Simviation Forums

Ohhh boy,, a malfunction of the Door

or maybe the Co-Pilot and Pilot were having issues ?

we'll never know the real story other than whats fed to us by the News Media Story Tellers

Pilot Locked out of Cockpit , comments below the news story are even better

LINK : http://www.cbsnews.com/news/plane-makes-emergency-landing-after-pilot-is-locked-out-of-cockpit/



LAS VEGAS - Officials say a Delta Air Lines flight from Minneapolis made an emergency landing in Las Vegas on Thursday with the co-pilot at the controls after the pilot was locked out of the cockpit.

McCarran International Airport spokeswoman Christine Crews says none of the 168 people aboard Delta flight 1651 was injured, and the MD-90 aircraft wasn't damaged.

The plane had been headed for Las Vegas, and it pulled into its regular gate at McCarran on time about 12:30 p.m.

Delta issued a statement saying the situation was not beyond the capabilities of the plane's crew.

"A commercial aircraft can be landed with one pilot at the control and Delta pilots are fully trained to do so if the situation were to occur," the statement said. "The First Officer took control and landed the aircraft safely without incident. The door will be evaluated by Delta maintenance technicians."

Crews says the door malfunctioned, and McDuff says it'll be evaluated by maintenance technicians.

Crews says the emergency was declared 13 minutes before the plane touched down at 12:23 p.m.

Due to my job, knowing exactly how cockpit security doors work and are bypassed from both sides of the door and the manual functions too (and I am not going to be the one who puts it on the Internet) I am smelling a whiff of BS here. I may be wrong, as I don't know the specifics of the MD, and as Jetranger says "we'll never know the real story other than whats fed to us by the News Media Story Tellers", but all is not in the story....

Matt

Heres some Video and more newsy story telling on the issue

http://www.jrn.com/ktnv/news/Passengers-recall-emergency-landing-with-pilot-locked-outside-cockpit-290300651.html

Having installed quite a few of these doors on Northwest Airlines A-320's and DC-9's I can only speculate about what happened. The NBC Evening News just came on and said that a mechanic was on board but without tools and only plastic silverware to work with there was nothing he could do. Personally I think the whole deal is sort of funny. The co-pilot had it completely under control and did exactly what he was trained to do while all the non aviation types in the pax compartment were shi__ng bricks. I'll bet the pilot is taking a hell of a ribbing from his fellow Captains right now.