As emigration plans go, this one was at least ambitious: a co-pilot of an Ethiopian Airlines flight to Italy hijacked his own plane this morning to try and seek asylum in Switzerland.
According to local police, the co-pilot locked the cockpit door when the pilot of the airplane was in the bathroom, and then took control. He overshot the designated destination of Rome, and carried on 400 miles to Geneva in Switzerland. There's a recording online, discovered by Reuters social media editor Matthew Keys, which appears to be of the pilot requesting asylum in the country.
Flight Radar shows that the plane circled Geneva International Airport several times before landing. Talks between airport officials and the co-pilot apparently continued, until he left the plane through the windows, via a rope(!). He later surrendered himself to the police—and it's currently not clear how his requests for asylum are being handled.
While Swiss police say "there was no risk to crew or passengers at any time," it must have been fairly terrifying to be a passenger aboard that aircraft. [ABC News via Verge]
Well, aside from the locking the other pilot out of the cockpit, and leaving the cockpit via rope, this seems to me to be rather like some of those other recent events where the pilots just landed at the wrong airport. Oh, he intended to? Shhh....
North Shore wrote:Oh great. Now the f/a's will be locking the door from the outside, and no-one will get in our out until the plane has reached its destination...
Your attitude towards safety initiatives is deplorable. Obviously someone will check to see if there is some kind of cheap plastic garment, like a vest or silly hat of some kind, that can solve this problem, before they go to the knee-jerk extreme of actually buying or installing hardware.
I can't understand why there is even a door between the cockpit and the cabin? can't the crew make their own coffee and bring a lunch? Separate entrance door? Just a thought.
Guess Ethiopia doesn't count co-pilot time one for one, he was probably short some PIC hours, hence the few circuits over Geneva. Glad we changed the rule here.
black hole wrote:I can't understand why there is even a door between the cockpit and the cabin? can't the crew make their own coffee and bring a lunch? Separate entrance door? Just a thought.
BH
What about dealing with issues in the back? Pax/FAs/Maint/etc
Fires?
Eric Janson wrote:
My Airline had a strict policy forbidding Flight Crew to enter the passenger cabin during flight. Forward galley was as far as we were allowed.
Overly paranoid imho.
I'm not sure why anyone would want to set foot in that fartulent rabbit-warren full of drooling imbeciles (and don't even get me started on what lies AFT of first-class). But I do agree, it seems a bit draconian to strictly forbid a member of the crew from going somewhere in their own plane. What if you really had to take a dump and the co-pilot was already doing so in the forward lav?