OUT OF THE BLUE
Airlines must fortify the cockpit
By Elliott Hester

In the days following the simultaneous hijackings of four U.S. airliners, much has been done to beef up airport security. Curbside baggage check-in has been discontinued. Uniformed police monitor security checkpoints. Small knives and box cutters are now confiscated from passengers. These measures will no doubt help to make air travel safer. But throughout this overnight transformation, experts failed to focus attention on the most critical aspect of airplane security: the cockpit door.

The cockpit door is the final barrier between a hijacker and an unsuspecting pilot. It is a feeble defense, built for ease of crew entry and as an emergency escape, not as a fortification against determined intruders. One heave of a shoulder, one kick of a purposeful foot and almost anyone, armed or otherwise, can break through the door and wreak havoc in a dozen different ways.

On August 11, 2000, Jonathan Burton broke through the cockpit door of a Southwest Airlines jet en route to Salt Lake City from Las Vegas. Burton stuck his head and torso through the hole he had created and yelled at startled pilots: "I can fly this airplane! I can fly this airplane!" Frightened passengers snatched him away and tried to restrain him, but the 19-year old Burton began a bloody fight. A band of male passengers ultimately beat him to death.

Five months earlier, on March 27, a German man broke into the flight deck during a Germania charter flight from Berlin to the Canary Islands. The man, believed by authorities to have been under the influence of alcohol, forced his way into the cockpit while the plane was over Spanish airspace. He then proceeded to punch, kick and choke the 59-year-old pilot. At some point the attacker managed to grab the controls. The aircraft veered from its flight path and lost altitude briefly, but the co-pilot managed to stabilize it. The plane landed safely after the assailant was restrained by a group of male passengers.

Less than two weeks before that, on March 16, Peter Bradley broke down the cockpit door on a San Francisco-bound Alaska Airways flight. Suffering from what turned out to be encephalitis, Bradley shouted, "I'm going to kill you." He then attacked the pilots and lunged for the controls. Armed with an axe (standard equipment in most cockpits), the co-pilot fought the 6-foot-2, 250-pound intruder. As many as eight passengers and crew came to help. The aircraft landed safely sometime later.

And on July 23, 1999, as All Nippon Airways flight 61 ascended from Tokyo's Haneda Airport on its way to Sapporo, Yuji Nishizawa, 28, got up from his seat, pulled an 8-inch knife on a female flight attendant and forced her to unlock the cockpit door. He ordered the co-pilot out of the cockpit and demanded that the captain fly to a U.S. military base west of Tokyo. When he refused, Nishizawa stabbed him in the neck and took control of the aircraft.

As the captain lay dying, the Boeing 747, packed with 503 passengers and a crew of 14, plunged to within 300 meters (984 feet) of the ground. Moments before disaster struck, the deposed co-pilot and an off-duty pilot stormed the cockpit, subdued the assailant and resumed control of the aircraft, which managed to land safely in Tokyo.

Since July 1997, there have been at least 16 reported instances in which a lone passenger attempted to break through the cockpit door. Of these, 10 attempts were successful. In almost every instance, the perpetrator was either angry, frightened, deranged or intoxicated.

If these people (all of whom acted without training) can breach the cockpit door, imagine how easy it is for a group of motivated hijackers - even if they AREN'T carrying weapons.

The Alaska Airlines ordeal prompted five airlines (Alaska, American, Delta, Northwest and TWA) to announce, just one week after the incident, that they were seeking ways to fortify bifold cockpit doors - standard on MD-83 aircraft - like the one Bradley was able to break through. But when media attention faded, so did talk of cockpit fortification. "The one thing you can't do is put a bank vault door on the cockpit," said Alaska Airlines spokesman Jack Evans.

After the events of September 11, a "bank vault door" deserves serious consideration.

There's only one sure way to prevent an airplane hijacking: Make access to the cockpit impossible. On-board security officers can be overpowered. Cockpit keys can be easily snatched from flight attendants. But if the cockpit door is virtually impenetrable, if pilots are instructed to remain inside no matter what chaos breaks out in the cabin, hijackings may become an ugly memory.

The cost will be staggering. But airlines, forever diligent about their bottom line, always seem to find money when they think it will generate more.

In order to create, "More room in coach," for example, American Airlines recently spent millions to remove the last two rows of seats on its aircraft. Currently, the airline is spending millions more to replace undersized overhead bins with larger ones. These "selling points" are designed to increase profits in the long run.

But an impregnable cockpit has never been a selling point. At least until now.

If airline CEOs have trouble finding money, they need look no further than their own inflated paychecks. In the 3-year period from 1998 to 2000, for example, the two top-ranked officials at US Airways earned a combined total of more than $65 million in salaries, bonuses and other compensation.

Cockpit doors must be fortified. The money is there. Anyone claiming otherwise is a liar or a fool.