It’s not quite true that every attacker has been thwarted.
There have been a few cases where the pilot waited for the co-pilot to use the restroom, locked them out of the cockpit with the post-9/11 door, then intentionally crashed the plane.
All of these incidents were overseas. One was confirmed, and one or two more are suspected cases of pilot suicide.
>It’s not quite true that every attacker has been thwarted.
When passengers have been able to intervene, they have defended their airplane 100% of the time.
When passengers have been prevented by regulatory means from defending themselves, they have failed to defend against a "trusted" figure turned attacker 100% of the time.
Sometimes the correct approach really is to do nothing.
Somewhat amazing that our solution to "idiot bum-rushing the cockpit and crashing the airplane" was to make it completely impossible to storm the cockpit in the circumstance where the idiot who wants to murder everyone is the pilot. Flawless logic, FAA.
That would be why the FAA has a rule that there must always be at least two people in the cockpit if the door is closed. In the US when a pilot needs the rest room a flight attended will take the pilots place (and usually leave the door open while watching it at that).
As the other person commented: instances of pilot suicides like this occurred outside the US, not under FAA justification.
There have been a few cases where the pilot waited for the co-pilot to use the restroom, locked them out of the cockpit with the post-9/11 door, then intentionally crashed the plane.
All of these incidents were overseas. One was confirmed, and one or two more are suspected cases of pilot suicide.