Yesterday morning, an old friend sent me a text: “Did you hear the news?”
I always get a pit in my stomach when I hear that. “No,” I emailed back. “What happened?”
What happened, of course, was Germanwings 9525. At the time all that was known was that an Airbus 321 carrying 150 people had crashed into the Alps. Soon enough details began to emerge, but how strange they were: a 24-year-old aircraft, en route from Barcelona to Dusseldorf, had climbed to its crusing altitude of 38,000 feet and then, within a matter of minutes, begun to descend at 3000 to 4000 feet per minute, apparently fairly steadily and while remaining on course, until it crashed eight minutes later into the French Alps. The flight crew issued no distress call.
I’d never heard of anything like it, but as the conversation developed online, some parallels emerged. Foremost was the case of LH1829, which took off from Bilbao last November and began an uncommanded descent of some 4000 feet per minute after the flight management system became confused by frozen angle-of-attack sensors.
In that case the pilots communicated with technicians on the ground and figured out how to solve the problem before a great deal of altitude was lost, but perhaps yesterday’s pilots had tried to tackle the issue by themselves and gotten too absorbed by the challenge to realize how much altitude they were losing, a la Eastern Air Line Flight 401?
Some speculated that a sudden decompression might have caused the tragedy. There have certainly been incidents in which aging, inadequately repaired aircraft have suffered catastrophic failure of their pressure hulls, leading to destruction of the plane, but those don’t generally look like this–the plane either breaks up at altitude or the pilots are able to don oxygen masks and keep flying the plane and communicating, if only for a while.
Another possibility–one hesitates to raise it in today’s climate of fear–is that a hijacker attempted to take control of the cockpit. I don’t think we can rule this out, either.
At this point, frankly, none of these scenarios make a great deal of sense, and I think the overall sentiment among people who spend a lot of time looking at this sort of thing is bafflement. “I’m at a loss,” one veteran 777 pilot emailed me yesterday. I think that about sums it up. Hopefully, the recovered cockpit voice recorder will provide some clarity.
UPDATE 3/26/2015: At a press conference in Marseille today prosecutor Brice Robin revealed that, according to audio recordings recovered from the Cockpit Voice Recorder, co-pilot Andreas Lubitz locked the captain out of the cockpit and initiated the descent that led to the plane’s crash into the Alps. “He took this action, for reasons we still don’t know why,” Robin said. “We can only deduce he destroyed the plane. He voluntarily allowed the plane to lose altitude. I think the victims only realised at the last moment because on the recording you only hear the screams on the last moments.”
Given the latest information, the default scenario going forward will be that Lubitz commandeered the plane in order to commit suicide. However, I think it’s important to resist the tempation to consider the case closed. Indeed, the investigation has only just begun, and hopefully a good deal of information remains to be pieced together (though hope seems to be fading that the Flight Data Recorder will be usable). Though the weight of evidence may seem overwhelming, I still find it strange that a suicidal pilot would prolong his own agony by descending at a relatively modest 3000-4000 fpm instead of just pointing the nose straight down, as the pilots did in the other apparent suicide crashes such as EgyptAir 990 and SilkAir 185.
The case most similar to Germanwings 9525 is probably that of LAM Mozambique Airlines Flight 470, which crashed in 2013 while en route from Mozambique to Angola. The plane had climbed to its cruise altitude of 38,000 feet when it began to descend at a rate of about 6000 feet per minute. Six minutes later, it impacted the ground, killing all aboard. Data from the black boxes revealed that the captain locked the co-pilot out of the cockpit and changed the autopilot settings to initiate a descent.
I haven’t seen any reporting explaining what might have motivated the captain to do this.
Meanwhile, the Guardian is reporting that Lubitz had 630 hours flying time (which is very low) and had been with the company since 2013. “Lubitz was also described by neighbours as being friendly and pursuing his dreams ‘with vigour’. One told the local newspaper, the Rhein Zeitung that he had kept fit through running, ‘How often we saw him jogging past our house.’”
Note received via twitter:
Aunty Conspiracy @AuntyConspiracy 16m16 minutes ago
@Airlandseaman @LGHamiltonUSA It is this article which is written by notorious anti-Muslim radical Michael Mannheimer. No facts presented.
Aunty Conspiracy @AuntyConspiracy 13m13 minutes ago
@Airlandseaman @LGHamiltonUSA Mannheimer has been brought before the courts – and lost – before for his views and activities. Caution.
Aunty Conspiracy @AuntyConspiracy 10m10 minutes ago
@Airlandseaman @LGHamiltonUSA Not to say it might not pan out but currently nothing but speculation and hope of the biased.
@lukeharding1968 (Guardian journo):
“Lufthansa flight school in Phoenix designated #Lubitz “not suitable for flying”. He spent a year-and-a-half receiving psychiatric treatment.
Bild: In 2009 he was diagnosed with a ‘severe depressive episode’. He was given ‘special regular medical examination’ and the coding ‘SIC’.
Bild: German investigators examining whether #Lubitz was suffering from a “personal life crisis” and had emotional problems with girlfriend.
None of this confirmed. But Bild is citing police sources and is generally – though not always – reliable. If true, v bad for Lufthansa.” <— Understatement.
I highly doubt Michael Mannheimer’s contention. A radical Muslim background was one of the first things checked and apparently didn’t pan out. Also, while Lufthansa and German Wings don’t check for mental health anymore once the new pilots obtained their licence they do regular checks for radical background, terrorist connections etc.
But there are more and more indications that Andreas L. has had episodes of major depression.He interrupted his training because he had to be treated – according to the German magazine “Focus” which quotes a tabloid. And he was still regularly treated. There are claims that German Wings was aware of that according to a notice in his personal file.
Information from “Bild Zeitung” has to be treated with care. But while they are often lurid or sensational they are seldom wrong about such specific information.
If this really pans out it will be a bombshell for German Wings. And it will spark discussion about how to deal with pilots who have episodes of mental illness.
@Nihonmama,
Our comments crossed! But you’re right. While being a tabloid “Bild Zeitung” normally gets these kinds of details right. They have journos with excellent connections.
Yes, you’re right: if this is true German Wings is in seriously hot water.
According to the German magazine “Der Spiegel” and now officially acknowledged as well, the police found several doctor’s notes – some of them destroyed – in Andreas Lubitz’s appartment. The notes declared him to be mentally ill and unfit for work. Apparently the co-pilot tried to keep his illness secret from his employers because his career might’ve been over or at least indefinitely suspended if this came out.
@littlefoot
There comes a time when doctor patient privileges should not come into play. This will be a mile stone, or at least one would hope, that the doctor inform the airline that the pilot be grounded. Not just issue a piece of paper to be ripped up and thrown away. I’d sue their pants off & justly so. It’s cases such as this that make things & important things happen in industries where innocent lives are at stake and where eight minutes can take the lives of 149 men, women, children. We’re probably be seeing the death of an airline, along with 150 souls.
@Chris Butler: Not only should doctor-patient confidentiality not be a consideration, but there should be a MANDATORY reporting requirement if a health care professional believes a pilot is unfit to perform his or her duties, with the appropriate legal protection provided for the health care professional. I don’t know what the regulations are in Germany, but certainly they will be closely scrutinized.
@Victorl
Agreed & well stated.
Sad that it always takes a psychotic episode such as this to change things. As for having another person in the cabin? Who? When a person is bound & determined to murder? It MIGHT be a deterrent. He probably would have just pushed it into a full nose dive & pinned the person to cabin door. This, like MH370, is really, really, tough to absorb. Can’t imagine the pain of the NOK.
@Chris & Victor,
Atm a much more complete picture is about to emerge.
Apparently Andreas Lubitz was treated privately by several doctors. The prosecutors found corroborating documents in his Düsseldorf appartment, including destroyed doctor’s notes, which would’ve excused him from going to work. Prosecutors assume atm that Lubitz wanted to keep his condition secret from his employers. It has not been disclosed so far what kind of diagnosis is on those doctor’s notes. Lubitz might’ve asked for a non-psychiatric diagnose if he was really concerned for his job.
It’s all very tricky and we have to wait for the emerging full picture. And we have a conflict of interest indeed between a patient’s right for privacy and imminent danger for passengers.
But if you take away a patient’s right for privacy, then it could’ve the consequence, that depressed pilots don’t seek help anymore and don’t get treated professionally. That might be even worse, because someone treated successfully for depression can be quite able to work normally.
It”s a convoluted situation right now, but I’m confident the full picture will emerge eventually..
@Victor, if Andreas Lubitz went to a doctor privately in order to seek help for a mental illness, this doctor is under no obligation to report this, even if he thinks the pilot is a danger to his his passengers.
Doctor-patient privileges are untouchable in Germany.
It’s a different story if German Wings orders an examination. The results will be reported and filed. That’s probably why Lubitz sought private treatment.
“Muslim Convert Co-Pilot Andreas Günter Lubitz Committed Jihad”
“It is this article which is written by notorious anti-Muslim radical Michael Mannheimer. No facts presented.”
This is exactly what I have been warning against all along.
All authorities (including federal prosecutors) concur, that nothing points to terroism. So please immediately stop this fear-mongering and all this talk about terrorism, converted muslims, djihad, etc. when you have zero evidence and zero facts, Mike Exner!
This is really getting annoying. You could have at least bothered to react to my previous polite words of caution.
Reminds me of medieval witchhunts and lynch mobs.
@Littlefoot
Please excuse my voracious appetite regarding this matter. I’m just dumb founded that it happened. How a 28 year old physically healthy, (which is a blessing in & of it’s self) but mentally unhealthy man could do this. Whats next, Polygraphs? “Do you harbor any suicidal thoughts?” “Have you ever harbored thoughts of crashing your aircraft or ANY aircraft?”
Greg Long:
I don’t know where you left the tracks, Greg, but I posted the links and asked if anyone had any information about the validy of the articles, which I explicitely doubted. I did not begin to suggest they were valid.
@Jason, It certainly sounds unlikely, but also possible, so I think that until we can rule that kind of scenario out we should be so quick to pronounce Lubitz a mass murderer.
@Jeff and Jason,
The scenario, that the co-pilot slumps over while the captain is on the toilet, and enters involuntarily a descent into the flight management system, is impossible for several reasons:
First, it is confirmed that you cannot involunarily enter this kind of steady descent. It takes several key strokes. Then it has been found out that the plane’s cruising altitude has been changed to 100 feet as well.Interestingly some guys from Flightradar24 confirmed that. And last not least, the co-pilot wouldn’t lock himself in if he just felt sick and then passed out or if for some reason he wanted to land in the mountains. You cannot lock yourself in involuntarily. You have to get up from your seat to do this.
But I think it’s not a black and white question of declaring him a cold blooded murderer. Severe depression can cause strong psychotic episodes, hallucinations and delusions. That’s one of the reasons why mothers with post partum depressions can be a real danger to their babies. A friend of mine suffered so severely that she had the constant urge to throw herself and the newborn under a bus.
So, the co-pilot might not necessarily have planned to take everybody on the plane with him. He might’ve suffered from some delusion which told him to land immediately, for example. Or something else. We have to wait for the full disclosure of his mental condition.
But the monitoring of the mental health of pilots will be stronly discussed in the aftermath of this crash.
@Chris,
We are all dumbfounded. Unfortunately this kind of thing can’t be completely prevented. Psychiatric diagnosis is limited in many cases if the patient isn’t co-operative. Even polygraphs won’t help, since the patient might feel he isn’t lying at that particular time. Or the patient is cunning enough to deceive everybody.
The picture we get here in Germany is, that Andreas L. went to several different doctors. For letting himself treated for depression by one or several specialists and other doctors for obtaining sick notes for more harmless reasons. This exact scenario has to be officially confirmed, yet. But I can say this: it would definitely work in Germany. You couldn’t even blame the doctors, if the co-pilot told them his depression was getting better because the treatment worked. If he had private health insurance he could visit as many doctors as he wanted, without one doctor knowing about the other. And he would even get fully reembursed.
@littlefoot, Excellent points. One thing I haven’t been able to figure out is how Flightradar24 determined what the plane’s new cruising altitude had been set to. I wasn’t aware that this was one of parameters transmitted via ADS-B.
@Jeff, yes, that tidbit got almost lost yesterday in the flurry of new info.
But I thought it very interesting, especially because flight tracking sites emerge as potent players or public informants in crash investigations.
@Littlefoot
Guess your right. We’ll have to Trust that any pilot knowing he/she shouldn’t be flying remove themselves from the flight log.
Do pilots takes oaths? I know that ATC’s do.
That would be another way to appeal to their conscience & human nature.
@jeffwise: This presentation explains how the Extended Squitter format allows for “Target State and Status”, including target altitude and heading/track. I have heard David Soucie on CNN refer to it as the “Fourth Dimension” as it gives insight to controllers as to the intended status of the plane. (You probably did not see that segment as you had just appeared on MSNBC.)
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDYQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ssd.dhmi.gov.tr%2FgetBinaryFile.aspx%3FType%3D3%26dosyaID%3D195&ei=6qwVVenfGMGpgwTFv4TIDA&usg=AFQjCNGDP1YYiNZF4P5OgaALOJTx3TzfCQ
@Littlefoot, Chris Butler, Victor:
The doctor-patient privilege issue is an interesting one — and there are very valid reasons for privilege (medical, legal, clergy and spousal) to exist. Germany (and other countries) may even choose to address this in the context of their aviation regulations going forward.
But privilege is not the germane issue in this case. It is FORESEEABILITY.
Whether Lubitz was hiding subsequent psychiatric assessments from his employer or not, Lufthansa is very likely looking at a massive (class action) lawsuit based on negligence. If so, four elements must be met for the plaintiffs to prevail: duty, breach of duty, causation and damages.
Lubitz being previously deemed “not suitable for flying” (and getting a year-and-a-half treatment for his psychiatric condition) means that Lufthansa was was ON NOTICE that at minimum, Lubitz had an issue with depression. Therefore, any subsequent finding that he was 100% “fit” may not get Lufthansa off the hook if Lubitz was subsequently deemed not fit by his private doctor and he hid that fact.
Why?
The question is simply this: was it FORESEEABLE that Lubitz, given what was known about his medical/psychiatric history, might experience an episode (related to depression or other) that could cause passengers and crew on an aircraft he flew to be put at risk? And if foreseeable, what DUTY did Lufthansa have to mitigate or eliminate that risk? The answer: depending on the severity of the diagnosis — requiring Lubitz to have regular psychiatric checkups, with the physician reporting directly to the airline. Or better: not to have returned Lubitz to the cockpit after he was diagnosed in Phoenix. Because it is always possible that a person with depression (particularly severe) will experience episodes in the future.
@Jason:
“Unconscious yet breathing, he doesn’t speak and is nonresponsive to the captain’s pounding on the door or requests to unlock it.”
That is a very plausible scenario. Now the question: how to prove it.
After further review, it is becoming clear that the correct 4U9525 POI is where Leeham first reported. (N44°16’49.80, E6°26’22.20)
A no-fly NOTAM has been issued here:
NOTAM 44°16′50″N 6°26′25″E 3nm
OK, this is important. I should’ve known that, but forgot about it.
We have “aviation doctors” (my translation) in Germany, since flying personal have special needs and there’s the safety of lots of people at stake. A pilot doesn’t have a choice if he will call in sick with a doctor’s note or if he will continue to fly after all, because he thinks his condition isn’t so bad. If Lubitz had a doctor’s note that proclaimed him to be sick, he wasn’t allowed to fly – period. If he tore up the notes and did it anyway, he went against the law. If that would’ve been detected eventually, his career might’ve been in serious jeopardy.
If he didn’t go to an aviation doctor for treatment and got a note he still had to report this visit and show the doctor’s note. If he was of the opinion that he still could fly he would have to consult an aviation doctor, who might confirm the other doctor’s opinion or reject it.
Anyway, the decision to fly was not in Lubitz’s hands. The problem is apparently that the doctors simply assumed Lubitz would report his illness – which he didn’t.
Jason, Jeff, Littlefoot, Nihonmama,
This is in my understanding that cockpit doors have 3 modes of operation: normal, locked and unlocked. It is possible to unlock cockpit door from outside knowing access code. However, it is still possible to deny access from inside within 30 seconds in normal mode, and 5 minutes in locked mode. Thus a person or persons inside of the cockpit were definitely conscious.
bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-32070528
Nihonmama,
With regard to yours “Would it be in either Boeing’s or Rolls Royce’s long-term business interests?” (posted on March 24).
I have looked at the profile of James McNerney, CEO of Boeing. Exactly as I expected: B.A. and M.B.A. He started his career in Procter & Gamble. Now try to guess: is his business interest to make profit or to make a safer and advanced aircrafts?
@Olexandr, yes you’re right, the person inside the cockpit must’ve been conscious, not just because of the locked-door status, but also because the steady descent and the change of the cruising altitude couldn’t have been done by an unconscious person.
It’s of course possible that the pilot passed out for some reasons (he could’ve taken a drug…) in the very last minutes of the flight, but that would not be relevant for the sequence of events anymore.
The actions which initiated and ultimately caused the crash of the plane were done by a conscious person.
From the Guardian:
“Mental health experts have cautioned against blanket assumptions for people with depression, or any other illness. Mind says there will be pilots with experience of depression who have flown safely for decades, and assessments should be made on a case by case basis.”
I agree.
For such individuals, sadly, “I’m done. Good-bye cruel world.” OK, I buy – that he had suicidal thoughts, could’ve been ready to end himself.
But “I’m done. And I’m going to take out another 150” I don’t buy that is ‘only depression’. Something else likely triggered it.
If depression is ‘A’, likely A + B pushed him over. If it were just A or B, or even just A he，at the least, the others, may still be here.
A + B, or even just B (depending on what that was, possibly even without the depression!) likely is the reason.
I urge caution because media right now is saying “Aha! It was A.”
It makes sense to me that those with depression, if decide to self-destruct generally do not take out others (ie I’ll kill myself today but since I’m in a car full of people now is the time).
Something still seems missing.
But I guess we’ll find out soon what really happened as this updates so fast.
@Leo, in general you’re right. People suffering from depression can work and function for decades. There are actually many pilots with depressive episodes who continued to function just fine.
But you never know how a specific person will react. There are no rules for suicides. Most suicidal people don’t take others with them. Others go onto a highway and drive in full speed onto the opposite lane until they get killed in a crash – and very often someone else gets killed along with them. As I said earlier depressed new mothers often take their own life and the new life of their infants.
You might well be right and there is still a missing piece – but then, maybe not.
Why don’t we wait a few more days and see if other parts of the puzzle will turn up?
@Oleksandr:
“Now try to guess: is his business interest to make profit or to make a safer and advanced aircrafts?”
Try to guess?
OF COURSE his business interest is to make a profit. His interest and responsibility (as would be the case with any CEO) is ALSO not to make any decisions that would potentially subject BOEING to massive financial liability or damage to its brand (read: goodwill). It’s not an either or proposition.
These were my very first thoughts on the matter. All that speculation about Shah?
http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/did-mh370-theory-inspire-germanwings-co-pilot-andreas-lubitz/story-fniztvnf-1227281949117?sv=e3ba278f0d09c50b9ef73db97b332de6
littlefoot,
The issue with the cockpit door means that the person(s) in the cockpit manually denied access at least once, and it was no earlier than 5 minutes since the initiation of the descent.
But I am not so sure, why it is so conclusive that it was the FO. It could be some of passengers or other crew member, who lock themselves with FO using the opportunity when the door was open. What makes me think about such a possibility is a question why would a 28-year old man opt to end up his life like this? I mean there are easier ways to commit suicide; why would he need to kill people? And if it was his goal, why would not he direct the airplane to the Eiffel tower, Louvre, etc?
Nihonmama,
“ALSO not to make any decisions that would potentially subject BOEING to massive financial liability or damage to its brand”.
Exactly. But a MBA-person thinking will reduce this to “Not to make any decisions”, at least for the time being. A person, who has engineering background, would start thinking “What could be wrong?”.
@Oleksandr:
“But a MBA-person thinking will reduce this to ‘Not to make any decisions’, at least for the time being. A person, who has engineering background, would start thinking “What could be wrong?'”.
That is such a breathtaking stereotype and over-generalization I don’t know where to begin…
But I am recalling some of the engineers I’ve worked with (colleagues and clients) who, when confronted with a real life business problem, didn’t even know what questions to ask.
Nihonmama,
You asked “If Boeing, Rolls Royce, Inmarsat and the NTSB BELIEVE that MH370 vanished because of a mechanical/catastrophic failure, why would it be in their interests to remain silent”.
You answered your question by yourself: “Not to make any decisions that would potentially subject BOEING to massive financial liability or damage to its brand”.
@ Nihonmama & Littlefoot
I raised the question of Oath earlier. The airline industry is FAMILY inspired. I worked as an AC lineman fueling everything from 152’s Lear’s & G3’s in civilian life for over 15 years. This was in the 80’s. Greeted many drunken pax along with…yes drunken pilots. NOT many, but true. And what I’m getting at…is. Make them swear or Oath never to bring harm to themselves, pax or a/c. Swear to Country & Company always to seek help if stressed, or torn for any reason, as to affect their position as a pilot. It’s a close family & I’ve lived it. When you bring a family closer together with commitment (not talking candles or pep rallies) but true commitment to 1. Seek help w/o injunction. 2 Pax come first. 3. We deliver all pax safely . 4. We all go home to OUR families. This could be done when the company has hired & “signed in”. Once a year during company group meeting (not all at once of course) in a group atmosphere. I know it sounds hokey, but every effort should be accounted for to bring these proud & tireless airline pilots & crews to a different & brighter light.
@Nihonmama
The litigation implications are ENORMOUS. IMO 5-6 years at the very least. It’ll be interesting how Lufthansa handles it, or how insulated they are from G-wings. March 2014 & March 2015 (while not related in any way) have been disastrous! AND for the same reason…IMO
Jeff,
I am no expert on the distinction between Mode-S query/response transmissions and ADS-B broadcasts. Someone on the flightradar24 forum provided a link to the following document, which details a message type called “Selected Vertical Intention”.
https://www.ll.mit.edu/mission/aviation/publications/publication-files/atc-reports/Grappel_2007_ATC-334_WW-15318.pdf
(Check out pdf page 84). In any case, it seems clear that aircraft are capable of communicating various parameters, such as altitude, which the aircraft intends to head for, even if it is not there yet.
As an aside, today I acquired a Mode-S / ADS-B receiver, and now that it is set up, I can monitor aircraft that are arriving at, departing from, or passing over the local airport. I should also be able to decode message packets like flightradar24 did, but I’m not there yet. In fact, I should also be able to receive and decode ACARS transmissions. Oh yes, the device is nothing more than a USB stick with an antenna, and it costs $20 US. There is no excuse for anyone interested in understanding aircraft VHF transmissions not to own one as well.
@ Mike Exner: “I don’t know where you left the tracks, Greg
(…) the validy of the articles, which I explicitely doubted. I did not begin to suggest they were valid.”
If you highly doubted the validitym, then it’s even worse that you posted such rubbish about djihad and muslim terrorism regardless. Talking about leaving the tracks, that’s a complete trainwreck!
It’s exactly behaviour like yours, Mike Exner, which led to German and Austrian newspapers use pictures of the wrong pilot:
derstandard.at/2000013530856
They did not check their facts or pictures either, but just threw them out in the public.
You can imagine the ordeal the innocent, completely unrelated man went through.
We really have to make sure that we have SOLID EVIDENCE for whatever we accuse people of, especially if is terrorism, because fear and panic related to terrorism is already widespread enough. Wild accusations without facts are unworthy in a scientific community.
Jeff Wise is completely correct in saying that until all other scenarios can be definitively ruled out, we should not be so quick to pronounce Lubitz a mass murderer (let alone a terrorist, djihadist, muslim convert, etc.). So, one last time, please stop that, Mike, because you contribute to the spreading of tasteless fake Germanwings stories, which are already propagating all over the net like wildfire:
http://google.com/search?q=germanwings+fake
see:
Locking yourself in involuntarily is next to impossible I guess. But to lock yourself in, you don’t need to get up. There is a switch on the middle console, which you can easily reach while seated. (although not when you are unconscious)
Airbus pilots confirmed, that it does not necessarily take several key strokes, you can just as well push the sidestick forward, then let it go. The plane would keep descending. Theoretically this could happen by accident, when slumping over unconsciously, albeit highly unlikely, since you would probably change the heading as well.
“Aviation experts” on CNN claimed that you cannot do a nose dive in that airbus model, because the plane wouldn’t let you do that. They took this as argument for why the co-pilot opted for a steady descent, explaining that the plane would have prevented him from nosediving.
Are there any airbus pilots around here? Because I still believe that in direct law, he wouldn’t have had any limitations.
@Matty – one of my first thoughts was that this was a copycat. In any case, it appears to show that pilot suicides aren’t necessarily instant.
However, there are open questions. I second the question of whether the cockpit had only one occupant, at least until it’s affirmatively answered. Was anybody in the jumpseat? Did anybody take the pilot’s place? At least for now, this could have just as easily been a flight attendant.
In the bigger picture, I’m unaware of any malicious attempts to breach a cockpit that were stopped by the door itself. That leads me, unfortunately, to the inescapable conclusion that a security measure has now taken more lives than it has saved.
@Peter Norton,
The three points you address:
– When I was talking about Andreas L. keeping his illness secret from his employers I was alluding to the fact that Andreas L. tore up his sick notes. He swept – according to the prosecutor – several doctor’s notes that he was unfit to fly under the rug. That’s against the law. If he did this repeatedly it could’ve cost him the licence. As to the illness itself, we don’t know yet if it could’ve grounded him longtime or even permanently. This isn’t about reporting problems. This is about the question if he was fit to fly. And he wasn’t according to two doctors. But he broke the law by doing it anyway.
– You’re right that Andreas L. didn’t have to get up from his seat to lock himself in. I made a mistake there. Still this can’t be done involuntarily. And he didn’t just lock the cockpit, he also blocked the possibility for the captain to unlock the door with the emergency code.
– The steady rate of descent on a stable route plus the change of the cruising altitude to 100ft can only be done by several keystrokes, not by just slumping over.
@JS, there have been several pilot suicides which were not instant – I think it was a Moroccan pilot who also flew his plane into a mountain. Then there was a Russian flight ingeneer who stole a plane and circled until it ran out of gas. Wikipedia has an article about alledged suicides-by-plane and how it was done.
As to who remained in the cockpit: From the descriptions I read I gathered that the investigators deducted from the conversations and sounds before the captain left for his toilet break who remained in the cockpit. Also it’s highly unlikely that a second person had entered without making a sound and then would just stand by in absolute silence without audible breathing and watch how the co-pilot set the plane up for a crash. Or -if we want to imply, that the hypothetical other person did it – that the co-pilot would just let it happen while remaining absolutely silent.
In this case I trust that the investigators deducted the sequence of events correctly from the audio data. But this will be revisited extensively anyway by experts during the investigations and later in court. If there are any hints that something was missed it will come out eventually.
JS – whether MH370 was deliberately crashed by the crew or not, the perception that it was could be enough to inspire the unbalanced.
Littlefoot – sacking someone on mental health grounds is legally fraught even for an airline. That’s just where we are at nowadays. You could find them another role and still end up in court. Court is where they are headed.
The fact that the CVR audio apparently revealed that the co-pilot was “breathing normally” throughout the descent would indicate to me that he wasn’t aware of what was going on.
Hopefully the FDR (if/when recovered) will shed some more light on the situation.
Given the current evidence I agree with Jeff that it’s too soon to be accusing the co-pilot of an intentional act.
A review of cases where deliberate action by pilots is strongly suspected:
https://wordpress.com/posts/abn397.wordpress.com
@Matty,
I wasn’t talking about sacking, I was talking about the loss of his pilot licence and being grounded permanently – either because he went against the rules and flew despite several doctor’s notes which named him unfit for flying. Or because the illness itself would ground him for a while or even for good.
And flying was apparently everything he ever wanted from life. It was his identity. All witnesses – colleagues, friends and former class mates are very clear about that. But by ignoring the doctors’ notes he might’ve painted himself into a corner.
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“Andreas Lubitz et sa famille venaient entre 1996 et 2003 dans la région du crash, pour voler en planeur (@itele)”
https://twitter.com/itele/status/581592229573181440
Littlefoot – if you were running an airline you would want the right to impose any standard you chose. Today’s politics make that hard. He was never going to accept a role on the ground. He should not have been flying but it’s made difficult these days – now you have to manage an issue that should have been excised. It’s a bit like asthmatic firefighters.