the secondary barrier is the dumbest thing ALPA has ever lobbied for

 

no that would be either age 65 or IRCDs on cargo planes.

 

Why? It's cheap insurance.

....

 

Full EICAS on all MAX planes needs to be made a standard. The stone ages are over, Boeing needs to get on board and SWA needs to follow suit. No more "Jedi mind trick" BS.

 

I've heard this before. Got a link? For the new type rating thing, as opposed to 1 day sim and 1 day ground school?

 

Not happening. The MAX 8 and 9 have already been certified and currently flying as they are.

Sad thing is the MAX issues completely overshadowed the pilot actions, especially in the Ethiopian crash. Once they reengaged the stab trim cutout switches, the CA tried the AP on and obviously it didn't work because he was pulling the yoke about half way back to keep the plane nose up when MCAS was firing down. So desperate was he to engage the AP again, he completely let go of the yoke pressure and then pushed for AP on. The airplane literally nose dove at that point into the ground.

 

It’s millions of dollars in modifications to chase a near nonexistent threat. It’s as dumb as all the money poured into the FFDO program. You can call it cheap insurance, but when you’re insuring against things that don’t happen, it’s just waste.

 

It's nothing like millions for a new-build airplane. It also would not be millions to retro-fit, although that would cost more than new build.

Common gross conceptual error for non-military folks is the thinking that any defense with less than 100% efficacy is a waste of money.

It's not. The opposition (including terrorist groups with the means to attempt a 9/11 style hijacking) always considers risks and obstacles... they do not like to throw hail mary's because failure is bad press, and tends to de-motivate their funding sources. So throw enough partially effective obstacles in their way and sum total of that is enough to severely discourage them. No fly lists, agressive counter-terror on the part of intel/law enforcement, TSA, improved procedures, FFDO, barriers... it all adds up to a lot of swiss cheese with few holes. Barriers are VERY high efficacy for actually very low cost... compared to all of the other mitigations I mentioned

 

are you saying nothing happened on 9-11-2001?

Do you also believe Sandy Hook was a hoax?

 

Look at literally every attempt at breaching the cockpit since then.

It always ends in some idiot getting duct taped to their seat at best and beaten to death (SWA) at worst. It’s a different environment. Pax will not sit there.

I won’t go as far as to say the threat is non-existent but I would say current safety measures do a great job with mitigation. I wouldn’t mind seeing it tacked on to new design aircraft but I don’t see a need to have it retrofitted.