buildings in downtown Seattle, etc.

Just because this guy was a psychotic joy rider, doesn't mean the next one will be.

So end commercial aviation (or any transportation for that matter), go back to horse and buggy, and we'll guarantee it'll never happen again - problem solved.

indcwby wrote:

Two Factor Authentication is a simple answer. It's something you know + something you have. Pilots are carrying around tablets nowadays for their charts, manuals, etc. Add a soft token app from either RSA or Google. It can be done. The question is, will it?

Engine failure in flight, now need to restart. Time to grab the key out of your bag or wherever it is stowed; or find the page on your iPad app to verify the code to punch in. There’s a reason airplanes don’t have keys and that’s the fact that this is likely a 1 in a million+ event. I think the last time this happened in the US was when a SkyWest PILOT (who would have the keys or code) borrowed a plane in SGU and ran it off the end of a taxiway.

The probability of this occurring again is likely in the same risk-acceptable range of a two engine failure on an ETOPS flight. Can it happen? Sure. Do things need to change? Probably not.

If this were a case of a passenger, or someone climbing the fence, and starting up and doing this we would be talking about a complete failure of multiple points of aviation security. This is action taken by someone who was allowed to be there, and any changes proposed would still allow him to be there.

Any changes that need to occur need to happen in the field of mental health. It is a) very expensive b) hard to get an appointment c) very difficult for others to not look down on you for seeking mental health.

I see a therapist once a week for some very mild issues I’m dealing with, and it is very tough on the wallet and it was nearly impossible to get an appointment. I also have a tough time building the courage to tell my family, because I don’t want them to see me as a failure, or see themselves as a failure (parenting etc.). It’s a very tough situation and it’s unfortunate how our society views mental health.

Aviation protocols didn’t fail with this incident, our society failed this man in what we offer in terms of mental help.

jetmatt777 wrote:

indcwby wrote:

Two Factor Authentication is a simple answer. It's something you know + something you have. Pilots are carrying around tablets nowadays for their charts, manuals, etc. Add a soft token app from either RSA or Google. It can be done. The question is, will it?

Engine failure in flight, now need to restart. Time to grab the key out of your bag or wherever it is stowed; or find the page on your iPad app to verify the code to punch in. There’s a reason airplanes don’t have keys and that’s the fact that this is likely a 1 in a million+ event. I think the last time this happened in the US was when a SkyWest PILOT (who would have the keys or code) borrowed a plane in SGU and ran it off the end of a taxiway.

The probability of this occurring again is likely in the same risk-acceptable range of a two engine failure on an ETOPS flight. Can it happen? Sure. Do things need to change? Probably not.

If this were a case of a passenger, or someone climbing the fence, and starting up and doing this we would be talking about a complete failure of multiple points of aviation security. This is action taken by someone who was allowed to be there, and any changes proposed would still allow him to be there.

Any changes that need to occur need to happen in the field of mental health. It is a) very expensive b) hard to get an appointment c) very difficult for others to not look down on you for seeking mental health.

I see a therapist once a week for some very mild issues I’m dealing with, and it is very tough on the wallet and it was nearly impossible to get an appointment. I also have a tough time building the courage to tell my family, because I don’t want them to see me as a failure, or see themselves as a failure (parenting etc.). It’s a very tough situation and it’s unfortunate how our society views mental health.

Aviation protocols didn’t fail with this incident, our society failed this man in what we offer in terms of mental help.

Thank you!

No we don’t need a specialized key system...

Revelation wrote:

stinson108 wrote:

It’s unbelievable to know you don’t need a key or password on the screen to start these birds
Try getting into a john deer loader and starting it
It’s going nowhere without the four digit code inputted first

It seems we could do better than having no security code at all.

Entering one code would enable full functionality (i.e. pilots) another would not permit anything more than taxiing, or full power only if ground speed is zero for engine tests.

Change it frequently enough (let's say weekly) so that any loss of codes is only a short term problem.

No doubt smarter peeps than I will be looking into this, but I think any and all takeoff lockout should be controlled by ATC (they already have this power, but no enforcement to stop a rogue actor). It’s a better “check”. In your scenario above, a rogue pilot (with the code) or mechanic could still pull off what happened in SEA.

If local towers had to push a takeoff lockout release (TOLOR, trademark pending ) electronically right before a plane takes the RWY, this could avoid the rogue pilot scenario. If you don’t have said TOLOR, you cannot put the engine power level above x. This could also be done over the radio with a hash in case the link to the aircraft electronically is down. This, of course, would require a ton of work to implement. Software (and possibly hardware) on the planes, some sort of algorithm and hash of say the aircraft ID and a time component (it’s only good for x minutes), and SW in the tower. This would also give ATC the control over engine run-ups too. Before giving MX the code to run up the engines, they can verify that they’re in an acceptable location to do so, and give them a code that expires in x minutes.

This code is dumb on stilts. The guy here was tow-qualified, so he’d have to have the codes to perform his job. Why do you think ATC is more reliable than the airline’s employees? How is ATC going to control about 20,000 airplanes? In the end, we have to trust somebody with potentially dangerous tools that are also vital to our way of life. And, you know what, that trust works 99.9999% of the time.

GF

keesje wrote:

Was this guy's future loading bags at extreme working hours for a minimum wage?

Only if he wanted it to be. But remember, he has traveled extensively, owned a business, working on a degree, gotten married - he has had opportunities.

If he wanted to do a low wage job for the rest of his life, that’s his choice. Hopefully he would instead finish his degree and move up the chain.

uta999 wrote:

I think the first casualty will be the many Youtube videos detailing a 'cold & dark' engine start.

You could literally memorise most of it or have it on an iPad. Should cockpit doors be locked on the ground too?

I do not think you should do this as the videos are informative for pilots in training.

[photoid][/photoid]

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

This code is dumb on stilts. The guy here was tow-qualified, so he’d have to have the codes to perform his job. Why do you think ATC is more reliable than the airline’s employees? How is ATC going to control about 20,000 airplanes? In the end, we have to trust somebody with potentially dangerous tools that are also vital to our way of life. And, you know what, that trust works 99.9999% of the time.

GF

Amen! Regardless, of what some so-called experts think, ATC should never have any direct control of an aircraft. The PIC is in total command of an aircraft at all times. As per the FARs he is the sole authority. Any ability for controllers to “take over” control of an aircraft would go against this FAR. Not to mention, it would open up the opportunity for many over-zealous controllers to pressing said button for such trivial things as missing a radio call on the ground, or similar. It would be a nightmare. To me, the solution is simple! Encourage mental health treatment in this country, instead of discourage it. And also, simply, increase ramp security. If someone was simply watching, this may not have happened. How could someone not notice an employee doing that?

32andBelow wrote:

catiii wrote:

Airbus747 wrote:

Richard "Beebo" Russell is now being called a "hero" and "sky king" in some parts of the internet, especially for having performed the aerobatic stunts.

A few articles try to understand what kind of a person he was: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/r ... 09306.html

His online profiles appear to depict a normal guy who loved traveling and sharing his story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ765Fnec8Q (video he made about himself and his work)
https://www.linkedin.com/in/beebo-russell-544730158 (his Linkedin profile)

What exactly was heroic?

Stealing an airplane and fulfilling a childhood dream of millions of people to scarred to do anything significant. We love stories were people steal things and are successful. They make movies about stuff like that all the time.

Your definition of “heroic” and “significant” need an update. Stealing an airplane and endangering others isn’t remotely something to celebrate. If that’s your childhood dream, then perhaps you need professional help or a visit from law enforcement, or both.

Revelation wrote:

Wacker1000 wrote:

Revelation wrote:

As mentioned up thread, that night there was a stadium full of people watching a rock concert that could have been a convenient target.

Or, plenty of tall office buildings in downtown Seattle, etc.

Just because this guy was a psychotic joy rider, doesn't mean the next one will be.

So end commercial aviation (or any transportation for that matter), go back to horse and buggy, and we'll guarantee it'll never happen again - problem solved.

That's an asinine comment. In case you don't know what that means, I'll spell it out: it means ass-like.

We wouldn't have commercial aviation at all if we just went with the first thing someone thought of and left it at that.

There's an on-going process of trying to make things better all the time.

Some ideas stick, some get discarded.

It seems clear to me that this incident shows that some sort of raising of the bar to prevent unauthorized personnel from taking joy rides or worse could and should be attempted.

As above, if having security codes for high end farm equipment works, why not try to enact something similar or better for commercial aircraft?

First of all it’s joy ride not rides.... this is happened once in modern times so to do the new trendy thing and panic and plug another hole in the dam with a piece of chewing gum is not the answer. Circumvention of such system will undoubtedly happen.

As for the farm equipment example, it’s weak imo. Operating passenger aircraft on scheduled service and harvesting wheat with a John Deer are two vastly different things. Nice try but I think the answer is helping people problems not adding a password or key system.

He's said to be a member of the tow team so he's trained enough to move the aircraft around the field, start the APU, check hydraulic pressure, understand the radio jargon, etc.

Here - Let's spend some time on this. What was he being paid??? Four years with Horizon, clearly trained to do very specialized and dangerous work on the ramp that involves moving aircraft on a busy ramp at an international airport in contact with the tower... and in the tapes there is some mention that he's a minimum wage worker. Before we start talking about keys, and stupid things let's talk about the basic lack of respect that four years in the position at extremely low wages doing something that requires some serious skill and is in fact quite security sensitive is now a position with NO respect and no real pay. And yet, actually requires people with real brains to do it well - as proven by this young man who clearly had a fine mind, as evidenced by what he was able to do.

This is where the real conversation should be.

When we insist on paying starvation wages on the ramp, we get gun smuggling (ATL), drug smuggling (DFW), and other craziness (this.) It's not easy work, it is security sensitive, and it does need respect (and respect in the form of increasing pay for greater skill). This is part of what is breaking people in our society.

ual763 wrote:

[photoid][/photoid]

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

This code is dumb on stilts. The guy here was tow-qualified, so he’d have to have the codes to perform his job. Why do you think ATC is more reliable than the airline’s employees? How is ATC going to control about 20,000 airplanes? In the end, we have to trust somebody with potentially dangerous tools that are also vital to our way of life. And, you know what, that trust works 99.9999% of the time.

GF

Amen! Regardless, of what some so-called experts think, ATC should never have any direct control of an aircraft. The PIC is in total command of an aircraft at all times. As per the FARs he is the sole authority. Any ability for controllers to “take over” control of an aircraft would go against this FAR. Not to mention, it would open up the opportunity for many over-zealous controllers to pressing said button for such trivial things as missing a radio call on the ground, or similar. It would be a nightmare. To me, the solution is simple! Encourage mental health treatment in this country, instead of discourage it. And also, simply, increase ramp security. If someone was simply watching, this may not have happened. How could someone not notice an employee doing that?

No ones advocating for ATC to have control of the aircraft. Their mission is control of the *airspace*, and in this case it was defeated by a ramper who had access to the cockpit. Don’t confuse control of the airplane with control of the airspace.

trnswrld wrote:

So real quick back to the smoking tires/brakes. I know this was touched on, but those with experience in this type of aircraft, do you think he was rolling with partial brakes applied and was causing the brakes to smoke? You would think it would take a little longer to get the brakes warm enough to start smoking and to be noticeable enough for other aircraft to see near the departure end of the runway. Then someone mentioned he may have had the parking brake set. Is that even possible to taxi the aircraft and get it airborne with the parking brake set? You wouldn't think so. So the smoking tires/brake thing seems odd to me.

I think the smoke was from the tires and not the brakes. No pax, no cargo, and light on fuel. I'd say the tires skidded and smoked some as he whipped around the taxiways and onto the runway. Does a Q400 have anti-skid? Does it have to be turned on during start up?

To me a simple idea that might work is just trip some circuit breakers. Wouldn't be 100% but they are not clearly labeled and you would need to know which ones to trip.

RDUDDJI wrote:

If local towers had to push a takeoff lockout release (TOLOR, trademark pending ) electronically right before a plane takes the RWY, this could avoid the rogue pilot scenario. If you don’t have said TOLOR, you cannot put the engine power level above x. ...

And when the system on-board the aircraft itself fails, what will it do? Leave the power governor enabled, which I suppose is okay on the ground, though annoying - but if a failure in flight causes the governor to be re-engaged?

Every now and again the top of streaming CVRs and FDRs is brought up in relation to topics both like and unlike this one, and they almost always progress to the suggestion "and pilots shouldn't be able to shut them off!!!!!", and from there very quickly "and what if they need to be shut off to prevent damage to or loss of the aircraft?".

Hideously-complex control devices like this are not going to help. Simple. Imagine in your daily lives how inconvenienced you'd be if your car now needed three different keys, an RFID fob, a one-time code string, and radio-data clearance from Traffic Control to even leave the driveway. Stall it on the highway on-ramp? Too bad, champ.

You know you're just driving to work, or to the shops. None of this stuff solves any of your problems, because you don't have any problems like this.

But in a couple of minutes with a car or a truck and without inhibitions you can harm and wound and kill more people than this fellow did in his entire flight.

The message that we don't want to send, and that we can't afford to send, is one that says "we don't understand you". One that says "we don't trust you", and one that says "you're a threat to us", and we saw that clearly after 4U9525. German law didn't require an FMO to notify the airline of a pilot's mental instability, and that changed, but it also showed that if the culture about mental health is one of fear, people will not be open to realising that they need help, and they will not seek help, and even if they do try but can't - for reasons of cost, or mandatory reporting that might cost them their job - they'll feel they can't even get help to get help.

Start sending messages of compassion, and understanding, and of a willingness to help, and I'll wager a lot more people will get a lot more benefit then they ever will from money-pit Rube-Goldberg authorised-operation-only modifications to airplanes.

Revelation wrote:

CFM565A1 wrote:

First of all it’s joy ride not rides.... this is happened once in modern times so to do the new trendy thing and panic and plug another hole in the dam with a piece of chewing gum is not the answer. Circumvention of such system will undoubtedly happen.

As for the farm equipment example, it’s weak imo. Operating passenger aircraft on scheduled service and harvesting wheat with a John Deer are two vastly different things. Nice try but I think the answer is helping people problems not adding a password or key system.

This reminds me of the old saying, "the great is the enemy of the good" ( ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_i ... my_of_good ).

It'd be great if our system of mental health assessment and treatment was better, but could it ever be expected to reliably prevent those who seem to be normal but are actually suffering a psychotic break from doing something dreadful?

It'd be good if we raised the bar to try to prevent unauthorized people from doing unauthorized things.

Ideally, do both, but I'd start working on the simpler problem first.

Raise what bar exactly? This isn’t some imminent hijack risks like 9/11 was where we discovered that a cockpit door could be shot through or opened simply by turning a knob and walking in.

You do realize that simplicity isn’t always the answer, in fact nothing about the human race is simple.

Having some kind of lock out system to me is just a problem waiting to happen, what if it malfunctions in flight, what if it’s hacked? Then what will we say “we need to raise another imaginary bar”. Nice try but this panicking of this situation needs to stop and people need to use a little common sense here. Leave things as they are with the plane and deal with the security around them.

Further more here’s a more practical example let’s say I’m flying and the situation arises for a relight as I’m sinking towards terrain. I go to action the QRH and it says enter key code to begin engine start and in all the stress of the situation I can’t remeber this week’s code from last week’s? Then what? Or if the system hiccups and doesn’t recognize it?

A lot of the pointless ideas obviously come from people with no experience other than the armchair.

Owlmaniac wrote:

New to a registration but have been lurking on the forum for a while. This story really caught my heart.

A couple of people mentioned bipolar and I agree with this speculation. His loss of judgement (someone mentioned psychosis - bipolar is not only considered a mood disorder, but also a psychotic one), risk taking, very chatty and changing topics rapidly. The only thing that doesn't fit is his comment about being broken, as people with mania usually think there is nothing wrong and even that they are invincible. However, there is a less well known state called a mixed episode, which is a combination of mania and depression - it's a very dangerous state, as we have sadly seen. His family seemed shocked so if it was bipolar it may have been his first episode, and classically people outside of episodes usually seem entirely normal.

Although people with bipolar can indeed appear to be intoxicated I guess that is an alternative, that he was feeling suicidal and decided to go out on a high.

Either way I just wanted to say how shocked I was at how good the ATC was with him. Calmly building a rapport and regularly bringing up a safe landing. He did all the right things, when someone is in that sort of state there is nothing else you can do. It's a case of capture, hospitalize and treat, and luckily most people don't have access to a plane so this is often possible.

RIP Rich

Are you a mental health professional? I don’t believe speculating being bi polar is proper. First off, it seems to me the term is used as the new catch all for anything that goes wrong in society these days.

That being said, your description is flawed. There’s bi polar type and type II. There is a big difference and you can google it.

That being said, many different factors can cause a psychotic breakdown, both acute and chronic.

RDUDDJI wrote:

ual763 wrote:

[photoid][/photoid]

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

This code is dumb on stilts. The guy here was tow-qualified, so he’d have to have the codes to perform his job. Why do you think ATC is more reliable than the airline’s employees? How is ATC going to control about 20,000 airplanes? In the end, we have to trust somebody with potentially dangerous tools that are also vital to our way of life. And, you know what, that trust works 99.9999% of the time.

GF

Amen! Regardless, of what some so-called experts think, ATC should never have any direct control of an aircraft. The PIC is in total command of an aircraft at all times. As per the FARs he is the sole authority. Any ability for controllers to “take over” control of an aircraft would go against this FAR. Not to mention, it would open up the opportunity for many over-zealous controllers to pressing said button for such trivial things as missing a radio call on the ground, or similar. It would be a nightmare. To me, the solution is simple! Encourage mental health treatment in this country, instead of discourage it. And also, simply, increase ramp security. If someone was simply watching, this may not have happened. How could someone not notice an employee doing that?

No ones advocating for ATC to have control of the aircraft. Their mission is control of the *airspace*, and in this case it was defeated by a ramper who had access to the cockpit. Don’t confuse control of the airplane with control of the airspace.

But, your idea controls the airspace by giving control of the plane to ATC.

GF

uta999 wrote:

I think the first casualty will be the many Youtube videos detailing a 'cold & dark' engine start.

You could literally memorise most of it or have it on an iPad. Should cockpit doors be locked on the ground too?

If you watch the videos it is an extensive process following the checklist to go from "cold and dark" to engine start to taxiing for takeoff. It takes a bit of time to do it all properly. Fifteen minutes (Video Length) for the Airbus A320. As a GA pilot it took me about that amount of time out of a 90 min Sim session. That included programming the MCDU etc. I also had a wonderful instructor who was an A320 pilot. It also takes a couple of hours in the Sim just to get comfortable with locating everything, figuring out your sight picture, getting use to the controls etc. From the beginning the biggest challenge for me was getting use to my sight picture of sitting higher off the ground etc. Thirty minutes just getting use to flying with a sidestick. I was just saying it isn't easy and is more complex. You just do not jump in the airplane and start it and take off.

Given the amount of time it takes to do a proper checklist from cold and dark why wasn't he noticed or challenged. I feel that the security protocols need to be looked at. Even the Sims like IPilot and Ufly that are open to the general public follow security protocols.

Isn't it standard military procedure that for certain inherently hazardous items it takes two persons to authorize activation. I imagine Boeing/Airbus/airlines are looking into this currently. Waking up a sleeping plane would be the obvious point. And the previous mentioned parties will know how this could be implemented. Right now it is suppose to be the tug and the cockpit people (?) who wake up a plane. Ground ops would give them each a one time code.

jetmatt777 wrote:

indcwby wrote:

Two Factor Authentication is a simple answer. It's something you know + something you have. Pilots are carrying around tablets nowadays for their charts, manuals, etc. Add a soft token app from either RSA or Google. It can be done. The question is, will it?

Engine failure in flight, now need to restart. Time to grab the key out of your bag or wherever it is stowed; or find the page on your iPad app to verify the code to punch in. There’s a reason airplanes don’t have keys and that’s the fact that this is likely a 1 in a million+ event. I think the last time this happened in the US was when a SkyWest PILOT (who would have the keys or code) borrowed a plane in SGU and ran it off the end of a taxiway.

The probability of this occurring again is likely in the same risk-acceptable range of a two engine failure on an ETOPS flight. Can it happen? Sure. Do things need to change? Probably not.

If this were a case of a passenger, or someone climbing the fence, and starting up and doing this we would be talking about a complete failure of multiple points of aviation security. This is action taken by someone who was allowed to be there, and any changes proposed would still allow him to be there.

Any changes that need to occur need to happen in the field of mental health. It is a) very expensive b) hard to get an appointment c) very difficult for others to not look down on you for seeking mental health.

I see a therapist once a week for some very mild issues I’m dealing with, and it is very tough on the wallet and it was nearly impossible to get an appointment. I also have a tough time building the courage to tell my family, because I don’t want them to see me as a failure, or see themselves as a failure (parenting etc.). It’s a very tough situation and it’s unfortunate how our society views mental health.

Aviation protocols didn’t fail with this incident, our society failed this man in what we offer in terms of mental help.

Mental health needs to take a higher priority in all of our levels. You are not a failure. But we all sometimes need help in one way or another. I'm glad you are getting that.

I didn't say anything about about it being a part of the start up procedure for an a/c. In fact, I agree with you. I didn't even say how it could be utilized. Thanks for pointing it out that it may be a bad idea to use it for your case. However, for a parked a/c, there's should be a way to 'secure it'. Let's take a page out of "Parking Wars" and boot the planes. Heck, if anyone remembers "The Club" before anti-theft systems became common in automobiles, how about something like that?

The reason I bring it up is because someone at some level will ask how this happened and what can be done to prevent it? Rich didn't have anything malicious planned, however someone else may have been a different case.

BobbyPSP wrote:

Owlmaniac wrote:

New to a registration but have been lurking on the forum for a while. This story really caught my heart.

A couple of people mentioned bipolar and I agree with this speculation. His loss of judgement (someone mentioned psychosis - bipolar is not only considered a mood disorder, but also a psychotic one), risk taking, very chatty and changing topics rapidly. The only thing that doesn't fit is his comment about being broken, as people with mania usually think there is nothing wrong and even that they are invincible. However, there is a less well known state called a mixed episode, which is a combination of mania and depression - it's a very dangerous state, as we have sadly seen. His family seemed shocked so if it was bipolar it may have been his first episode, and classically people outside of episodes usually seem entirely normal.

Although people with bipolar can indeed appear to be intoxicated I guess that is an alternative, that he was feeling suicidal and decided to go out on a high.

Either way I just wanted to say how shocked I was at how good the ATC was with him. Calmly building a rapport and regularly bringing up a safe landing. He did all the right things, when someone is in that sort of state there is nothing else you can do. It's a case of capture, hospitalize and treat, and luckily most people don't have access to a plane so this is often possible.

RIP Rich

Are you a mental health professional? I don’t believe speculating being bi polar is proper. First off, it seems to me the term is used as the new catch all for anything that goes wrong in society these days.

That being said, your description is flawed. There’s bi polar type and type II. There is a big difference and you can google it.

That being said, many different factors can cause a psychotic breakdown, both acute and chronic.

If you don't believe in speculating why are you even on a forum full of people speculating every aspect of this tragedy?

You are correct in that it's the USA's DSM that separates bipolar into types 1&2. However, there is a world outside of the USA and the ICD-10 by the World Health Organisation does not separate into types. Rather, it describes bipolar affective disorder and when diagnosing there is a recognition of the current episode (e.g. hypomania or mania). You can google it.

Yes there are factors leading to any mental health condition, not sure what your point is.

freakyrat wrote:

uta999 wrote:

I think the first casualty will be the many Youtube videos detailing a 'cold & dark' engine start.

You could literally memorise most of it or have it on an iPad. Should cockpit doors be locked on the ground too?

If you watch the videos it is an extensive process following the checklist to go from "cold and dark" to engine start to taxiing for takeoff. It takes a bit of time to do it all properly. Fifteen minutes (Video Length) for the Airbus A320. As a GA pilot it took me about that amount of time out of a 90 min Sim session. That included programming the MCDU etc. I also had a wonderful instructor who was an A320 pilot. It also takes a couple of hours in the Sim just to get comfortable with locating everything, figuring out your sight picture, getting use to the controls etc. From the beginning the biggest challenge for me was getting use to my sight picture of sitting higher off the ground etc. Thirty minutes just getting use to flying with a sidestick. I was just saying it isn't easy and is more complex. You just do not jump in the airplane and start it and take off.

Given the amount of time it takes to do a proper checklist from cold and dark why wasn't he noticed or challenged. I feel that the security protocols need to be looked at. Even the Sims like IPilot and Ufly that are open to the general public follow security protocols.

Highly unlikely he did a complete cold start.

GF

Revelation wrote:

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

This code is dumb on stilts. The guy here was tow-qualified, so he’d have to have the codes to perform his job.

That's why you'd have more than one code: one code for towing (which would allow apu start but not engine start) vs another for mechanics (can start and run engines as long as ground speed is zero) vs another for pilots (full privileges). Give people the privileges they need to do their jobs, but no more. We do this kind of thing in computing all the time ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle ... _privilege ).

Again we’re talking about 100000s of pounds of meticulous machinery moving thought the air being worked on and operated by people that have the know how to do their job, it’s different than sitting at a desk and punching keys and knowing how to do your job there. What you are suggesting has a major fundamental flaw as far as I’m concerned in that being a part of the plane makes it another likely thing to fall (aftermarket addons are generally worse for this), who’s going to be responsible for fixing it and have access to the manuals, naturally people doing the maintenance in some capacity like the guy in question here. Someone responsible for fixing such a system which would be maintenance staff would have to know a lot about how it works which would then nullify the security. Engineers and mechanics tend to know more about the planes than the pilots do, yet the pilots would be the one given the highest security clearance and they would likely be the ones that would have least knowledge on how such a system works. The problem is that it will fail at some point and need fixed, someone will know all about how to work with it and will be able to render it useless.

Bypassing passwords on computers is easy for those that know how to do it, heck hacking is easy for those that know how to do it and you see all the “secure” things that have had that happen to them in the past decade.

jfklganyc wrote:

Mortyman wrote:

N415XJ wrote:

Geez, what's with everyone stealing regional jets these days? I mean, if you're going to do something as idiotic as steal a commercial plane at least go all in and grab something cool like an A380 or 787.
.

Would one person be able to take off and fly an A380 ?

Sure...why not?

If a plane is not parked nose first at a gate, anybcommercial plane is stealable.

Pull the chocks, start the engines and go.

Much less likely - you can’t enter a larger plane, much less an A380, without stairs. A Q400 does not need external stairs to get in. With a larger plane, you either need an accomplice to drive the stairs away or you have to crash into them and hope they fall the right way/don’t damage the aircraft badly. Maybe a 737 COULD work, but anything with more ground clearance needs stairs to get in. Or a very tall ladder if you manage to get one there.

Revelation wrote:

It'd be great if our system of mental health assessment and treatment was better, but could it ever be expected to reliably prevent those who seem to be normal but are actually suffering a psychotic break from doing something dreadful?

It'd be good if we raised the bar to try to prevent unauthorized people from doing unauthorized things.

Ideally, do both, but I'd start working on the simpler problem first.

This is the type of reasoning that leads to the modern world we see, with millions living and dying in quiet desperation, all while surrounded by tremendous material abundance. IIRC you've worked in software - that should give you some insight into the fact that "work on the more complex problem later" often means "never." And further, I would expect most people on this forum to understand that "just add a key / code / 2FA" is not a simple problem, given the level of certification that goes into aircraft. It is not a retrofit that can be developed and ready to slap on $airplane in a month.

IMO the focus should be on prevention. Bright people are always going to slip through mental health assessments, at least the ones we have currently - either by deception or because they were fine when they were assessed, and less fine a year later (for example) when they snapped. Speaking primarily about the USA, it's high time we had more and better mental health services including preventative services, less stigma against getting help, less income inequality, and FAR less "just pull yourself up by your bootstraps bro!" mythos. It may take a village to raise a child but it also takes a village to keep an adult healthy, a fact which is essentially ignored in the United States.

As far as the speculation that this guy may have been bipolar, well he was clearly in crisis. I have up close and personal experience with bipolar people and the radio chatter sure resembles a mixed episode to me. "I'm so happy I could die" is one (very oversimplified) way to sum up a mixed state. In terms of risk of harm, mixed states are the most dangerous of affective states. They can be brought on by things like severe stress, drugs, and sometimes for reasons that can't be identified when bipolar illness is not well controlled. They don't necessarily involve "psychosis." It's quite possible to be in a mixed state and not be having delusions, hallucinations, etc.

It's also quite possible to be in a mixed state and cause precisely zero mayhem - most people with bipolar illness never harm anyone, tend to instinctively withdraw when their moods are out of whack, and would be mortified at the thought of causing a scene in a restaurant let alone stealing a commercial airliner.

For many reasons, the causes and conditions were right such that this guy did what he did. His story seems to have caught the imagination of many, judging from comments here and on YouTube and reddit. I hope that it will make a ripple in the public consciousness which leads to a more humane society for everyone, including the vulnerable.

Owlmaniac wrote:

BobbyPSP wrote:

Owlmaniac wrote:

New to a registration but have been lurking on the forum for a while. This story really caught my heart.

A couple of people mentioned bipolar and I agree with this speculation. His loss of judgement (someone mentioned psychosis - bipolar is not only considered a mood disorder, but also a psychotic one), risk taking, very chatty and changing topics rapidly. The only thing that doesn't fit is his comment about being broken, as people with mania usually think there is nothing wrong and even that they are invincible. However, there is a less well known state called a mixed episode, which is a combination of mania and depression - it's a very dangerous state, as we have sadly seen. His family seemed shocked so if it was bipolar it may have been his first episode, and classically people outside of episodes usually seem entirely normal.

Although people with bipolar can indeed appear to be intoxicated I guess that is an alternative, that he was feeling suicidal and decided to go out on a high.

Either way I just wanted to say how shocked I was at how good the ATC was with him. Calmly building a rapport and regularly bringing up a safe landing. He did all the right things, when someone is in that sort of state there is nothing else you can do. It's a case of capture, hospitalize and treat, and luckily most people don't have access to a plane so this is often possible.

RIP Rich

Are you a mental health professional? I don’t believe speculating being bi polar is proper. First off, it seems to me the term is used as the new catch all for anything that goes wrong in society these days.

That being said, your description is flawed. There’s bi polar type and type II. There is a big difference and you can google it.

That being said, many different factors can cause a psychotic breakdown, both acute and chronic.

If you don't believe in speculating why are you even on a forum full of people speculating every aspect of this tragedy?

You are correct in that it's the USA's DSM that separates bipolar into types 1&2. However, there is a world outside of the USA and the ICD-10 by the World Health Organisation does not separate into types. Rather, it describes bipolar affective disorder and when diagnosing there is a recognition of the current episode (e.g. hypomania or mania). You can google it.

Yes there are factors leading to any mental health condition, not sure what your point is.

First off, you just joined today and your first post has zero to do with aviation. You’re making statements that are flawed.

The point is you’re making a diagnosis and stigmatizing bi polar issues. Your comment on a mixed state being dangerous is flawed too. It’s a state of hypomania, not hypermania, along with depression.

You never answered if you’re a mental health professional and if you are, you can’t make a diagnosis of a mental illness from his conversation with ATC. It only lets us into his state of mind at that point.

There are many many different psychiatric diagnoses that have could have caused his breakdown, along with emotional issues such as stress.

Your comments are a disservice to those living with bi polar disease.

How about putting some type of movable barrier around critical areas of an airport that can be controlled by the folks at the tower. You know, like those metal cylinders that shoot out from the ground in some garages.
If you had some of those at a runway threshold or in other critical locations a tower/ground controller could effectively block any aircraft from moving around causing havoc.
That could have prevented the guy from leaving the cargo apron or even denied him entry to the active runway.
Sounds simpler than codes etc...
Just a thought

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

RDUDDJI wrote:

ual763 wrote:

[photoid][/photoid]

Amen! Regardless, of what some so-called experts think, ATC should never have any direct control of an aircraft. The PIC is in total command of an aircraft at all times. As per the FARs he is the sole authority. Any ability for controllers to “take over” control of an aircraft would go against this FAR. Not to mention, it would open up the opportunity for many over-zealous controllers to pressing said button for such trivial things as missing a radio call on the ground, or similar. It would be a nightmare. To me, the solution is simple! Encourage mental health treatment in this country, instead of discourage it. And also, simply, increase ramp security. If someone was simply watching, this may not have happened. How could someone not notice an employee doing that?

No ones advocating for ATC to have control of the aircraft. Their mission is control of the *airspace*, and in this case it was defeated by a ramper who had access to the cockpit. Don’t confuse control of the airplane with control of the airspace.

But, your idea controls the airspace by giving control of the plane to ATC.

GF

Not at all. READ what I wrote. Do you not understand the difference between controlling an airplane and controlling the nation's airspace? Think about it. Where do you think takeoff clearance/authorization to enter the airspace comes from today?

I'm simply suggesting that ATC has a tool to enforce an airplane's lack of clearance to depart. Doesn't have to be ATC per se, I suppose it could be the dispatcher or the airport, but I think the final decision makes the most sense with ATC. That way the decision is left to those who have the responsibility of managing the airspace and who have the best visibility of what's going on at their respective airport. It's simply another check to make sure a rogue actor isn't trying to jack an airplane.

rg828 wrote:

How about putting some type of movable barrier around critical areas of an airport that can be controlled by the folks at the tower. You know, like those metal cylinders that shoot out from the ground in some garages.
If you had some of those at a runway threshold or in other critical locations a tower/ground controller could effectively block any aircraft from moving around causing havoc.
That could have prevented the guy from leaving the cargo apron or even denied him entry to the active runway.
Sounds simpler than codes etc...
Just a thought

Seriously? How are you going to do this day at JFK? The cost would be prohibitive.

You don’t reinvent the wheel for such a rare occurrence

Revelation wrote:

stinson108 wrote:

It’s unbelievable to know you don’t need a key or password on the screen to start these birds
Try getting into a john deer loader and starting it
It’s going nowhere without the four digit code inputted first

It seems we could do better than having no security code at all.

Entering one code would enable full functionality (i.e. pilots) another would not permit anything more than taxiing, or full power only if ground speed is zero for engine tests.

Change it frequently enough (let's say weekly) so that any loss of codes is only a short term problem.

So in my 20 years of flying for the airlines I have been locked out on the ramp away from the airplane I am assigned dozens of times because it takes at least hours if not days for a large orginization where thousands of people need that code to update them of the new code. Now you are suggesting I’m not going to be able to start the jet because I have the wrong code? Nuts.

What happens when your device shorts out and it thinks it’s not supposed to be flying right then, is it going to kill both engines.

When you engineer for aviation you engineer so that if the device fails-safe which is to allow the operation. Security devices idea of fail-safe is to not allow the operation. These two ideas are not compatible and why even simple keys have not made it past single engine GA. The consequences are just too large.

rg828 wrote:

How about putting some type of movable barrier around critical areas of an airport that can be controlled by the folks at the tower. You know, like those metal cylinders that shoot out from the ground in some garages.
If you had some of those at a runway threshold or in other critical locations a tower/ground controller could effectively block any aircraft from moving around causing havoc.
That could have prevented the guy from leaving the cargo apron or even denied him entry to the active runway.
Sounds simpler than codes etc...
Just a thought

It's a good thought as well! Instead of putting it on the manufacturer or operator, this is something that could be done at the airport in critical areas. But there will be cons to that too.

XAM2175 wrote:

RDUDDJI wrote:

If local towers had to push a takeoff lockout release (TOLOR, trademark pending ) electronically right before a plane takes the RWY, this could avoid the rogue pilot scenario. If you don’t have said TOLOR, you cannot put the engine power level above x. ...

And when the system on-board the aircraft itself fails, what will it do? Leave the power governor enabled, which I suppose is okay on the ground, though annoying - but if a failure in flight causes the governor to be re-engaged?

Every now and again the top of streaming CVRs and FDRs is brought up in relation to topics both like and unlike this one, and they almost always progress to the suggestion "and pilots shouldn't be able to shut them off!!!!!", and from there very quickly "and what if they need to be shut off to prevent damage to or loss of the aircraft?".

Hideously-complex control devices like this are not going to help. Simple. Imagine in your daily lives how inconvenienced you'd be if your car now needed three different keys, an RFID fob, a one-time code string, and radio-data clearance from Traffic Control to even leave the driveway. Stall it on the highway on-ramp? Too bad, champ.

You know you're just driving to work, or to the shops. None of this stuff solves any of your problems, because you don't have any problems like this.

But in a couple of minutes with a car or a truck and without inhibitions you can harm and wound and kill more people than this fellow did in his entire flight.

The message that we don't want to send, and that we can't afford to send, is one that says "we don't understand you". One that says "we don't trust you", and one that says "you're a threat to us", and we saw that clearly after 4U9525. German law didn't require an FMO to notify the airline of a pilot's mental instability, and that changed, but it also showed that if the culture about mental health is one of fear, people will not be open to realising that they need help, and they will not seek help, and even if they do try but can't - for reasons of cost, or mandatory reporting that might cost them their job - they'll feel they can't even get help to get help.

Start sending messages of compassion, and understanding, and of a willingness to help, and I'll wager a lot more people will get a lot more benefit then they ever will from money-pit Rube-Goldberg authorised-operation-only modifications to airplanes.

And autopilot could malfunction and crash a plane into the ground. But it doesn't, because redundancies and workarounds are built in, just like they would be in this system. Sorry to bust your anecdotes with logic.

frmrCapCadet wrote:

Isn't it standard military procedure that for certain inherently hazardous items it takes two persons to authorize activation. I imagine Boeing/Airbus/airlines are looking into this currently. Waking up a sleeping plane would be the obvious point. And the previous mentioned parties will know how this could be implemented. Right now it is suppose to be the tug and the cockpit people (?) who wake up a plane. Ground ops would give them each a one time code.

This kid was ground ops! Forget about codes. It’s about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.