It was between June 15 and 16, 2016. At the Marriott hotel in the German city of Colonia, more than 150 representatives of airlines, aerial regulators, doctors and members of pilot associations and cabin crew associations were locked. They traced an emergency action plan, although debated for a year, with which to strengthen safety in air transport. It was about preventing an accident repeated, which occurred a black March 24, 2015 and from which ten years have passed. That tragedy, on the Barcelona-Dusseldorf route. It was one of those events that change the course of aviation, as they did before, in March 1977 in Tenerife (583 dead), or the attack of the Twin Towers of New York, in September 2001.
At that air security summit, the 27 -year -old suicide action was thoroughly studied, which voluntarily crashed the aircraft against a mountain. A risk map was defined, and a series of recommendations arose, subsequently converted into a standard, to prevent a crack from the emotional stability of any person responsible for a flight, however small, it would suppose a risk in the air.
From that Hotel de Colonia, a few meters from the headquarters of the European Air Safety Agency (EASA for its acronym in English), some relevant change came out such as the mandatory presence of a minimum of two people in the pilot cabin before the possibility, after 11-S, to block the door and prevent access from outside. If a pilot comes out, as usual on a flight of several hours, enters the surcharge or any other crew to accompany the other pilot. Staff control measures were also forged, including random alcohol and psychoactive tests, even made to foreign airline personnel traveling to the European Union. And a third package related to the certification of the state of crews and the establishment of permanent psychological support programs in each of the companies.
Ten years later, explains the deputy director of the Technical Department Ángel González, “more depth psychological tests are performed when someone wants to take the flight license, sign for an airline or change company.” González, a pilot by profession, states that “flying is now safer, so it was learned from Germanwings’s accident.” It even urged the supervision of medical personnel that examines those who put themselves at the controls of an aircraft; Health procedures were improved, and the role of aeronautical authorities on security risk management was reviewed.
Before the community of experts gathered in Colonia, the Deputy Director of Creculations and Medical Department of the EASA, Chaouki Chabbi, said that “no action alone is 100% efficient. And each action is a step towards a safer system.” An argument that makes the representative of Sepla: “Security on the plane is protocol and redundancy. There is no more secure mode of transport because there are two pilots, three in long distance operations, formed and attentive to what the partner does.” For this reason, the Spanish collective rebels before any temptation to reduce the mandatory ratio of technical staff in cabin: “The first is security. We pass because artificial intelligence can function as a complement, but not as the substitute for technical personnel, as analyzed in the industry,” González warns.
The tragic final of the Germanwings A320 plane generated an avalanche of documentation, including the report of the French accident investigation agency (Bea by its acronym in French); Dozens of flight personnel surveys throughout the continent and regulatory changes over the following years. If it had been concluded that the collision of the plane was due to the deliberate and planned action of the co -pilot, when he was alone and locked in his own will in the command cabin, it was now to prevent.
After knowing that he had hidden from his airline the results of several consultations with psychologists, and even his low situation, the melon of medical confidentiality and its impact was opened, as in this case, in public safety. , in which the College of Physicians of Barcelona participated, a greater visibility for airlines on psychological reports was granted when the doctor estimates it necessary because it is absolutely urgent. There the limits of the secret between doctor and patient were reduced at exceptional times.
The work of the BEA also emerged a sad reality that could harass the co -pilot Lubitz: the possible concealment of medical problems, by the crew, for the fear of losing the flight license and, with it, the work. Given this, the entire air sector was urged to take measures that will avoid this fear, and now unions and workers want to trust the application of what they call “fair culture”, which is nothing more than the preservation of the position before a decline. Otherwise, there is a risk of hiding situations as usual as an anxiety or depression crisis.
The executive director of the EASA, Patrick Ky, said at the exit of the decisive encounter in Colonia that “Europe had introduced the appropriate tools to safeguard the mental aptitude of crews.”
