Major Business News

Stronger Cockpit Doors May Aid Pilots but Also Can Be a Hazard

By ANDY PASZTOR, D AN MICHAELS, LAURA J OHANNES, BILL BULKELEY , JOHN HECHINGER and B ARBARA CARTON
Staff Reporters of T HE WALL STREET J OURNAL

The grisly situation faced by the crews of the four hijacked jetliners has prompted regulators to draft rules restricting access to cockpits and establishing more-stringent procedures for when pilots will be permitted to leave the controls, according to industry officials.

Changes under discussion between carriers, pilot unions and the Federal Aviation Administration, some of which are expected to be phased in within the next few days, include tightening so-called sterile cockpit requirements in order to prohibit even flight attendants from coming inside except in strictly limited instances.

The proposals also call for taking away from flight attendants keys that can be used to open cockpit doors from the outside during flights, these officials said. Some knife-wielding hijackers are believed to have lured out pilots by attacking or threatening to harm attendants or passengers. In addition, airlines and the agency are working to develop more-specific and rigid procedures -- and to make sure crews understand and follow them -- calling for pilots to stay in the cockpit despite any violence, hijacking threats or even murders in the cabin.

Earlier rules in this area "were allowed to degenerate into misuse" and generally weren't stressed in training or procedural manuals, according to one veteran industry official.

Longer term, the FAA is moving toward mandating installation of improved, more-rugged cockpit doors developed by Boeing Co. years ago. Those enhanced designs were never implemented, but Tuesday's carnage has suddenly made them a top regulatory and safety priority, these officials said. An FAA spokeswoman couldn't be reached for comment.

Some of the initiatives spotlight a basic quandary the industry has confronted in trying to strengthen the security of cockpits: Low-tech changes could help keep intruders from seizing the controls, but they also threaten to trap pilots inside and pose structural hazards in other types of emergencies.

Stronger cockpit doors with sturdier internal-locking devices, perhaps combined with video cameras and stricter procedures about when pilots can open them, presumably would help prevent future hijackers from gaining access to cockpits.

But such initiatives, which have been debated inconclusively for years, have the downside of potentially hampering crew evacuations in case of a survivable crash. One reason the doors aren't stronger is that in case of an emergency landing or other accident, pilots have to be able to kick or break through them to escape.

Moreover, making the doors practically impregnable poses hazards in the event a hole in the fuselage prompts a rapid loss of pressure. Unless air can circulate freely inside the entire cabin, safety experts say, the result could be the buildup of excess pressure at certain points, structural damage and possibly even a violent rupture of the bulkhead near the cockpit.

"It's a real dilemma," says Jack Hessburg, a retired Boeing executive who helped in the design of the company's flagship 777 jetliner. Making the door tough enough to withstand assault while preventing explosive decompression "are mutually exclusive goals, and there simply aren't any good answers," he says. Boeing's proposed design is intended to better meet both goals.

Many of the current cockpit safeguards are rudimentary. On some aircraft, flight attendants have keys and the captain sets up procedures before takeoff about how and when they will be used. In other cases, the preflight crew briefing includes agreement on a secret "code" attendants will use when requesting access to the cockpit. "Flight crews have long joked about the door as really no more than a cosmetic barrier" to a determined hijacker, one veteran United Airlines pilot says.

From grilling passengers on the purpose of their trip to placing armed, plain-clothes sky marshals on flights, foreign airlines have been ahead of their U.S. counterparts in trying to deter terrorists. Some also have embraced tougher door designs and locks, and years ago set up rules under which nobody could gain access to the cockpit without the flight crew actually opening the door. "It's no coincidence [the terrorists] chose domestic flights," said Frank Taylor, director of the Aviation Safety Center at Britain's Cranfield University.

The last time the International Civil Aviation Organization addressed security issues on a large scale was after the terrorist bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. Countries were required to phase in safety measures on international flights, including electronic screening of baggage and matching of all bags with passengers. Some of the steps adopted then have only recently been fully implemented.

The decision to employ plain-clothed sky marshals -- used by Israel's El Al, Swissair and other carriers -- is up to individual countries and airlines. On international flights, the countries at both ends of the flight must agree on procedures for having armed personnel aboard a plane, but using sky marshals "works very well," according to an ICAO spokesman.

Pilots sometimes feel it is their role to leave the cockpit to try to defuse a tense situation in the cabin or handle a hostage emergency. But after Tuesday's events, "it's a whole new ballgame" and those standards may be out the window, Mr. Taylor says.

Write to Andy Pasztor at andy.pasztor@dowjones.com , Dan Michaels at dan.michaels@dowjones.com , Laura Johannes at laura.johannes@dowjones.com , Bill Bulkeley at bill.bulkeley@dowjones.com , John Hechinger at john.hechinger@dowjones.com and Barbara Carton at barbara.carton@dowjones.com