Flying grows ever safer but more questions raised about evaluation of pilots

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Flying is safer than ever before, yet in this era of locked cockpit doors and pilot screening, authorities said yesterday that a single aviator was able to deliberately crash a commercial airliner in the French Alps.

The disaster has raised questions about how pilots are evaluated and how airlines can be sure that such a horrifying event won't recur.

Aviation security experts say what unfolded on Germanwings Flight 9525 could not have happened on a United States airliner because of strict security procedures adopted in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Cockpit doors were strengthened, and airlines now lock them at all times, with most doors requiring security codes known only to a handful of people on board. And US pilots cannot be left alone in the cockpit - the fatal error that investigators say doomed the Germanwings flight.

"It's just a common-sense issue," said aviation security expert Glenn Winn. "If you have a two-person cockpit, you don't leave [one of] them alone up there."

While high-profile disasters such as the crash of Flight 9525 and the disappearance last year of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 draw frenzied media coverage, flying has, in reality, never been safer.

The era of planes going down because of engine failure, wind shear or midair collision has given way to state-of-the-art technology and vastly improved radar networks.

The grim story told by investigators probing this latest crash seems to fit a pattern for recent air disasters: The causes have been unusual, possibly unprecedented, making them hard to predict and tough to prevent.

Flying carries inherent risk, and some of the danger does emanate from the cockpit. Safety advocates and transport officials usually worry about pilot fatigue and distractions. But pilots almost never intentionally crash their planes, experts say.

"To do that in an airliner is just pretty darn rare," said Robert Benzon, who spent 27 years as a National Transportation Safety Board lead crash investigator. "You could tweak a database on suicide, and you'd get a lot of little planes. But airliners, not much would pop up at all."

If this crash is confirmed as deliberate, Benzon said it would be just the third suicide by airliner in memory, not counting the four planes hijacked by terrorists on September 11, 2001.

Flight 370's disappearance points to pilot action but that remains an unconfirmed theory.