Germanwings Flight 4U9525 - suspected murder-suicide

[Castel]

Just saw an interesting comment on imgur.

"I don't care about the asshole, who crashed it. Tell me about the pilot - the one who tried to kick in the cockpit door to save everyone. What's his name? I want to remember HIS name!"

Captain Patrick Sonderheimer

I would agree with this if we were talking about a school shooting or some other incident but here that other pilot clearly doesn't draw as much attention for really basic reasons.

Like, he's not insane and thus isn't of interest in dealing with people's fears and the likelihood of this happening again are low enough (according to the people here) that we're not worried about feeding into an epidemic by glorifying the co-pilot like with school shooters.

[Dr. Pepper]

I'm not sure any of this is a truly "major concern" from a bird's eye perspective. Around the world in the past two days, more people have died in automobile accidents (estimated globally at 3,287 deaths per day) than have died as the result of people with mental illnesses committing murder-suicide via commercial aviation (and that probably holds up even if you include 9/11 in that statistic, which I wouldn't).

The reality is, some jobs put you in charge of the health, safety and well-being of lots of people, and if we're going to entrust people with that responsibility, there should be safeguards in place that make sure the people doing those jobs are healthy and stable enough to perform them effectively. Any time you put ANY kind of restriction on the type of person that can do a particular job, you're going to create some kind of an incentive for dishonesty - people are presumably going to want to do that job, after all.

While I am all for efforts to de-stigmatize mental illness, the reality is, at some level, it just can't be helped. People with certain kinds of mental illnesses may just not be fit to be pilots, and should not be allowed to fly commercial airliners. If the end result is that some people who would otherwise be deemed to be unfit to fly are now going to hide those problems that would have rendered them unfit, so be it. I don't think you should toss out a potentially legitimate standard just because the mere existence of the standard is going to result in some incentive to lie about it.

The first part is a point that several people have been trying to make. The statistics on murder by suicide with pilots is almost near zero. It's so shocking because it nearly never happens. The reaction is based on knee-jerk fear and is not rational.

I do agree that people should be afforded the opportunity to test their fitness for doing a job or just basic living. The important thing with these screenings is to determine treatability of condition. If a pilot is exhibiting symptoms of diabetes, lets treat that. If a pilot has gain weight to a point they are unable to safely manage the controls from their seated position, treat that. If a pilot's cholesterol has increased his chances of heart attack or stroke, treat it. If a pilot has the flu, treat that. These things shouldn't (and don't!) lead a pilot to immediately fear that he will lose his job. Depression and many other mental illnesses are treatable. Most people will experience some sort of diagnosable mental illness at some point in their lives. It might be something fairly common like depression after a parent dies or depression after a child enters one's life. It could be related to other physical health concerns that leads to mental illness, like chronic insomnia that leads to a period of psychosis. Maybe they grey winter just causes one to experience SAD.

The answer isn't to just decide that anyone who has ever experienced any of these things should be banned from work where they are responsible for other humans, because that bans nearly all humans. It certainly shouldn't be the case that perfectly treatable illnesses become something that people are unwilling to even treat in private due to fear because those perfectly treatable illnesses can become exacerbated over time.

[Eyron]

I read what a pilot thought about the idea, and he regarded it as mainly window dressing to make passengers feel safer. Because while it would prevent this particular kind of scenario, if you are really determined to crash the plane as a pilot you can just steer it downwards directly after takeoff. The other pilot apparently wouldn't have time to do anything.

So yeah. On the other hand, this has always been possible ever since the birth of commercial airlines, and yet "suicides" like this have still been very uncommon.

Yeah, there are other concerns that can increase the danger in other scenarios than this one.

Say on a long distance flight, how long would it take potential hijackers to figure out who of the crew have the cockpit access codes, and target them by threatening the passengers etc? The crew are only human and can make bad decisions too in the face of a massacre.

We can't prevent everything. There will always be the human factor. We can act irrationally and (unintendedly sometimes) viciously even in the safest possible circumstances.

[Swordfish]

Yeah, there are other concerns that can increase the danger in other scenarios than this one.

Say on a long distance flight, how long would it take potential hijackers to figure out who of the crew have the cockpit access codes, and target them by threatening the passengers etc? The crew are only human and can make bad decisions too in the face of a massacre.

We can't prevent everything. There will always be the human factor. We can act irrationally and (unintendedly sometimes) viciously even in the safest possible circumstances.

This is the over riding point I think.

Not every tragedy requires sweeping reform or new legislation.

We live in a dangerous and hostile world. Sometimes a tragedy is just a tragedy.

[HexMachina]

Yeah, there are other concerns that can increase the danger in other scenarios than this one.

Say on a long distance flight, how long would it take potential hijackers to figure out who of the crew have the cockpit access codes, and target them by threatening the passengers etc? The crew are only human and can make bad decisions too in the face of a massacre.

We can't prevent everything. There will always be the human factor. We can act irrationally and (unintendedly sometimes) viciously even in the safest possible circumstances.

Wisdom right here. Thanks, Eyron. It's nice to know some people remain rational following these terrible disasters

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

Yeah, there are other concerns that can increase the danger in other scenarios than this one.

Say on a long distance flight, how long would it take potential hijackers to figure out who of the crew have the cockpit access codes, and target them by threatening the passengers etc? The crew are only human and can make bad decisions too in the face of a massacre.

We can't prevent everything. There will always be the human factor. We can act irrationally and (unintendedly sometimes) viciously even in the safest possible circumstances.

I agree.

[Relic]

We live in a dangerous and hostile world. Sometimes a tragedy is just a tragedy.

And yet it is less dangerous and less hostile than it has ever been. Why? Because we react to Shit and try to prevent it from happening again. This goes from plagues to road safety, from antibiotics to locked cock pit doors. Lessons should be learned, and the potential for calamity should be reduced, whenever able.

[Shryke]

I read what a pilot thought about the idea, and he regarded it as mainly window dressing to make passengers feel safer. Because while it would prevent this particular kind of scenario, if you are really determined to crash the plane as a pilot you can just steer it downwards directly after takeoff. The other pilot apparently wouldn't have time to do anything.

So yeah. On the other hand, this has always been possible ever since the birth of commercial airlines, and yet "suicides" like this have still been very uncommon.

It's not window dressing though if it prevents this kind of shit at any time but takeoff and landing. That's the opposite of what "window dressing" actually means.

Two people in the cockpit is by far the easiest and most straightforward policy to reduce these statistically insignificant incidents to an even more statistically insignificant level. It's a good idea, it's easy, it does alot of good, why not?

Also, alot of this other shit about psychological evaluation or whatever is likely to cost more, be more intrusive and it's highly questionable if it ends up being any more effective then the above idea. Why bother?

[Swordfish]

And yet it is less dangerous and less hostile than it has ever been. Why? Because we react to Shit and try to prevent it from happening again. This goes from plagues to road safety, from antibiotics to locked cock pit doors. Lessons should be learned, and the potential for calamity should be reduced, whenever able.

Of course. But not every tragedy is preventable, and not every tragedy has a quantifiable lesson to teach us.

I'm not against change. But I am against irrationality and over reaction.

[TrueMetis]

Yeah, there are other concerns that can increase the danger in other scenarios than this one.

Say on a long distance flight, how long would it take potential hijackers to figure out who of the crew have the cockpit access codes, and target them by threatening the passengers etc? The crew are only human and can make bad decisions too in the face of a massacre.

We can't prevent everything. There will always be the human factor. We can act irrationally and (unintendedly sometimes) viciously even in the safest possible circumstances.

Wouldn't it only require that the pilot open the door from the inside though? Pilot needs to get up and go to the bathroom so he calls in whoever to come into the cockpit while he goes. And at that point you have the exact same worry you always have of someone grabbing the pilot.

No need at all to give anyone access from outside as far as I can tell.

[Starkess]

Mass murder is not a symptom of depression. Simply making blanket statements that people with depression cannot be trusted with responsibility is ignorant and an inappropriate knee-jerk reaction.

[Fragile Bird]

Mass murder is not a symptom of depression. Simply making blanket statements that people with depression cannot be trusted with responsibility is ignorant and an inappropriate knee-jerk reaction.

Yes, I agree. Angry + depressed is a different story, but once again, most depressed people don't turn into mass murderers. They might lash out at people who want to love and support them, but kill a 150 strangers? Not really.

[Fragile Bird]

I rarely watch CNN, but tonight I watched a panel discussion with industry experts, and they made some interesting points. One was that Lubitz may have been 'doctor shopping' for a diagnosis that was satisfactory to him, which is why the torn up notes were found in his apartment.

Another was an argument that regular psychological assessments would be a burden. The psychologist didn't think so, some of the others did. But one person made the point that what needs to happen is that society recognizes mental illness pops up in 15% to 17% of the population, and an atmosphere of accepting mental ups and downs as normal would make it easier for people to admit they were not feeling well at points in time, instead of trying to hide the state of their emotional health.

More fascinating to me was the fact they took a camera into an aircraft simulator with an experienced airline pilot, to duplicate what would have happened in those last ten minutes. The pilot reacted physically to the events that were occurring, breaking out into a sweat, and at one point automatically responding to the warnings that started flashing about the altitude. He said that programming the plane to crash was so against every fibre of his being it made the event incredibly shocking to a pilot like him.

I was watching this with my brother, who is one of those people fascinated by everything to do with airlines and flying. I've gone out with people like him who have the same obsession with cars ("that car that passed us is really amazing, they were only in production for 18 months with a slant-6 engine blah blah blah"). A plane can fly overhead and my brother can say, that's so-and-so's 777 flight to London, or some such detail. He was explaining to me that the co-pilot programmed the gradual descent because the Airbus has a so-called envelope system that would prevent a pilot nosediving into the ground. Boeing, on the other hand, has rejected such programming, saying it is overly interfering with the pilot's role.

[Arakan]

And yet it is less dangerous and less hostile than it has ever been. Why? Because we react to Shit and try to prevent it from happening again. This goes from plagues to road safety, from antibiotics to locked cock pit doors. Lessons should be learned, and the potential for calamity should be reduced, whenever able.

This. Absolutely this.

Some one here apparently dont know how progress works.

People arguing with statistics...well: from a statistical pov 10-20 times more people are killed every year by the flu than by car driving under alcohol (of course depending on country, in Germany sth like 20:1). So from a statistical pov driving your car in a drunken condition is not a big deal...

Building arguments around statistics can be quite treacherous...

Furthermore: of course regular psychological checks are not a guarantee to prevent sth like this at all but it's more than just that. What about reducing the probability of mistakes due to psychological stress etc?

In Germany, when you are caught driving unde alcohol influence above a certain limit you MUST do a test called MPU (medical-psychological test) in order to evaluate if you are responsible enough to drive a car again.

I really dont get why the wish for regular psychological tests in addition to medical checks are called "knee jerk" or "over-reaction" here...

It's a valid process in many occupations around the world.

Of course Airlines might be opposed to that because they might lose their investment (i.e. the costs of training a pilot which are north of 100k I think) but this should not be a point for consideration.

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

It's not window dressing though if it prevents this kind of shit at any time but takeoff and landing. That's the opposite of what "window dressing" actually means.

Two people in the cockpit is by far the easiest and most straightforward policy to reduce these statistically insignificant incidents to an even more statistically insignificant level. It's a good idea, it's easy, it does alot of good, why not?

Also, alot of this other shit about psychological evaluation or whatever is likely to cost more, be more intrusive and it's highly questionable if it ends up being any more effective then the above idea. Why bother?

It is of course implied that any trained pilot would know that he could easily crash the plane during takeoff and landing, and so if those security measures were put in place a would be mass murderer-pilot would just do it then rather than when they were up in the air.

It's not like having two people in the cockpit at all times would be a particularly expensive policy to follow though, and maybe it could prevent one disaster here and there where the pilot does it completely impulsively due to a psychosis or something (which in this particular disaster seems doubtful), but the point is that a pilot who actually knows what he is doing would still not have any problem with crashing the plane. Hence it could be window dressing to present this "two people in the cockpit at all times" as a significant security measure to the public.

[Arakan]

This discussion reminds me when safety belts got mandatory in the 80s...

Same reaction of many people back then were quite similar to those expressed here

"Stupid", "knee-jerk", "statistically small risk"...

I am glad that safety belts are mandatory today :).

[Arakan]

dp

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

This discussion reminds me when safety belts got mandatory in the 80s...

Same reaction of many people back then were quite similar to those expressed here

"Stupid", "knee-jerk", "statistically small risk"...

I am glad that safety belts are mandatory today :).

If someone in the eighties said that car accidents had a "statistically small risk" of happening then that person was pretty ignorant.

It is not at all comparable to airline pilots crashing their planes on purpose. The last time that happened (affecting the developed world at least) was 16 years ago. Not counting the Malaysia Airlines plane since nobody really knows what happened to it.

When you consider how many flights there have been since then, and how many "normal" accidents, then the risk of something like this happening is very small. This is completely different from driving where even with safety belts the odds for dying in a car accident really aren't all that low, if you do it regularly throughout a lifetime.

[Arakan]

If someone in the eighties said that car accidents had a "statistically small risk" of happening then that person was pretty ignorant.

It is not at all comparable to airline pilots crashing their planes on purpose. The last time that happened (affecting the developed world at least) was 16 years ago. Not counting the Malaysia Airlines plane since nobody really knows what happened to it.

Again: don't only focus on this particular incident. But how many mistakes happen because pilots where not in the mental condition to fly a plane?

Can you prevent all kind of "human error"? Of course not? Should we try anyway? Absolutely

To give another example. Due to Fukushima, many NPPs around the world are installing right now another layer of fail safe systems in the form of additional EDGs (emergency diesel generators) to the already existing ones. From a technical pov this is unnecessary (the Nuclear EDGs in Fukushima didnt work because they were flooded by water) but I can fully comprehend why this has been decided.

From a hollistic pov, this is how long-term progress works.

Someone earlier said that this tragedy is not a game changer. This someone was wrong because he or she doesnt comprehend the holistic pov. I am absolutely convinced that things will change. In the last decades we focused on the technical part, know the focus will shift towards the human part.

We will have discussions about the psychological pressure many pilots have to suffer due to crazy working hours, cost pressure, the impact of low cost Airlines.

There will be knee-jerk reactions, for sure, but at the end of the day, we will again make progress.

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

Again: don't only focus on this particular incident. But how many mistakes happen because pilots where not in the mental condition to fly a plane?

Can you prevent all kind of "human error"? Of course not? Should we try anyway? Absolutely

To give another example. Due to Fukushima, many NPPs around the world are installing right now another layer of fail safe systems in the form of additional EDGs (emergency diesel generators) to the already existent ones. From a technical pov this is unnecessary (the Nuclear EDGs in Fukushima didnt work because they were flooded by water) but I can fully comprehend why this has been decided.

No idea.

There are already pretty strict requirements in place for becoming a pilot though. Probably some of the most strict for any profession. But as with any bureaucratic system people can still slip through the cracks, and this man according to his girlfriend was pretty good at hiding his issues from other people.