A fairly innocuous title for a potentially horrendous event. An event prevented by an almost improbable series of actions. A horrendous event that would have been but the latest in a string of horrors made possible by the very actions taken to prevent another 9/11. Normally, I’d be on the 48-hour rule, but there is enough out there confirmed for some preliminary thoughts.
By now the basics are known. The first officer attacked the captain/pilot with a bladed weapon (still some debate on exactly what was used) in a bid to take over the plane and take it down. The pilot managed to get away from the first officer long enough to open the cockpit door before collapsing. That one action made every positive event and action possible.
As soon as the door was opened, passengers and crew could get inside the cockpit and take action. As it was, an Israeli passenger put the first officer in a choke-hold to incapacitate, then managed — despite NOT being a pilot — to pull the plane out of the dive (spiraling dive?) in progress. This stabilized the flight and allowed pilots onboard (apparently as passengers) to take over and get the plane on the ground.
That any of this happened is a miracle. The pilot got the door opened before collapsing. Passenger without training took out the nutbag and got the plane out of the dive without breaking the plane apart or otherwise causing problems — apparently a perfect pull-out under the circumstances. The plane did not break apart, which by all rights it should have given it exceeded max speed by at least a hundred knots (and possibly dynamics in more than one dimension). Add to that the fact that the plane lost most or all of its rudder before nutjob got taken out making it extremely difficult to fly (cough, understatement, cough).
Just looking at what video and information has come out, as I noted on X yesterday, I shudder at the damage that is not visible. The wings should have come off, or buckled at the least, during the dive. The airframe was stressed at every joint and in every dimension well beyond design limits. Rudder control would have been rudimentary at best with that much gone, requiring the pilots who got her down to use the engines to help with turns (no confirmation yet, but willing to bet).
That it stayed together, and even kept cabin pressure despite all, is yet another miracle among many. If it had lost cabin pressure, the masks would have dropped. They didn’t, so despite the enormous stresses on the structure, that integrity remained. I don’t know how much of the investigation/evaluation we will get, but I would love to see the structural analysis on this airframe.
That’s about all I’m willing to say at this time. I will note that others have done some interesting lists of “disasters” aka terrorist attacks (and I do include any potential suicides on a grand scale as such) caused by the inability of anyone to get to the cockpit in time. I will also note that this possibility was brought up and overridden during the time that the decision was made to fully secure the cockpits. It is a two-edged sword and it was decided (based primarily on American/Western pilots IMBO) that the odds of flight crew doing something bad was minor in comparison to external actors. That’s all I will say on the record.
So many not-so-minor miracles to make one big one. Let’s see what comes out in the days ahead as I suspect parts of this story may get even larger. Will try to address Vladimir’s latest nuclear sabre rattling tomorrow.
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