Following
today’s revelations, it appears that all those speculative stories regarding
the cause of the German Wings Airbus that crashed in The Alps on Tuesday have
turned out to be nonsense.
Now the
black box flight recorder has been investigated the authorities have quickly come to the conclusion
that the co-pilot, named as Andreas Lubitz, appeared to want to "destroy
the plane". Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin, in a press conference,
citing information from the "black box" voice recorder, said the
co-pilot was alone in the cockpit. He intentionally started a descent while the
pilot was locked out of the cockpit.
Meanwhile, the head
of Lufthansa, (they own Germanwings), said the co-pilot had undergone intensive
training and "was 100% fit to fly without any caveats". He said "We
have no findings at all about what motivated the pilot to do this terrible
deed." Terrorism seems to be being discounted at the moment, which appears a bit premature and is something I’m
not sure about.
The crash
was a terrible enough event before this information was released. Today’s
findings make it even worse constituting the mass-murder of innocent people. So many lives wrecked needlessly.
Horrific
When you
board a plane, you put your life and trust into the pilots and the crew. This
is one of the worst breaches of trust ever. It's really frightening to think
once you are up in the air the life of you and the other passengers rely purely
on the pilots. When this sort of thing happens, it's very scary to think how
even pilots can just switch like that.
What on earth happened to this young co-pilot to
make him do this? It’s horrific to think anyone would even contemplate
something like this. I suppose it just goes to show that it’s impossible to
allow for every eventuality.
I feel terrible for the main pilot who so
desperately tried to get back into the cockpit to save himself and his
passengers. No doubt he tried to not cause too much commotion until he really
had to so as to prevent a panic. Until the end he thought of his passengers and
their fear before his own. I cannot even begin to imagine what knowing you are
going to die is like and sitting and waiting for it to happen.
Your heart goes out to those poor individual who
must have realised what was about to happen and obviously to their families and
friends. An accident is something you eventually come to terms with but how on
Earth can you ever move on from this? Any explanation
isn't good enough when you've senselessly lost a loved one in this manner.
Suicide?
Was it
suicide? If it was it’s a cowardly act. If you want to take your own life
that's fine but why take everyone else with you? There’s also the co-pilot’s
own family who will now feel the guilt he has left. If you want to kill yourself then okay but why take 150 unknown innocent
souls with you?
What is really upsetting is that usually on
these short-haul European flights, the passengers walk across the tarmac to
board the plane (as opposed to a tunnel entrance). That means the pilot will have
seen the passengers board the plane; women with babies, young people. How sick
do you have to be? If you are depressed and suicidal, I am sorry for your
mental health, but sort it out on your time and agenda. Do not take innocent
people down with you. If it was suicide I can only suspect this pilot was a
megalomaniac, he wanted fame, he wanted notoriety. This co-pilot
taking control of the plane by locking the pilot from the cockpit, then setting
the jet to autopilot to descend and crash demonstrates an individual of
out-of-control, it’s serious monomaniacal behaviour.
Maybe he
was truly clinically depressed. Low cost airlines are squeezing the younger
crews to the maximum for minimum pay. By the time they have to pay back their
flying school fees, pay expensive rents near airport bases, live and fly the
maximum legal hours on a daily basis, I’m sure many do become depressed and
frustrated. It's a fairly lethal combination similar to that of Junior Doctors.
But how
does it happen? How did it get to that stage? Did his co-workers or his
employer German Wings not see any signs or know anything about his propensities?
Terrorism?
How is it
possible that they can exclude an act of terrorism at this stage? I’d certainly
call the deliberate crashing of an aeroplane with 150 people on board, an act
of terrorism. One man killing 150 people including himself – that's not normal
behaviour even for the clinically depressed. No matter how depressed you are,
surely you don't want to take 149 people with you? I feel so sorry for this
man's family, they will be vilified for decades.
Who’s to
say that he hadn't become radicalised recently or that he wasn't being
black-mailed by a terrorist group such as ISIS? – “crash the plane or your
family will get killed” seems more plausible than simply committing suicide.
Has Security Gone Too Far Now ?
We know they made the cockpit doors safe to
prevent hijackers after 9/11. First, we had to worry about the trouble from
outside the cockpit - so they made it so that the doors could only be locked
from the inside. Now it seems we have to worry about the people on the inside! Looks
like you just can't win when dealing with humanity.
I get the reason behind the door being so strong,
I understand the threat of terrorism etc, however all that security also
prevented the pilot from re-entering the cockpit. Surly if a pilot leaves he
should have some kind of override code to the door! Maybe one Pilot should never be alone in a cockpit. A steward should
enter and remain if one of the pilots need to use the restroom. Or do we just have three pilots now so there’s always two in the cockpit?
What about a small toilet facility in or adjacent to the cockpit so the pilot
doesn’t have to leave? What about cockpit cameras streaming to ground
monitoring stations?
All these ways will be expensive, but things may
be a little safer that way. Looking at history though, people will always find
a way to bypass even those actions. How long before it's
mandatory to have 2 crew in the flight deck at all times?
Another concern was the news media showing
everyone exactly how the cockpit has precautions so someone could not get in,
including how the door locking mechanism works. Aren’t they are just providing
the bad guys with the diagrams for future attacks?
Links ?
It will be
interesting if there is any link between this co-pilot and others than have
gone down in similar circumstances. It's odd that no-one in these recent events
has highlighted strange behaviour. Other flights over the last
20 years include :
A flight
between Mozambique and Angola crashed in Namibia in 2013, killing 33 people.
Initial investigation results suggested the accident was deliberately carried
out by the captain shortly after co-pilot had left the flight deck.
An
EgyptAir Boeing 767 went into a rapid descent 30 minutes after taking off from
New York in 1999, killing 217 people. An investigation suggested that the crash
was caused deliberately by the co-pilot.
More than
100 people were killed in 1997 when a Boeing 737 travelling from Indonesia to
Singapore crashed. The pilot - suffering from "multiple work-related
difficulties" - was suspected of switching off the flight recorders and
intentionally putting the plane into a dive.
And let's not forget the recent Malaysian Airlines
flight which looks, although not proven, that it might have been a deliberate
act too.
At The End
Of The Day
I feel bad for those people that were unlucky
enough to be stuck on that plane with a crazy pilot. It's a true tragedy and a
shame. I believe now we need to implement cameras in the cockpit and two people
in the cockpit at any time. Pilots are looked up to and highly regarded so for
this to happen is an absolute shock, however with all the recent aviation events
it seems necessary for changes to be made.
With regards to a pilot’s mental health, I guess
you cannot assess someone completely; flying will continue to be a risk for
this reason as your life maybe in the hands of an imperfect human. The only
blessing that can come from this is that the airliner didn't crash into more
people on the ground.
When you board a plane you relinquish your ability to be master of your
own destiny. You have to trust pilots, engineers, ground staff, other passengers along
with the makers of the plane - in spite of this it still is the safest form of
transport.
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