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Comment by atonse | Hacker News Reader

In the US at least, the cockpit door is locked from the inside.

What happens in this situation if they can’t open it?

I think in the US at least they block the cockpit door with a food cart while the pilot goes to the bathroom. Maybe they leave it unlocked then?

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The door being blocked additionally by a food cart may be an additional security step. Some airlines treat having the flight crew needing a bathroom break very seriously when the cockpit has to be opened in flight (ex sending passengers back to seats if they try to go to the front bathrooms, closing curtains, lead staff up front on standby, etc).

Here's the cockpit locking system on Airbuses, for what it's worth as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROIH3KCEIvs

There is a button that sounds a 'request' chime, and a code that when entered starts a timer and alarm that once stops, releases the door momentarily for an emergency entry. The crew inside can still disable that unlock, if they are conscious (and this is some kind of attempted hijacking with knowledge of the code).

They should have a normal code and a distress code.

The article suggests that this is the case

In the US (and other countries) the door is locked but there is a PIN to open it that the cabin crew have access to. Even then, there's a time delay to the door opening, during which people in the cockpit are notified and can reject the request.

That means that no food cart should ever be needed to block the door. But the cockpit should never be totally empty anyway, as surely only one of the two crew should be using the toilet at a time.

(Note: I'm not a pilot, just a reader of Admiral Cloudberg's blog.)

Why isn’t there just a shitter in the cockpit behind the cockpit door?

Space is a premium. They already don't have room for the ones they've got. Can't afford the space for another one that only two people can use.

I think it’s more likely that the designs are basically frozen. Surely USG could regulate this into existence for safety. They didn't seem to mind a much larger impact for spinning up the TSA.

It doesn't really solve the underlying issue. On long-duration flights, pilots have to rotate who is in the cockpit and who is in crew rest. They receive food and beverage service from flight attendants entering the cockpit. On very rare occasions, they are asked to enter the cabin and examine some part of the plane to determine if something is an emergency or not. Mantraps are perhaps a future requirement for cleansheet designs, but even that seems unlikely to me.

Israel has had mantraps for decades.

Why do we even have that lever?

The captain or co-pilot whoever is outside, has the code to open it

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