Vietnam has implemented the "2 people in the cockpit" principle since 2005.

Director Lai Xuan Thanh said he would require airlines to strictly monitor their pilots and immediately implement the "2 people in the cockpit" principle.

Mr. Le Truong Giang - spokesman of Vietnam Airlines said that the regulations on pilots and the number of people always present in the cockpit are included in VNA's Flight Operation Manual approved by the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam since 2005.

According to this document, before any pilot leaves the cockpit for any reason, a flight attendant must be called in and that flight attendant must remain in the cockpit until the pilot returns."

VNA has implemented the "2 people in the cockpit" principle since 2005 (Illustration photo)

On the side of the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam, Director Lai Xuan Thanh said that he will require airlines to strictly monitor their pilots and immediately implement the "2 people in the cockpit" principle to strengthen aviation security solutions.

This tightening regulation was introduced after the tragic accident of the Germanwings airline on March 24, the initial cause of which was determined to be the extreme intervention of the co-pilot. Through analysis of the black box of flight 4U9525, it was shown that the co-pilot "intentionally" disabled the door locking system from inside the cockpit to carry out extreme interventions when the captain was not present, meaning that in this case, there was no one supervising, so the co-pilot easily took advantage of the situation to carry out the act.

“The immediate solution is that the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam will require airlines to strengthen internal security supervision of their pilots.

In the long term, the Department will review the system of legal documents to supplement security measures, specifically solutions related to situations such as the German plane incident," said Director Lai Xuan Thanh.

Affirming that there is currently no regulation requiring reporting of pilot supervision at the Flight Crew of airlines to the Department, Director Lai Xuan Thanh said that the regulation requires airlines to carry out internal security work, including background checks and monitoring to detect abnormalities in the pilot team.

“The problem here is that if we add another pilot to the cockpit right now (a total of three pilots on the flight) just to replace them when they leave, it will be very difficult to apply. Because it not only increases the number of people on the flight but also increases the cost, so we are studying a similar situation where we can assign the task to the chief flight attendant.

There is an extra seat inside the cockpit. If a flight attendant is brought into the cockpit, the two-person principle can still be followed without affecting the pilot's flight operations. The Department will study this direction to implement with the airlines," Director Lai Xuan Thanh emphasized.

Also after the recent terrible accident, the co-pilot took advantage of this latch to lock the door and commit extreme acts inside the cockpit, causing many people to question whether it is necessary to have a latch or not? However, Director Lai Xuan Thanh said that currently, aviation authorities in all countries do not consider this latch but only strengthen solutions to overcome its limitations with the principle of "2 people in the cockpit".

After the terrorist attacks in the US on September 11, 2001, to prevent intrusion from the outside, there was an additional latch in the pilot's cockpit. The code to open the cockpit door was known only to the pilot and the chief flight attendant./.

According to Vov.vn