Lufthansa inflight drama as co-pilot faints after captain leaves cockpit: report
A report has come to light in the German media concerning a major flight safety issue that affected a Lufthansa flight from Germany to Spain in February 2024. The report published by the German news agency dpa sets out the sequence of events that led to a Lufthansa Airbus A321 flying for around ten minutes without any pilot actively at the controls of the aircraft before the situation was resolved.
According to dpa, which cited an incident report published by the Spanish aviation accident investigation authority, CIAIAC, the incident unfolded on a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt-Main Airport (FRA) and heading to Seville (SVQ) on February 17, 2024. The flight was carrying 199 passengers and six crew at the time of the incident.
The investigation report states that with around 30 minutes left of the two-hour and 30-minute flight left to go, the 43-year-old captain left the flight deck for a toilet break. As is conventional, the cockpit door closed and locked behind them as they left, leaving the 38-year-old first officer at the controls of the A321 narrowbody. However, with the captain away from the flight deck, the first officer then fainted, effectively leaving no one flying the plane, although the autopilot would have been controlling the aircraft at this point.
GCmap.comThe aircraft flew for around ten minutes without a pilot in command of the plane, according to the report. Although the unconscious co-pilot was reported to have operated certain controls unintentionally during their incapacitation, the aircraft was able to continue flying in a stable manner with the autopilot still activated. During this period with the captain off the flight deck, the cockpit voice recorder recorded ‘strange noises’ in the cockpit that were consistent with an ‘acute health emergency’, dpa reported.
The captain initially tried to re-enter the flight deck with the regular door opening code, which triggers a short ‘buzzer-type’ audible alarm in the cockpit so that the co-pilot can open the door. However, despite trying this on five occasions, the door remained locked from the inside. These efforts were compounded by one of the cabin crew attempting to contact the co-pilot using the onboard telephone, but again, without success.
Kevin Hackert / Shutterstock.comFinally, the captain typed in an emergency code that would have allowed him to open the door without the co-pilot’s intervention. However, shortly before the door would have opened automatically, the co-pilot opened it from the inside despite still being unwell but having regained consciousness, dpa reported. The captain, once safely back inside the cockpit and having assumed control of the aircraft, elected to divert and make an emergency landing in Madrid, where the co-pilot was taken to a local hospital.
The pilot said his co-pilot seemed “able and alert” when he left the cockpit with about 30 minutes remaining of the flight. Lufthansa told dpa in response to questions about the incident that it was aware of the investigation report and that its own flight safety department had also conducted an investigation. However, the airline declined to disclose the findings of its investigation.
Cockpit door safety
The incident once again shines a light on the ramifications of cockpit door security measures that were introduced after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. While the measures taken to arm cockpit doors have generally been accepted to be an effective security measure, there have been incidents where flight safety has been put at risk.
Kambui – Wikimedia CommonsThe best example of this was in March 2015, when the captain of a Germanwings (a subsidiary of Lufthansa) Airbus A320 left the cockpit mid-flight, leaving the co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, flying the aircraft. However, refusing to re-open the cockpit door and locking it from the inside, Lubitz disabled the autopilot and crashed the aircraft into a mountainside in the French Alps, killing all 150 people onboard. Additional safety measures were adopted after that event, changing the way cockpit door locking mechanisms work.
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Lufthansa inflight drama as co-pilot faints after captain leaves cockpit: report
The post Lufthansa inflight drama as co-pilot faints after captain leaves cockpit: report appeared first on AeroTime.
A report has come to light in the German media concerning a major flight safety issue that affected…
The post Lufthansa inflight drama as co-pilot faints after captain leaves cockpit: report appeared first on AeroTime.
