The Federal Aviation Administration announced Wednesday that all new commercial passenger aircraft will be required to have secondary cockpit barriers, an addition designed to prevent intruders from entering the flight deck when the cockpit door is opened.
The FAA required that cockpit doors be heavily fortified in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The announcement marks the end of an effort that has taken decades, in part, because airline worker unions, airlines and aircraft manufacturers disagreed on how such a change should be implemented and whether barriers should be required on all passenger aircraft or only newly manufactured planes.
“Every day, pilots and flight crews transport millions of Americans safely — and today we are taking another important step to make sure they have the physical protections they deserve,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement. “We are hoping the airlines will work to beat this deadline,” she said. “They know the requirements, they know the technical specifications. If they are taking a plan for delivery right now, there is no reason it should not come with a secondary barrier.”Congress mandated that secondary barriers be installed in certain newly manufactured passenger aircraft as part of a 2018 measure to fund the FAA. In 2021, the Biden administration listed the requirement as one of its rulemaking priorities.
A rise in the number of unruly passenger incidents in recent years, including instances in which travelers have tried to enter the cockpit, has underscored the need for the additional barrier, advocates say. Afteron an American Airlines flight from Jacksonville to Washington, the FAA reiterated it was working to make secondary barriers a requirement.
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