its really staggering how all of this would have been avoided if the airlines simply built these planes to have a little toilet in the cockpit.
.... the room needed to build a seperate compartment for this would have only needed to be no bigger than a simple porta potty that you find anywhere.... all those lives lost and ridiculous protocols with things like drink cart barricades just because the airlines couldnt come out of their pocket to redesign these planes with one extra toilet...
The trouble is you are now designing a system to cater for a suicidal pilot... which rather admits there could be such individuals out there & this causes further grievance/aggravation (in form of bureaucracy/extra security checks etc) to the men & women upfront entrusted with your lives who are already over worked/stressed working long duty hours as it is. Plus cost is the primary driving factor with the LCC (low cost carriers) business model that the likes of German Wings,Southwest (in US), Ryanair , Easy jet etc operate. An extra toilet = less sardines packed in a shiny aluminium profit driven tube = less £££/$$$ you get the point.
I just don't see how you can "fix" the problem of a pilot wanting to down a plane. Sure, you could bring in measures to make this particular situation less likely, but what is to stop a pilot in control of the aircraft stuffing it into a row of houses (or the airport terminal) on descent. Just like posts in here reference there have already been a few documented incidents of pilot suicides in the air which have taken the lives of many passengers. This is the first Western one that I am aware of. Equally there have been a number of cases of both young and middle-aged pilots taking their own lives on their own, either on the ground or airborne and solo. In an average population, suicide does happen regularly. It is inevitable that the same risk applies to the pilot profession.
Naturally the industry will now be faced with the usual call for "something" to be done. But what?
Eventually this is a matter of trust which we have to have in people. A train driver, bus driver, surgeon, ship captain, the list goes on forever of people who individually hold our lives in their hands. Even with an extra member of staff on the flight deck an a/c can be crashed on purpose in moments.
Who is going to prevent the FO or Captain suddenly stamping sudden full rudder at M0.81 at FL380 & inducing rapid descent with crazy bank angle pulling all sorts of negative G's?
Is a flight attendant going to stop him switching off the flight control computers and applying full forward side stick?

Of course, the answer is no. Sad business really....Its fukked up that there is no crystal clear concise way of mitigating this out come COMPLETELY. Also latest rumours suggest he had a problem with Depression, apparently my man took a break during commercial flight training due to stress/depression/ lack of pusssyy woes.
FYI (to the non aviators) : A considerable issue is that if a pilot goes to the company and says he is stressed or depressed or suffering any diminished mental capacity, he is usually taken off line and a black mark put against his name. Even if the condition is a passing one (e.g. due to a divorce, death in the family, financial woes), the pilot will still be earmarked as 'one to watch'. This in itself would mean that the system is operating as it is supposed to, but unfortunately any real or perceived reduction in a pilots capacity to handle stress will haunt his CV forever. Medical departments know what is at stake and err on the side of caution in most cases.
Couple this with the fact that there are no loss of licence policies that cover diminished mental capacity/mental illness, and coming forward to say you think you have a problem is as good as tearing up your pay check and kissing your career goodbye.
