Investigators and grieving relatives were left struggling to explain what motivated Andreas Lubitz, 28, to kill all 150 people on board the Airbus A320, including himself, in Wednesday's crash in the French Alps.My speculation, after the pilot's name was released this morning, was that maybe the co-pilot wanted the passengers to have a closer view of the French Alps. Perhaps, similarly to how the captain of the Concordia wanted his passengers to take a closer look ashore and miscalculated. Who knows?
The CEO of Lufthansa, parent company of Germanwings, said its air crew were picked carefully and subjected to psychological vetting.
"No matter your safety regulations, no matter how high you set the bar, and we have incredibly high standards, there is no way to rule out such an event," CEO Carsten Spohr said. (read more)
Maybe the authorities will find something to explain his actions, but, maybe they wont.
22 comments:
Wouldn't it be ironic if the safety feature meant to keep a terrorist out of the cockpit, kept the pilot out of the cockpit this time instead?
Not a smart door.
Friends of mine that at pilots always complain about also having to go through TSA security as if they need a weapon. What weapon did this co-pilot need beyond the locking mechanism provided to him?
I don't expect any sanity to return to our airport security procedures, but this certainly will be something I expect others to point to as a "I told you so".
I'm seeing a lot of criticism today of the security doors and lockout procedure. I haven't seen what the critics propose as an alternative.
Rabel said...
I'm seeing a lot of criticism today of the security doors and lockout procedure. I haven't seen what the critics propose as an alternative.
A biometric door may be of use here. Every person on that team that needs to be in that cockpit would have to engage in a biometric scan before take off. So if any crew needs to enter that cockpit, they would be the only ones to do so. Now there are ways to get around that, but they would be a lot more pernicious than simply having to deal with a locked cockpit door.
A "smart" door... designed to avoid Harry Reid ;)
Know where Batman goes #1 and sometimes #2?
The batroom. dunna nunna nunna nunna dunna nunna nunna nunna .
I blame the pilot for trying to break the door down instead of using words and the power of reason to appeal to the co-pilot's inner sense of basic human decency.
EFB.
"It was premeditated" the five
No "system" or safeguard will prevent everything. Having doors that can be well secured is a reasonable idea, and this doesn't disprove that.
I assume they screen their pilots well, to make sure someone isn't a jihadist, but then, how do you really know for sure?
Likewise, how do they check to make sure one of their pilots hasn't developed a mental problem?
What seems very strange -- to me -- is that someone would commit suicide and bring a bunch of others along. But I've never felt any feelings of suicide, and I haven't the slightest idea of the mental processes at work when one is in such deep darkness.
I did have a cousin who was bipolar; no one really knew, because he was always up -- until he was down. When he was down, it was deep down. He took his own life.
Well, I just found out that the door had a security passcode that could be entered to unlock it, but apparently, the co-pilot initiated a 5 minute override. What is also interesting is the plane went into a gradual descent, not a steep nose dive descent.
One guy, a pilot, said that the more gradual descent would have prevented the computers from taking over. But I think that if the pilot/co-pilot wants to crash the plane, he's going to crash the plane and everyone else on board is SOL.
According to recovered data, the autopilot was manually changed from 38,000 feet to 96 feet.
More here.
If you want to kill yourself, fine, not a problem, but just don't take anyone with you.
Obama is our co-pilot.
Brace for impact.
I hear most of the passengers didn't figure out there was a problem until just before impact. That's when the screaming started.
Was he a Muslim convert?
I don't think there's much you can do if a pilot REALLY determined on killing himself and all the passengers.
You can make it harder. I've read US airlines require 2 people cockpit at all times but even that isn't suicide proof.
I see Haz beat me to it.
There are two stories circulating today: one that he was a Muslim convert; the other, that he had some sort of psychological issue.
Of course, both could be true.
Fr Martin Fox said...
There are two stories circulating today: one that he was a Muslim convert; the other, that he had some sort of psychological issue.
Of course, both could be true.
They are one and the same. You have to be batshit crazy to convert to islam, the religion of total and utter LUNACY!!!
Even if he was depressed, why kill everyone else? How often does depression cause people to kill so many others when they decide to take their own life?
The other scenario seems more likely.
Oh, okay, he was depressed. Tells me nothing, not anymore, not now when every other person you meet is "depressed." There's wide variations in these clinical diagnoses, as we found out when Robin Williams took his own life because he was depressed. There's "I feel down today" depression and then there's "hang yourself in your own bedroom" depressed. Apparently, Robin's suicide was spurred by physical changes of early Parkinsons as well as lifelong addiction issues. This co-pilot had a savage pathology (even breathing all the way down) that should have prevented him from employment as an airline pilot, had it been recognized. Was it temporary? Drug induced? He apparently hid evidence of his defect from his own doctors and employers. As such, this may be a completely unpreventable situation.
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