Just horrifying:
A French prosecutor said Thursday that the co-pilot of the doomed Germanwings flight appeared to want to “destroy the plane,” adding a stunning twist as the investigation shifted to a possible suicide dive that killed all 150 people aboard.
The statement came after reports that the recovered cockpit voice recorder indicated the pilot was locked out of the cockpit before the A320 slammed into the French Alps on Tuesday after an eight-minute descent.
The Marseille-based prosecutor, Brice Robin, said the flight recorder showed the co-pilot — identified as Andreas Lubitz — did not say a word once the captain left the cockpit, the Associated Press reported.
“It was absolute silence in the cockpit,” Robin said, despite reports that the audio had the sounds of someone — apparently the pilot — banging on the door.
Awful. What else can you say? Just awful.
Lavocat
Okay, Don Lemon, start speculating away!
THIS should be good.
Keith G
There is nothing to be said. Except that I do hope that’s some of the usual blather about ethnoocentric news reporting can be skipped for at least a few hours.
MomSense
According to Raven, the Morning Ho people want us to say TERRORISM!1!1!1!
raven
@MomSense: Fucking Mika.
Elizabelle
Feeling doubly terrible for the victims’ families. It’s bad enough to lose loved ones in an accident. To learn that it did not have to happen, and that your loved one might have been aware that something was very wrong toward the end of the flight …
No idea what they will find for a motive.
Will get the missing Malaysia flight back into the news too.
raven
So right after the new broke people were on here bitching that “the media” were ghouls and the only reason this was covered was because the passengers were white.
sparrow
While suicide seems most likely, I imagine it will be difficult to ever completely rule out some kind of freak brain injury event — a stroke could make you behave very irrationally, and the first symptoms might feel like hypoxia (where a pilot would respond with a descent). They know he was alive because they heard regular breathing to the end, but to me that heightens the mystery — although I haven’t ever been suicidal, I have a hard time believing you can be completely calm and blase about it so that your breathing rate never increases… If there was a body to examine they would be able to tell, but obviously in this case there isn’t.
Reports are that the people on board knew what was happening and were screaming at the end. Just absolutely horrible.
Elizabelle
They need to start calling these events homicide dives. The suicide is the least of it.
raven
@MomSense: And it may have been politically motivated. Time will tell, or not.
Elizabelle
@raven: I was one of the bitchez, cuz plane disasters is what CNN lurves.
It was routine ghoulishness until the cockpit voice recorder gave up its stunning secrets.
Feel like we’re seeing “Law & Order” in real time.
raven
@Elizabelle: I mean I just don’t know what you expect a news channel to do?
Lee Rudolph
It seems clear to me (and always has) that the expense and engineering involved in making the cockpit door “more secure” would have been much better expended in equipping the cockpit with its own toilet facilities. Then, at least, a suicidal pilot or co-pilot would have to actively disable the other person in the cockpit, rather than (as it seems in this case) simply keeping the door locked from the inside. Of course, since another one of the mis-reactions to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was the FAA decision to allow the pilot and co-pilot to carry personal guns (though maybe that’s only on US domestic flights?), actively disabling the other person isn’t as much out of the question as it should be.
debbie
@sparrow:
Except that they say his breathing was normal and steady all the way down. But don’t let me interrupt the rush to judgement…
debbie
@raven:
I guess I’m old fashioned. I expect facts and clear-headed analysis. I hate this wall-to-wall garbage. It’s ruined us.
MomSense
@raven:
The key is that time will tell. It seems like this is a tragedy whatever the reasons and it’s best to let the investigators do their jobs thoroughly.
donnah
What if the pilot suffered some type of medical emergency, the co-pilot rushed back to get help, was locked out, and they all went down?
I dunno, of course. Anything’s possible.
Napoleon
The guy intentionally activated a cockpit lockout system that kept the pilot from getting back into the cockpit (the cockpit automatically locks, but you can manually override the keypad reentry). The guy was clear of mind and knew exactly what he was doing.
Steve
In an age of flights with wi-fi, wide cell phone coverage or capacity (although admittedly, it’s the Alps), and satellite phones, I wonder if any of the crew or passengers who knew what was happening (for several minutes?) before the crash were able to send out any email, texts, or calls?
CaseyL
So now the speculation is that the co-pilot deliberately crashed the plane? Sudden incapacitating medical event has been ruled out?
I’m guessing the next step will be to fit pilots and co-pilots with biometric sensors.
Gin & Tonic
@MomSense: It can’t be terrorism. He’s white.
JPL
@Elizabelle: It’s about the ratings.
D58826
@Lee Rudolph: In order to get around the potty break problem, the FAA requires that a second person, usually the flight attendant, to be in the cockpit when one of the two pilots is away. If there had been a second person in the cockpit it would have made it more difficult for the co-pilot to lock the captain out, not impossible, but more difficult.
Napoleon
@donnah:
I just posted this and for some reason it disappeared, but the report is the guy manually over rode the lock re-entry system to block the normal ability of the pilot to re-enter the locked door. The guy knew what he was doing.
JPL
We have no idea whether or not there is a political motive but here is an article about the co-pilot
MomSense
@Gin & Tonic:
I wish XKCD would give us a flow chart so we can know exactly when it is terrorism and when it isn’t.
chopper
@Napoleon:
also, from what i read (tho who knows) the co-pilot deliberately increased the descent speed after nosing downward.
D58826
@CaseyL: The French prosecutor used the words ‘the co-pilot deliberately took advantage of the pilots absence’ which sounds like they are ruling out a medical issue at this point. Obviously the findings of an autopsy might change that
J R in WV
@donnah:
Can’t be like this, the guy inside had to take positive action to engage the locked door status, which can not be unlocked and opened from outside using the keypad combination.
These doors have three possible statuses, open, closed (which is locked with a keypad available to unlock the door) and locked which cannot be unlocked from outside using the keypad even if you know the combination.
In normal flight there’s no need to use the locked condition, as the closed door is secure.
Horrible.
sparrow
@debbie: What rush to judgement? I noted the regular breathing, and thought that was odd, myself. I don’t have a strong opinion on what happened, but think murder/suicide looks sadly the most likely with the facts in hand. Not sure why you are lecturing me.
Belafon
A retired pilot on ABC said that the door requires a code and the pilot to confirm the code to open the door. If the co-pilot became incapacitated somehow after the door was shut, there would be no way to open it. He suggested this was more likely than a suicide attempt, since you didn’t hear anything from the co-pilot at all.
debbie
BBC’s live coverage might be a better alternative to CNN or Fox:
http://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-32070570
EconWatcher
@JPL:
I don’t mean to make light of this horrifying event, but I couldn’t help noticing that the article describes the co-pilot as one of those “quiet” guys
PurpleGirl
I feel so sorry for the relatives and friends of the passengers on that plane. I feel for the investigators who will have to delve into the co-pilot’s life and try to find reasons for his actions.
CONGRATULATIONS!
This isn’t the first time. It’s the third that we know of for certain:
EgyptAir 990
SilkAir 185
and now this. MH370 may well have been one too but we will never know for certain.
The solution is pretty simple and is in force in the US: Two pilots up front at all times, no exceptions.
sparrow
@D58826: No autopsy as everything was destroyed into very small pieces. At least death was instantaneous, though they knew it was coming. Still horrible to contemplate.
sparrow
@CONGRATULATIONS!: There are at least three more I think
Silkair 185
Egyptair 990
LAM Mozambique 470
Japan Airlines 350
Royal Air Maroc 630
Paul in KY
Maybe he was some kind of fruitcake that thinks that all those you kill become your slaves in Hell?
Paul in KY
@sparrow: If this is true, it is mass murder, with a small dose of suicide.
JPL
@EconWatcher: What I thought of the local kook that described himself as a patriot but left a bomb in a park to show how easy it is.
Napoleon
@Belafon:
The guy does not know what he is talking about it the detailed explanation in the NY Times about how the door works, which is from an Airbus video is correct. The door automatically locks so there is no need for the co-pilot to lock it when the pilot leaves to be safe. But the co-pilot can manually over ride the ability of the pilot to use his keypad code to get back in. He did that. If he was incapacitated it was after taking a step intentionally designed to keep the pilot from getting back into the cockpit.
PurpleGirl
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Air Disasters (currently shown on the Smithsonian Channel) recently did an episode on SilkAir 185.
Napoleon
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
The US rule is 2 crew members, one of which is presumably always going to be a pilot. So when the pilot leaves he has to have some flight crew member replace him.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
It’s just horrific to imagine what the folks on that flight went through. I can only wish the media – and armchair terror! speculators – would STFU and let the investigation find whatever will be found.
Iowa Old Lady
I’ve flown out of both Dusseldorf and Barcelona. The world is a scary place sometimes.
sparrow
@Napoleon: Yeah, this is the major point that swings it towards a deliberate act. Although there have been cases where multiple “unlikely” events added up to a crash, I just don’t think accidentally hitting that switch is possible. And with my “mental incapacitation” theory above, it would have to be a very strong delusion to lead to that outcome. Occam’s razor says murder/suicide is more likely.
Elizabelle
I wonder when we will hear that his computer hard drive has been destroyed. Or, maybe they will find an interesting electronic trail …
raven
@sparrow: It’s not “swinging” anywhere.
Elizabelle
Has anyone said when the descent instructions would have been programmed into the autopilot for a routine flight that was meant to land in Dusseldorf? Does any descent begin only after the jet has cleared the Alps?
Was this unusually early to have programmed the descent? Merely curious.
CaseyL
Thanks for the additional info, everyone. I didn’t know the co-pilot had to take deliberate steps to seal the cockpit, or about the additional acceleration. (With rare exceptions, and this wasn’t one of them, I don’t watch TV news anymore.)
Ghastly.
Along with the bio-sensors on the cockpit crew, maybe commercial planes should have some kind of explosive release on the cockpit door hinges, triggered by yet another security code?
CONGRATULATIONS!
@sparrow: I don’t either, but gotta wait for confirmation on that from my dad, who’s a recently retired pilot, and type-rated for that series of Airbus (and a whole lot of other aircraft besides).
One of the problems with the post-deregulation rise of all of these small, low-cost carriers is that the pilots don’t know each other very well, sometimes not at all. This didn’t used to be the case, and word got around pretty quick if a guy was not to be trusted, and they weren’t left alone. And those guys have always been around, sorry to have to tell you all this – my dad has had at least two instances in his career where someone (crew) had to be tied to their seat. That was back in the days where you had three guys in the cockpit (flight engineer, co-pilot, captain) so it was easier to deal with a guy who lost his shit.
max
What else can you say?
The guy obviously wanted to die. It’s pretty clear that a small number of pilots want to sail it straight into the ground, given the number of incidents in which it looks like pilots killed themselves. It seems like that accounts for maybe half of all major crashes since 2001.
It doesn’t seem to be terrorism, exactly, just suicidal ideation.
max
[‘The cockpit door lockout mechanisms need to be redesigned.’]
Napoleon
@sparrow:
Here is the video on how the door works. Tell me if you think he bumped it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixEHV7c3VXs#t=54
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@raven: But let’s not let that get in the way of sport speculation.
beltane
@Belafon: The Guardian is reporting that the pilot did attempt to open the cockpit door with the code, but that the co-pilot had applied the 5 minute override. This is at least the third case I can think of involving pilot suicide-murder. Suicidal intent+depraved indifference towards human life+opportunity=Disaster.
Stacy
I watched the Lufthansa press briefing and wow did the CEO come off as super arrogant. Said that they wouldn’t change any of their training due to “this one incident.” He also said that they would not put a rule in to always have a second person in the cockpit. Okay then.
D58826
@sparrow: That may be the case but until the remains are recovered there is always the possibility
MomSense
We should make another of those Sean Bean photos. Brace yourselves. Everyone is about to become an expert on cockpit doors.
beltane
@D58826: There is the possibility a toxicology report can be made on the co-pilot.
D58826
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Wasn’t it so long ago that a pilot on an US flight, Delta I think, had a breakdown in midair and had to be restrained by the passengers and crew. They actually charged him with a couple of felonies.
Tractarian
NYT:
No indication of terror? But he intentionally crashed the plane the 150 people on board! I can’t think of a better way to inflict terror on murder victims…..
Oh, I see. “Lubitz” just doesn’t sound like a terrorist, if you catch my drift.
sparrow
@raven: It’s an expression. My opinion has “swung” towards murder/suicide as being most likely though I don’t know if we’ll ever be 100% sure.
I never understand the comment police that always get riled up with these kinds of accidents. It’s not “sport speculation” (as opposed to what? speculation for hire? and why am I supposed to feel bad about speculating? I’m not in any official capacity… just a citizen who flies a lot and likes flying, and am horrified by this incident like everyone else.)
Elizabelle
@Stacy: The flying public may have different views. The travel market will speak.
rikyrah
heard it this morning. so sad. so horrific for the families of everyone else.
catclub
@beltane: I got the impression the plane flew nose first into the side of a mountain. The nose is where the pilots were.
WaterGirl
@beltane: I was under the impression that even the people were pretty much pulverized when the plane hit, so I’m not sure how they could do a toxicology report. But maybe science has progressed beyond my expectations.
beltane
@catclub: They have been able to identify tiny scraps of tissue fragments from 9/11 victims so it may be possible here. Not saying it is possible, but it cannot be ruled out categorically.
raven
@sparrow: do want you want
Elizabelle
OT: Mike Pence done it. Per the Indy Star:
Hoping that eventually those who were attending and applauding are identified, and a few lose their jobs, especially if they’re elected officials.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
OT: I hope soonergrunt checks in with somebody. Not only was there a big twister in Tulsa, there was also some damage in his town of Moore, which got slammed in 2013.
@Elizabelle: Ironic that he’s asking the CDC to help with the Scott County HIV epidemic and not checking how any CDC folks feel about teh gheys, or whether they have religious objections to working in a state full of bigots.
Amir Khalid
Every time people speak of “pilots” and “co-pilots” on commercial flights, aviation blogger Patrick Smith haz a sad.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@beltane: Sadly, unless someone’s perfected the sort of technology that can sort the meat from separate cows out of a block of ground beef after it’s been lying in the sun for a few days, there probably isn’t.
It’s a rare jet crash that leaves pieces big enough to identify.
On a personal note, I had thought that when my dad retired I’d get rid of the gut spasm that would occur every time I found out about a new plane crash. I guess old habits die hard or not at all, because I can’t control that “Where’s my dad? Where’s he flying out of today?” thing that still happens when I hear about one.
Guy
One thing that doesn’t make sense to me is that if the intent is to crash the plane, wouldn’t the surest way be to put it in a dive or a spin? The radar showed this to be a controlled descent except for not leveling out at a safe altitude. The information reported in the first few days after one of these almost always turns out to be wrong. I will stick with that assumption for now.
beltane
Her’s a list of aircraft crashes caused by pilot murder/suicide: http://news.aviation-safety.net/2013/12/22/list-of-aircraft-accidents-caused-by-pilot-suicide/
beltane
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I guess a toxicology report can be ruled out, But DNA identification requires only the tiniest amount of organic material.
JPL
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Anne Laurie linked to his twitter account this morning.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Anne Laurie linked to his Twitter account in the open thread and it sounds like he and his family are fine.
Woodrowfan
@debbie:
That’s pretty much ALWAYS true.
beltane
The parallels with this Air Marroc incident from from 2013 are striking: http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20131129-0
JPL
@Woodrowfan: CBS news also has a streaming news feed.
Matt McIrvin
@Lee Rudolph: I think I would be against actually keeping the cockpit door unlocked again; that was probably the one truly sensible security reaction in the wake of 9/11. Airliner hijackings, of the traditional sort where a passenger holds the crew hostage and makes some absurd demands, used to be way more common than they are today, especially back in the Seventies and Eighties; 9/11 wasn’t the half of it.
But I suppose that publicized pilot suicide could have a copycat effect; that seems to happen a lot with suicide.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@JPL: @Mnemosyne (tablet): As usual, I’m late to threads; I rarely get to the early morning ones. Thanks for the links.
mai naem mobile
Millions of people fly every.yeat with no event but this happens and they have to change the rules. Jeezus, tragic shit happens. You can’t cover every contingency.
rlrr
@debbie:
BBC’s live coverage might be a better alternative to CNN or Fox:
Shoving rusty knitting needles into your eyes might be a better alternative to CNN or Fox “News”…
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@mai naem mobile:
I followed one of beltane’s links and it sounds like the same thing has happened a couple of times before (one pilot is locked out by the other, who proceeds to crash the plane). I say, if it’s happened three times (and it seems to have), it’s worth setting up a new protocol.
dww44
@Elizabelle: I cannot say loudly enough how much I agree with you, given that I too live in a red state where a “religious freedom bill” is wending its way to the floor of the statehouse for a vote. Although big business has weighed in against it. However, it makes no never mind to those single minded public servants the majority of our citizens have elected to govern us. Given that my party is so powerless, it is actually a bit entertaining watching which faction of the conservative movement is gonna carry the day, the business one, or the fundamentalist one.
sparrow
@mai naem mobile: True. 3 billion people flew last year, and the few hundred that died, while obviously still tragic, is staggeringly small compared to deaths from pretty much any other cause.
shell
Yeah, they reported that on US flights, a second person, usually a flight attendent, has to be in the cockpit when one pilot exits. Apparently, a lot of European carriers don’t require that.
Heliopause
“Why?”
One thing’s for sure; since this act was perpetrated by a white male we’ll be spending an awful lot of time agonizing over this poor fellow’s state of mind.
Laertes
@Tractarian:
Are you suggesting that a reasonable definition of “terrorism” is “any crime that frightens the victims?” So far as I’m aware, that’s not a common definition, and it doesn’t seem like an especially useful one either. Victims of all sorts of crimes are commonly frightened.
I hear ya. Bugs the hell out of me too. White guys gather in Nevada and stage an armed stand-off with federal agents: “Freedom fighters!” Brown guy robs a convenience store: “Terrorist!”
However: Terrorism is all about motivation. If I crash my car into a nearby school because I’m a drunken idiot and I lost control of my vehicle, I’m a criminal but not a terrorist. If I crash my car into a nearby school because I adhere to some ideology that promotes violence against the religious or ethic group of which the student body is largely comprised, I’m still a criminal but I’m also now a terrorist.
Since we know, as yet, very little about the copilot’s state of mind, there’s no real good reason yet to suppose that he’s a terrorist. I expect there are some people examining this guy’s life with some care, and we’ll hear right away if any indications of terrorism are found.
JPL
@Heliopause: Friends have already said that he interrupted his pilot training because of burnout or depression, according to the Guardian.
Laertes
@Heliopause:
Right. Because if a brown guy had crashed an airplane, killing himself and everyone aboard, nobody would be a tiny bit interested in his state of mind.
Brachiator
@D58826:
There will probably not be enough of any remains for an autopsy.
This whole thing is just sad. We may never know the reason for this tragedy, but it is chilling to think that the passengers were aware of the fact that the co-pilot was sending them to their doom. It is terrible to think of what the pilot was thinking and feeling as he desperately tried to get back into the cockpit.
Bill Arnold
@Elizabelle:
Murder-suicide by pilots is more common than one might think. Here’s a list from 2013 (which doesn’t cover recent incidents)
List of aircraft accidents caused by pilot suicide
(Pointed out by charlie stross at antipope.org in a long discussion of MH370/MAS370.)
J.D. Rhoades
@JPL:
OMG he’s wearing a BLACK AND WHITE SCARF! Is that a keffiyeh!? MOOSLIMS! MOOSLIMS!
srv
@Elizabelle: Autopilots have rotary knobs for heading and descent. Heading wasn’t changed. You either put in the altitude you want, or you select a descent rate in feet per minute.
Commercial airliners have a few more options, but you could just dial to 2000m and put your feet up on the dash.
There are preprogrammed approaches in some systems, but you can’t trick it to do one of those early. Approaches are based off input from external navigation systems (VOR, ILS, GPS, etc).
Elie
It may or may not be terrorism but it sure is terrifying… and especially for everyone on board to know it is happening. Only time will reveal whether there is any evidence either way for suicide or terrorism. My prayers go to the families and friends of all those on board. There is probably no fool proof way to identify people at risk for suicide or in thrall to some terrorist ideology… its probably easy to cover up unless the person wants it discovered…
Brachiator
@Heliopause:
No, it’s not race, it’s the lack or presence of a political motivation.
Had the pilot been a Basque separatist or a white Danish racist ultra-nationalist, there would be gnashing of teeth over political motivations.
Heliopause
@Laertes:
Read it again, that’s not what I said.
Jay C
@Steve:
According to something I read today (BBC, I think), the plane’s rate of descent was thought to be gradual enough that they (the reporter) surmised that the passengers might not have noticed anything was amiss until nearly the last minute – when they might have suddenly seen that Alp looming dead ahead.
Punchy
@Stacy: I’d think the absence of any correction factors will quicky lead to the absence of passengers and thus the absence of revenue.
catclub
@Jay C:
Windows are on the sides. They cannot even see dead ahead.
catclub
@shell:
I suspect they soon will.
Elizabelle
@srv: Thank you.
@Stacy: On second thought, it’s going to be the airline insurers that have the last word on what Lufthansa does. Think they’re looking at this with great interest. Suspect the CEO is still in the “how can this be happening? We are the great Lufthansa!” mode.
WereBear
I think I’d notice the pilot hammering on the door to get back in the cockpit.
Botsplainer
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
But that would negatively impact the bottom line of sacred Jahb Kreators.
Heliopause
@Brachiator:
The responses I’ve received merely prove the point.
When an airliner is deliberately brought down step one for the media is to determine the race/ethnicity/religion of the perpetrator. Step two is to get very agitated if the perpetrator is not “a normal guy“.
In this case, step one revealed that the perpetrator was “a normal guy,” which we of course immediately ascertained even though it’s still ridiculously early in the investigation. Step two in this case is the plaintive “why.”
In the case of, say, the Tsarnaev brothers we’ll certainly be interested in the “why,” but we’ll spend far more of our intellectual capital thinking about “how they became radicalized,” how many new surveillance programs we’ll need to detect these people in the future, and how quickly we can put the surviving one to death.
When the perpetrator is not “a normal guy” the first thing we think of is what his political/religious motivations might have been. When the perpetrator is “a normal guy” that’s not the first thing we think of, although subsequent information might lead us in that direction. I can be as guilty of these habitual modes of thought as anyone else, by the way.
Needless to say, “terrorism” is an utterly meaningless term by now. Also needless to say, human motivations are complicated and multifaceted. It’s possible, for instance, for an individual to have both a mental disturbance and a profound political/religious agenda at the same time. In fact, that statement should simply be taken as a truism.
Laertes
@Heliopause:
Very nearly. Mostly, it means “anyone who frightens an American that’s whiter than they are.” Works about the same way that a “Nazi” is anyone who frightens a Russian.
Brachiator
@Heliopause:
I don’t think so at all.
This is not true either. Even if you omit the term “terrorism,” there are political operators who commonly use violence against civilians to achieve their aims. The IRA, Basque separatists, some Chechens, some Muslims, various groups in South America, Africa, Asia, etc.
I’m not seeing much here that supports your point, except at the level of the dumbest people who react to these new stories with lame oversimplifications (such as the dopes who post comments on a Fox News or CNN site or the UK Daily Mail).
And also, the bottom line is that right now, we don’t know anything about why the co-pilot acted as he did. Anything is idiot speculation. Whether it is idiot speculation about his mental health, or idiot speculation about his politics, it is nothing but empty air. There is not much point in reacting to this nonsense.
NonyNony
@Heliopause:
If you’d like you could head over to Vox Day’s blog (Im not gonna provide a linky to that cesspool, but here’s Dave Futrelle’s breakdown of Theodore Beale’s brainvomit) , where Day is already speculating that the pilot was an “Omega male” who was frustrated about women and therefore decided to kill himself and take a bunch of people with him. Based on no evidence other than the guy’s photograph.
Is that the kind of thing you’re talking about? I’m pretty sure that at this point the MRA thing counts as politics (or perhaps a religion) and it is in that “if he were a Muslim everyone would be jumping to conclusions” wheelhouse. Except in this case it’s really weird because it’s one of the in-group members that is jumping to conclusions and putting stuff out there rather than the out-group people going bugnuts about it…
Gidy51
@Napoleon: And if a flight attendant had been in the cockpit, like they are in the US, the door would have been manually opened and this would never have happened.
Jeffro
How long until the NRA has an ad up, saying “This wouldn’t have had to happen if the pilot was armed”?
Elizabelle
@Gidy51: Or you could have had a strangled flight attendant.
It’s still more reasonable than leaving someone with bad intent alone at the controls.
jibeaux
My cousin, who lives in Berlin, got on a Germanwings flight to New York the same day. Just one of those reminders how close we all can come to a capricious, senseless death.
Uh, happy tournament time?
Elizabelle
@Jeffro: Some maroon on the NYTimes readers comments said that yesterday.
In which case: bad pilot just shoots the other one and who gives a damn about the impenetrable door?
One thing that could have helped, perhaps: an air marshal with a gun and an override code.
Pongo
Doesn’t this strike anyone else as a bit of a rush to judgment? Given the realities of the modern news cycle, doesn’t it seem prudent to reserve judgment until an actual investigation takes place? There is an awful lot of speculating on the part of the French authorities with little context to support their statements. If it’s true, it’s awful. If they are jumping the gun and assigning blame before the investigation is even fully underway, that is doubly awful. If it was not a deliberate act, but a catastrophic incident, it is still awful. There is no good outcome to this story, but there can be no doubt that finding an early scapegoat takes pressure off the authorities to get answers for the families and this could be powerfully influencing the perspective of authorities.
This would not be the first time that what initially appeared to be the case was found to be wrong and it is surprising that the media is so willing to accept this as fact this early in the investigation. CNN has proclaimed the case solved, even though there is still a black box missing and the remains of the plane and its passengers are still sitting on a mountainside. I only hope that if this turns out to be inaccurate info, CNN will be as willing to put ‘WE ARE F..KING IDIOTS’ on their front page as they are to plaster ‘DELIBERATE’ right now.
J.D. Rhoades
@NonyNony:
That Theodore Beale character is a very strange individual. He’s obsessed with other men’s weight, for one thing, not to mention their “socio-sexual rank.”
Dr. McCoy
Another case for ‘drones”, removing the human element.
Gravenstone
@chopper: Going nose down will automatically increase your descent speed. Gravity is funny that way.
Rand Careaga
@catclub: The Alps are broad as well as high.
NonyNony
@J.D. Rhoades:
I think I might nominate this for “understatement of the year”.
Another Holocene Human
@Belafon:
The fuck?!
NonyNony
@Pongo:
I think that the French authorities are really jumping the gun on this given what they’ve revealed so far. Not so much that they speculate that he did it on purpose – the cops are supposed to be speculating on that and building a case – but for having press conferences where they’re saying “he absolutely did it on purpose”.
Even in the US of A I think our officials would be quite a bit more circumspect with their proclamations of guilt and intent mere hours after the crash had occurred. I can only assume that French libel/slander laws protect government officials a lot more than American libel/slander laws do.
(I cannot, however, blame the media in this particular case for chewing on the bone once the French authorities put it out there. If the authorities were more circumspect, the media would be hedging their bets a lot more. Once they have authority figures saying “it’s definitely the case that …” they’re going to report it as fact rather than speculation. Because they don’t have to worry about a lawsuit when all they’re reporting is what the official word is”.)
chopper
@NonyNony:
oh FFS.
Another Holocene Human
@J.D. Rhoades: Suppressed homosexual urges (he could be bisexual or mostly heterosexual but torturing his mind over that 5%) can do that to somebody.
Have you seen his favorite self portrait holding a giant flaming sword like he’s an 8 year old cosplaying as Link?! Link/Frodo?
chopper
@Gravenstone:
you know what i meant.
Sherparick
@D58826: I don’t think they are going to fine much to autopsy as hitting a mountain side at close to 600 miles per hour tends to atomize the human body. That’s a lot of kinetic energy being released. It is strange the impulses that can seize the human mind and there is no explanation for it. But our media elite now reaches for the “Muslim terrorist trope” after every incident now.
PurpleGirl
@Laertes:
I expect there are some people examining this guy’s life with some care, and we’ll hear right away if any indications of terrorism are found.
Yes, there are experts in human behavior or human factors who will be looking into his life in a very detailed way. They probably are already in that investigation. Plane crash investigations follow two parallel paths — the physical and mechanical side of the equipment and the human factors. But the final word on reasons for a crash won’t be made public until the final report. It can take more than a year sometimes to get that report.
flukebucket
Don’t worry. Pat Robertson is already all over it.
Brutusettu
Some people apparently feel the need to try and commit suicide in a public place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daegu_subway_fire
Interrobang
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
I guess old habits die hard or not at all, because I can’t control that “Where’s my dad? Where’s he flying out of today?” thing that still happens when I hear about one.
I don’t have that to the same extent because my dad flew for a smaller regional carrier, but yeah, I hear you. Incidents like these where it seems like the pilot is deliberately at fault really upset me, too; it’s like professional malpractice on top of all the other horrifying things.
PhilbertDesanex
@Pongo: ‘Given the realities of the modern news cycle, doesn’t it seem prudent to reserve judgment until an actual investigation takes place?”
Prudent? How quaint. Might cut into newscorp profits. We want live video as it happens. Preferably including the screaming. .
Matt McIrvin
A good article from Fallows:
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/03/germanwings-crash-murder-suicide-pilot/388778/
Matt McIrvin
…Fallows also points out that the frequency of major air crashes is still extremely low, not that anyone here needed to be reminded of that.
(Just from admittedly imperfect memory, I recall major airline crashes just in the US being much more common when I was a kid, and, last I checked, statistics bore that out.)
Matt McIrvin
…wow, airliner bombings were even more frequent in the 1980s than I remember:
http://www.planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm
yodecat
Murder. Committed by a crazy person. Not much else to say about it.On and on.