Foreign Airlines Call for Two Co-pilots after Germanwings Tragedy
2 April 2015 08:32 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – The suspected suicide of Germanwings pilot Andreas Lubitz has prompted a number of airlines to mull a regulation that two aircrew members should be inside the cockpit at all times. The Transportation Ministry, however, has not yet planned to adopt the regulation.
“We don’t have any plan yet to apply the regulation, except it has been mandated by the International Civil Aviation Organization,” said Transportation Ministry’s public communication head Barata on Wednesday, April 1, 2015.
He said the ministry interpreted the planned regulation that a pilot did not necessarily need to be accompanied by two co-pilots, but there had to be one to ready to replace a pilot when the latter was off the cockpit.
“For example, accompanied by a flight attendant, so there will still be two people in the cockpit,” he said.
Barata said it was impossible to place two co-pilots in the cockpit. “Finding a pilot is not easy. It takes some time to produce pilots,” Barata said. Besides, he went on, it was unlikely to have three people inside the cockpit, which was designed to accommodate only two people.
Earlier, a number of foreign airlines—including Air Canada, Westjet, Air Transat, Norwegian Air Shuttle, Lufthansa, Air Berlin, Easyjet, Monarch Airlines, Virgin, and Thomas Cook—said it would adopt a policy calling for two aircrew members be in the cockpit at all times in the wake of the recent Germanwings 4U 9525 accident.
AMIRULLAH
