Two pilots who shepherded the Indian Airlines aircraft during the terrifying IC814 hijack, write that flydubai’s flight FZ1073 has changed aviation security forever. What new protocols will help identify the threat inside the cockpit, is a question with no easy answers
Every generation of aviation security is, in a way, a response to the previous generation’s nightmare. What the attempted hijack-crash of the flydubai flight FZ1073 to Tel Aviv has done, is rearrange the threat landscape globally. The new vulnerabilities that have been exposed will need new defences. Of course, this cycle isn’t unique to aviation. Because a terrorist need only find one exploitable weakness, while the defender has to protect against a changing range of dangers.
As the investigation into Wednesday’s bloody attack is still in its early stages, neither its motivations nor other details are as yet clear. What is known is that a pilot stabbed the other pilot, and the plane plunged 17,000 ft in seconds. The rate at which it descended meant G forces exceeding the manufacturer’s limitation severalfold. The rudder, used for directional control, disintegrated.