All planes with 50 or more passengers operating in Australia will be required to have two people in the cockpit at all times due to a new rule implemented following the downing of Germanwings flight 4U9525 earlier this month.
“Australia will move immediately to adjust their flight operation procedures to ensure that there are always two people on the flight deck,” deputy prime minister Warren Truss announced on Monday.
“That means that one of the flight attendants would come and sit in the cockpit if one of the pilots needed to leave the flight deck for any reason.”
The arrangement will apply to larger propellor-driven aircraft and jet aircraft with 50 or more passengers operating under Australian air certificates.
“The airlines will be acting immediately to implement this change and we’d expect to see this policy in place within hours on our major airlines,” Truss said during the lunchtime press conference.
The announcement comes after the co-pilot of the Germanwings flight, Andreas Lubitz, locked his more senior colleague out of the cockpit before apparently deliberately flying it into a mountainside in France last week, killing all 150 people on board.
Two Australians – Carol Friday and her son Greig – were among the dead.
“We certainly need to be sure that we’re taking every possible step to make sure there isn’t an incident of this nature in Australia and that global aviation is as safe as possible,” Truss said.
Pilots will remain in charge of deciding who will be in the flight deck when either the pilot or co-pilot is not there.
The policy will be reviewed after 12 months to see if it is effective.
Qantas has released a statement saying it will comply with the new rules.
“When one pilot needs to leave the cockpit for any reason, another authorised person will occupy the jump seat (as distinct from the control seats occupied by the captain and first officer) until they return,” the statement said.
Virgin Australia has also released a statement saying it will support the changes.
Other airlines have also similarly introduced the “rule of two” following the Germanwings tragedy.
Truss said the government will continue working with the aviation sector to review how medical checks on flight crew are conducted.
“Australian pilots are subject to annual medical reviews and that includes a psychiatric assessment. If at any time there are concerns about the mental health of any pilot or co-pilot there are procedures in place to ensure that there is a medical intervention and those people are not placed in command of aircraft,” he said.
“There is a need to balance the fact that people with proper treatment can recover from mental illness and be able to undertake normal careers with the critical priority of ensuring that aircraft are always safe,” he said.
“So this is a challenging issue for airlines and indeed for that matter for other employers, to be fair to their employees who have mental health issues but at the time ensuring that those mental health issues do not in fact put at risk the lives of other Australians.”
