Unauthorized Cockpit Entry

[goingboeing]

After reading the Washington Times article it is obvious that the terroists have been doing their homework.One of the flights mentioned in this article was AA #1732 from SJU to JFK.

As a 18+year AA AMT, working most of it on Heavy and Light "C'" checks, the FAA and the airlines stopped short of truly securing the cockpit.
I have installed many Lavatories and Galleys on B-727,B-757,and MD80 aircraft and there still remains a glaring weakness in cockpit fortification.[Which of I will not describe in detail on this forum]
The cockpit doors are a good start and was something that was quick and an appeasement to the flying public.

I hope all Airlines take this recent incident as a WAKE-UP CALL to seriously improve cockpit fortification.

 

[FA Mikey]

In the interim though, its up the pursers, mainly. Who need to monitor things closely. Not just middle eastern men. But all people who go in, especially those who need to take things with them.

 

[AAStew]

I see the moderator closed the previous thread again. (note to moderator, we would like to discuss this at AA not NW).
In response to the banning all Middle Eastern men, of course not, but if you see a large group come on, that should be red flag.
And a note to cockpit folks out there, support your f/a's when they have qualms! I know the majority of you do, but there are a few wimps who are spineless.
I had an incident about a year back where two middle eastern men came on the airplane with the wrong name on their boarding passes. They got thru security with these wrong boarding passes! They had no checked baggage, they were presumedly brothers with different last names, they were from cities that were not the origination city, and they had one way tickets!
If this did not throw up a few red flags what does? The flight attendants wanted these guys rescreened, we took a delay as we called Texas Security, over one hour, they checked their names out and they were not on the data base to watch out for, but we would of still felt better if they could have passed through the detectors with their baggage again, since they obviously weren't doing their job the first time! Long story short, Captain refused to ask them to.

 

[FA Mikey]

Thats where you walk. Better to be in trouble and alive or even with held from service than being sorry later and wishing you made a stand. We are far to willing to take chance's rather than be safe.

 

[AAStew]

Well, I left that part out of my story, I did say I was going to walk off. Captain still was a wimp, finally I had enough went up to these men and was blunt and told them that under the circumstances we were checking because this was a break in the seuruty process and they would possibly have to go thru security again.
They said they were more than happy to if it meant getting the flight out of the airport. The names on the boarding pass was the agents fault and it may have been just all cicumstantial. Anyways, the captain told me off for undermining his authority! Well if he would of had balls in the first place this wouldn't of happened, huh?

 

[A/C FIXER]

With todays atmosphere about terrorists and flying, theres always 1 thing I do, and thats to tell the F/A's I'm a non-rev, show my badge and say If anyone gives them grief to let me know, this is not only on AA but any airline I travel on, its amazing the big thank you I get and where are you sitting remarks. I can safely state that I believe that Flight Crews and passangers will not become victims again.

 

[AAStew]

No there I don't think we will be victims either. There is too much anger! After 9/11 I cannot count the number of pax's who offered to help! But it is always better to keep your guard up.

 

[mweiss]

there still remains a glaring weakness in cockpit fortification

I know. And I've wondered about it myself. If it's obvious to me, it's certainly obvious to the people to whom we don't wish it to be obvious. h34r:

 

[upsilon]

And from what I have recently read about the conduct of some pax, it is certainly no secret.

 

[LiveInAHotel]

When the cockpit doors were done, they should have done the other 2 things too!