article_snippet: , America's president pilots our ship of state as a captain pilots a jumbo jet, and this analogy suggests one possible way to avoid a repeat of the Germanwings massacre: Give the plane's flight crew certain powers akin to those given to America's Cabinet in the rare and terrifying situation when the president and vice president are at swords' point.
article_snippet: Both presidents and plane captains are human, and subject to all the frailties of humans, from temporary disabilities created by bathroom breaks (for pilots) and scheduled surgeries (for presidents) to sudden death.
article_snippet: Transitions in both the Oval Office and the cockpit should be made as smooth as possible.
article_snippet: The obvious aviation analogy here is the second pilot in the cockpit.
article_snippet: In case of sudden death, the vice president or co-pilot simply takes over immediately.
article_snippet: On a jumbo jet, a co-pilot may likewise take over in certain situations.
article_snippet: (Some airlines get around the problem with a rule that a flight attendant must replace a pilot so that there will always be at least two people in the cockpit.)
article_snippet: But suppose instead that airlines were to borrow sensibly a page from America's Constitution.
article_snippet: And just as America's Cabinet officers are well-positioned to decide any dispute between a president and vice president wrestling over the key to the Oval Office, so too with an airplane's crew:  
article_snippet: But giving the crew a collective key brings more human minds into the equation -- as does the 25th Amendment's rule empowering Cabinet to resolve certain terrifying disputes at the highest level of executive power.
article_snippet: On planes, as in a constitutional democracy, there is often safety in numbers.
highlights_snippet: Akhil Amar: Airlines could learn from system used in U.S. Constitution to replace disabled president .