A12 Passenger Storms Cockpit An unarmed passenger described as mentally disturbed or drunk tried to break down the door to the cockpit on a United Airlines flight from Miami to Buenos Aires, but was subdued and arrested upon landing.
Despite all the talk about drone-like autonomous passenger planes, cockpit automation is nowhere near capable enough to manage without human pilots on the flight deck.
The project is codenamed "Neptune," and the concept designs envision a sleek underwater craft with aggressive pointy-ended pontoons and a central passenger bubble cockpit with an unobstructed, all-around view.
Buckled in, I amused myself with a channel on the inflight entertainment that gives passengers a cockpit-eye view of the take off.
Nissan's latest concept car also features a wraparound display that provides live information around the driver and passengers in the cockpit, just below the windshield and passenger windows.
The aviation agency said that within six months it would develop a tougher standard of flammability for the insulation, which is used to keep the passenger cabin and cockpit warm and quiet.
On Wednesday, attorneys filed an emergency bill of discovery in Cook County Circuit Court asking the court to order United and the City of Chicago preserve items linked to Sunday's incident, including video footage of the boarding process, a passenger list and cockpit voice recordings from the flight.
On 29 December 2000, British Airways Flight 2069 was en route from London to Nairobi when a mentally-ill passenger entered the cockpit and grabbed the controls.
According to the NTSB's analysis, "the presence of this passenger in the cockpit, especially if it were the charter customer, most likely further heightened the pressure on the flight crew to land at [Aspen]".
However, many of the passengers' family members, having heard the audio recordings, believe that the passengers breached the cockpit and killed at least one of the hijackers guarding the cockpit door; some interpreted the audio as suggesting that both the passengers and hijackers struggled for control of the yoke.
