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Beyond The Cockpit Door: Why Aviation Security Must Pivot To Cyber, Supply Chains, And Zero Trust
American Thinker ^ | 2 Oct, 2026 | Arik Arad

Posted on 10/02/2026 5:38:41 AM PDT by MtnClimber

The recent terrifying crisis aboard Flydubai Flight FZ 1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv serves as a stark warning to the global security community: Commercial aviation remains a prime target, and the nature of the threat is rapidly shifting.

During the flight, a violent struggle erupted inside the cockpit, sending the aircraft into a sudden, steep descent from 17,000 feet and triggering emergency distress codes. A horrific disaster was averted only because of the immediate, decisive intervention of the remaining crew and vigilant passengers on board, who managed to overpower the individual and stabilize the aircraft before an emergency diversion to Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.

While we can breathe a sigh of relief for the lives saved, security professionals must look beyond the immediate heroism. This incident highlights a systemic, evolving vulnerability that the aviation industry can no longer afford to ignore.

The Historic Reality of the Insider Threat

When post-9/11 security overhauls were implemented worldwide, the primary focus was on hardened cockpit doors and thorough passenger screening at checkpoints. The underlying assumption was that the primary threat would always come from the passenger cabin. Yet, history tells a far more complicated story. The threat behind the flight deck door, the insider threat, has repeatedly brought commercial airliners to the brink of catastrophe:

- Federal Express Flight 705 (1994): Auburn Calloway, an off-duty FedEx flight engineer facing termination, boarded a DC-10 carrying heavy weapons hidden in a guitar case. Intending to crash the plane and stage it as an accident, Calloway severely injured the flight crew. Despite sustaining massive trauma, the pilots fought back, neutralized Calloway, and executed an extraordinary landing.

- SilkAir Flight 185 (1997): Investigating authorities concluded that the captain intentionally disabled the flight data recorders and placed the Boeing 737

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: aviationsecurity; flydubai; iran; irgc; oman

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1 posted on 10/02/2026 5:38:41 AM PDT by MtnClimber
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The vulnerability to insider threats is huge. How do protection measures get implemented without crippling the industry?


2 posted on 10/02/2026 5:39:04 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: MtnClimber

In the 60s and 70s and before when we were reading about the super controlled sci-fi future of constant security and monitoring of everything, we all pretty much wondered how it would come about, I bet none of us predicted that Islam would change the world so much and form so much of the changes of the future in advanced and open societies.


3 posted on 10/02/2026 5:46:42 AM PDT by ansel12
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To: MtnClimber

“The vulnerability to insider threats is huge. How do protection measures get implemented without crippling the industry?”

One way, for the newer plans at least, is to have a list of safe airports to land at, and then give ground control the ability to have the aircraft fly itself to one of those airports, while fully disabling the cockpit.

In other words, if you have a Muslim in the cockpit, without weapons, there’s nothing he would be able to do to meet his 43 virgins or whatever.


4 posted on 10/02/2026 5:53:04 AM PDT by BobL (Trusting one's doctor is the #1 health mistake one can make.)
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To: ansel12

I recall in the 1980’s, a fellow graduate student an I were talking about Afghanistan. He cautioned me about becoming complacent about Muslims. It gave me food for thought.

In retrospect, he was exactly correct.


5 posted on 10/02/2026 5:55:04 AM PDT by marktwain (----------------------)
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To: BobL

In one of Isaac Asimov’s science fiction novels, the people in the future wonder how anyone trusted aircraft in the hands of humans, rather than the much safer computerized, robotic control...


6 posted on 10/02/2026 5:56:47 AM PDT by marktwain (----------------------)
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To: T.B. Yoits

Or just pay for sane, sober, moral, and prudent air and ground crews.


7 posted on 10/02/2026 5:58:48 AM PDT by T.B. Yoits
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To: marktwain

“In one of Isaac Asimov’s science fiction novels, the people in the future wonder how anyone trusted aircraft in the hands of humans, rather than the much safer computerized, robotic control...”

It would have to be done in a VERY CAREFUL way. Much easier, and cheaper, to simply keep Muslims out of the cockpit.


8 posted on 10/02/2026 6:02:25 AM PDT by BobL (Trusting one's doctor is the #1 health mistake one can make.)
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To: marktwain
He cautioned me about becoming complacent about Muslims.

About a century ago, the fantasy writer Lord Dunsany wrote a short story about traveling to Sicily (he was Irish) and climbing an ancient tower. At the top of the tower he encountered a ghost who could not rest. It turns out that the ghost was constantly scanning the horizon to make sure the Saracen was not coming.

Dunsany, in the story, comforts the ghost and says that things have changed over the past 500 years. There is peace. The Saracen is not our enemy. The Saracen is not coming. The ghost can rest.

But the ghost shakes his head: "The Saracen is always coming."

9 posted on 10/02/2026 6:02:26 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (Some people want to control their own life, others want to control the lives of others. )
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To: marktwain

For one of the oddly most truthful movies on Islam that you will see since it is sort of a Jeff Chandler Western of 1800 America and it has his girlfriend kidnapped by Muslims on the ocean and it shows Muslims as Americans used to know Islam, which was pretty accurate as a general sense of their world.

On youtube the movie is listed as ‘ACROSS THE BARBARY SEA’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYUeNXpGVjk

The movie is ‘Yankee Pasha’ 1954 and is well rated.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047684/


10 posted on 10/02/2026 6:07:45 AM PDT by ansel12
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To: BobL
Much easier, and cheaper, to simply keep Muslims out of the cockpit.

While I agree that your suggestion is the simplest solution it is not viable when one intends to fly to and from Muslim nations.

If we will not permit Muslim pilots on our planes we are not likely to be welcomed at Muslim airports.

Even if we made such a policy we would likely get the occasional closet convert who infiltrates the cockpit.

11 posted on 10/02/2026 6:12:57 AM PDT by Pontiac (The welfare state must fail because it is contrary to human nature and diminisheRs the human spirit.)
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To: MtnClimber
The Andreas Lubitz precedent may be the most worrying for US aviation, with the maladjusted DEI candidates woke airline CEOs keep inviting into the cockpit.

The next step will be implementing Tesla robotaxi-style remote control of aircraft from the ground, locking out the crew in case of an incident. Which will open up another can of worms over who gets access to the master control center.

12 posted on 10/02/2026 6:14:18 AM PDT by Mr. Jeeves ([CTRL]-[GALT]-[DELETE])
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To: ansel12; All

“I bet none of us predicted...”

TRUE.

GREAT thread. Solutions?


13 posted on 10/02/2026 6:20:13 AM PDT by PGalt (Past Peak Civilization?)
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To: PGalt

I don’t know how to get to the solutions from here, the solutions are about returning to something such as a religious revival, inculcating a strong and powerful awareness and deep knowledge of Western Civilization and also how it must be fought for at ever level in academia, in international diplomacy, on the battlefield and in the neighborhood churches and int the public schools and scouting.

A new awareness of who WE are and how small a piece of the world the West owns (or did), but how do you get there?


14 posted on 10/02/2026 6:31:52 AM PDT by ansel12
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To: ansel12

BUMP!


15 posted on 10/02/2026 6:38:01 AM PDT by PGalt (Past Peak Civilization?)
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To: BobL

How soon we forget...

Germanwings Flight 9525 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Barcelona–El Prat Airport in Spain to Düsseldorf Airport in Germany. The flight was operated by Germanwings, a low-cost carrier owned by the German airline Lufthansa. On 24 March 2015, the Airbus A320 operating the flight crashed 100 km north-west of Nice in the French Alps, killing all 150 people on board.

...muslime suicide pilot

EgyptAir Flight 990 was a scheduled flight from Los Angeles International Airport to Cairo International Airport, with a stop at John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York City. On October 31, 1999, the Boeing 767 operating the route crashed into the Atlantic Ocean about 60 miles (100 km) south of Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, killing all 217 passengers and crew on board, making it the deadliest aviation disaster for EgyptAir.

...muslime suicide pilot


16 posted on 10/02/2026 6:49:09 AM PDT by Z28.310 (Do not conform to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind)
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To: MtnClimber
temporary fix: Commercial aircraft should have a system, located outside the cockpit that allows the craft to be restored to normal flight mode, put into automatic pilot until a threat is eliminated.

Such a system could be activated by flight crew or designated flight attendants outside the cabin or via ground control when conditions arise on the aircraft such as a sudden, sustained dive or other circumstances.
17 posted on 10/02/2026 6:49:34 AM PDT by The Louiswu (USA FIRST...USA FOREVER)
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To: MtnClimber

There is supposed to be an Israeli national security requirement that only pilots from an approved list of countries are permitted to fly into Israel and Oman was not one of them.

How is that requirement enforced on both sides and how did the Omani pilot/hijacker manage to evade being flagged in the first place?


18 posted on 10/02/2026 6:58:15 AM PDT by mac_truck (aide toi et dieu t'aiera)
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To: marktwain
...the people in the future wonder how anyone trusted aircraft in the hands of humans...

I think the same will be said about humans controlling their own cars.
Two-lane hiways with closing speeds of well over 100 mph with human levels of concentration and distraction.

19 posted on 10/02/2026 7:14:48 AM PDT by TangoLimaSierra (To the left, the truth is right-wing violence.)
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To: BobL
and then give ground control the ability to have the aircraft fly itself to one of those airports,

What if the ground controllers are terrorists too?

20 posted on 10/02/2026 7:23:31 AM PDT by libertylover (The HBM (Has Been Media) is almost all AGENDA-DRIVEN and HATE-DRIVEN, not-truth driven)
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