Hacker News Reader

Comment by stuff4ben | Hacker News Reader

Why was he in the cockpit? I thought non-flight crew (attendants and pilots) were given regular passenger seats?

It depends.

> In airplanes, jump seats—which are officially termed auxiliary crew stations—can be located in the flight deck. In cockpits, jump seats are provided for individuals who are not operating the aircraft. These might include trainee pilots, off-duty crew members in transition to another airport (see deadheading), government officials (such as Federal Aviation Administration staff), or airline staff.

> Some airplanes do not have jump seats in the cockpit, while others have one or two.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jump_seat

Pilots need to be allowed in the cockpit during flight, for very obvious reasons. The fact that he was off-duty doesn't really change the security calculation. It might as well have been an on-duty pilot that had pulled this stunt.

I am just grateful that it didn't turn into a disaster.

If the pilot and copilot are in the cockpit, and a third off-duty pilot is traveling, what is the "very obvious" reason he needs to be in the cockpit?

Makes life easier if one of the pilots needs to visit the loo or eat something, as long as the third pilot is type rated. And besides that, it can also be useful in the case of a serious incident to have a third capable person at hand to run checklists, communicate with engineering, navigation or whatever else.

It's not obvious that he needs to be in the cockpit, rather it's obvious that there is no security threat to allowing a pilot to occupy the jump seat. The trust they're given to fly the plane is a superset of the trust required to be in the cockpit at all.

In addition to training etc, yes there are positives to having a certificated third person for "crew resource management". They are expected to observe and speak up if the PIC and SIC miss something, and to help in an emergency. In UA232 for example, a third pilot was instrumental in saving lives; it took six hands to make the airport.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232

That's a helluva read.

I recommend watching the Blancolirio channel on YouTube, Juan is a 777 pilot and has I think hundreds of episodes on crashes and near crashes that have occurred. Third pilots have saved countless lives.

The insane thing about the Lion Air Flight 610 crash is in the same plane a day before it was avoided because the 3rd pilot who didn't have to follow any particular checklist realized there was a trim stabilizer issue and had the pilots turn it off.

Now, I have no idea why that plane flew again the next day at all. But it did with two pilots and all 189 aboard were killed.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/20/asia/lion-air-third-pilot-int...

BlandDuck said the pilot needs to be allowed to be in the cockpit, not that the pilot needed to be in the cockpit

Airlines need to move pilots without planes from place to place and can't always get them a regular cabin seat so it's clear sometimes they'll need to be in one of the jump seats. Most of those in the main cabin are already dedicated to flight attendants so it's just down to the cockpit jump seat. As pilots they're already in the ultimate position if they wanted to do anything malicious with a plane so it's not really an additional security problem to have them up there.

Commuting pilots will often sit in the flight deck if there is no room in the back.

This is the reason. The airlines do it so they don't lose a revenue seat in the passenger area. Allowing the deadheading crew to ride in the jumpseats (which never earn revenue) they can still sell all their passenger seats.

And this flight was probably completely or almost completely full.

Based on airline, cities, and time, you can guess this is Alaska Airlines flight 2059. From there, it's easy to confirm it was diverted to Portland. Both these sites show it was diverted to Portland yesterday:

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/as2059

https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/ASA2059

So, it is an Embraer 175. The airline and SeatGuru have seat maps:

https://www.alaskaair.com/content/travel-info/our-aircraft/e...

https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Alaska_Airlines/Alaska_Air...

Those only show 76 passenger seats, so the numbers don't quite add up, but the point is it's a smaller passenger jet.

Tangent: why don't the numbers add up? Could be they reconfigured the seats and added a row. Could be reported wrong. Could be children under 2 who don't require a seat. (See https://www.alaskaair.com/content/travel-info/policies/trave... .)

It's common to have a few lap infants in the plane, so you could have 76 passengers, 3 lap infants, 4 crew, 1 crazy jumpseater. We often fly with 80+ people on board.

Source: I am a E175 pilot.

Often off-duty pilots get some seat in the cockpit. I guess if they’re moving around for the company they can get an actual seat (edit: not so here, says they were en route to work for the airline, but maybe if you’re “commuting” from home it’s different). Not sure how it works if they just want to fly somewhere for free (would they just have to go in uniform or verboten in any way in the cockpit like that?)

Other than the safety issue, if this person causes that program to end, every pilot is going to have it out for them even moreso (but hard to imagine it being any worse than it is).

If this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Express_Flight_705 didn't end deadheading, this event won't. Whether the airlines are looking for an excuse to end deadheading I don't know.

I doubt they’re trying to end deadheading as a whole (no idea about putting deadheaders in jump seats - though I assume not since those are non-revenue seats). If the airlines think there’s a pilot shortage now, just wait until they can only hire pilots from operational hubs. Deadheading is an essential part of getting pilots and attendants to where they’re supposed to be at the start of their work days.

> just wait until they can only hire pilots from operational hubs.

Doubly not going to be happy if they have to live in bases in California and pay income taxes there instead of commuting in from no-income-tax states like Washington.

Can deadhead in a regular seat on a passenger plane. Invite them in if needed only. Airlines won’t like the loss of a revenue seat.

The doors&locks are really good now. So good you can even lock out your co-pilot while they stop in the bathroom… (an argument in favour of having a 3rd deadheading pilot next to the others)

From that link:

In response to the incident and the circumstances of the co-pilot's involvement, aviation authorities in some countries implemented new regulations that require the presence of two authorised personnel in the cockpit at all times.

So if a pilot has to visit the lavatory, a flight attendant or some other qualified person has to replace the pilot on the flight deck (not in actual duty of course, just not leaving a single person alone there).

I was looking for the page on deadheading which was linked from your page and usefully gives a list of when deadheads have been helpful and when they gave been malicious: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadheading_(employee).

It's hard to see a policy solution for this: if you're an authorized passenger for that seat you'd also be eligible to fly a plane and wreck it when you're not a passenger. There's no material reduction in risk (other than in this isolated instance) to the change.

More importantly, if you have at least the chance of catching someone like this (assuming it's all correct) when they're in the jump seat vs in the pilot's seat, it reduces risk slightly.

From the article

> Alaska Airlines said the off-duty pilot was sitting in the flight deck jump seat -- which is in the cockpit

Reply on news.ycombinator.com