WE USED to assume that hijackers want to negotiate. Now we know that some are
ready to end their own lives in order to turn an aircraft into a fuel-laden,
200-tonne guided missile that will kill thousands. But is there anything
aviation engineers can do to thwart suicidal hijackers once they have managed to
board a plane?
One strategy is simply to keep them out of the cockpit. “Having a locked,
reinforced cockpit door is a valid idea airlines have explored in the past,”
says David Villupillai, spokesman for Airbus in Toulouse. In the US, the
influential Air Line Pilots…
