Germanwings A320 crashed in France :(

[Magog]

I can't help but think from the descriptions of him, and his behaviour, that rather than suffering from simply depression, he was actually a narcissistic sociopath.

[don'tbesilly]

Magog said:

I can't help but think from the descriptions of him, and his behaviour, that rather than suffering from simply depression, he was actually a narcissistic sociopath.

Based on the latest comments from the ex-girlfriend (if true) I'd tend to agree.

I'm not convinced that publishing the ex-girlfriends comments were wise,it's not uncommon for an ex to embellish a story for what by many could be seen as a money making opportunity however grotesque the situation is.

Have the co-pilots parents made any statements about their son,it would be enlightening to get their side of their understanding of their sons medical history and and any mental health issues.

[Cobalt Blue]

don'tbesilly said:

Based on the latest comments from the ex-girlfriend (if true) I'd tend to agree.

I'm not convinced that publishing the ex-girlfriends comments were wise,it's not uncommon for an ex to embellish a story for what by many could be seen as a money making opportunity however grotesque the situation is.

Have the co-pilots parents made any statements about their son,it would be enlightening to get their side of their understanding of their sons medical history and and any mental health issues.

The UK broadsheets are all quoting a single source from the German Bildzeitung. Bild is a red-top and can be prone to sensationalising events. I'm holding out for a report from a trusted source before accepting the claims of a "former girlfriend" with whom Lubitz was said to have flown with last year. Other reports had stated that he was in a relationship and lived with his current g/f for seven years.

[M4cruiser]

onyx39 said:

How many times has this happened? Why on earth would Airbus or Boeing plan for something so massively unlikely?

Why? For the very reason that the result is so catastrophic. The effort (and cost) applied to any fix should be in proportion to the expected outcome, and expected outcome is the probability multiplied by the result.

This is key to designing, building and testing systems. They didn't think this one through, although I don't know if it's the design, the build or the test that's at fault here.

If the design says something like "door/lock must prevent access for 10 minutes when in 'lock' position" then it would pass the test, but the design is poor.
But if it says "prevent unauthorised access" then as a tester I would give it a "fail" because it didn't allow authorised access; so the Airbus test or tester was poor because it passed.
If it failed the test and the accountants said "don't bother to fix that, we can't afford it and it will never happen anyway" ... well that's where the problem is.

There is always a way to fix these things, maybe we can't see it yet because we're not aircraft designers.

I recognise that the door lock design is done that way to prevent terrorists getting into the cockpit, but in this case the terrorist was already in there, flying the plane, and the door system prevented 149 others from getting him out.

[///ajd]

I have a feeling that the door design and 2 crew in cockpit issues are red herrings.

The real issue here is that

1. He had some kind of mental/physical problem
2. He was seeing a doctor/hospital for it
3. His doctor had decided he was not fit to work
4. Much is made of the medical note "covering the day of incident" - but this is journalistic licence - it was probably from earlier - even several weeks earlier.

This raises the question:

1. Did the doctors know he was a pilot? Or did he go through a different medical system for his annual check to hide his issues? Are medical records linked in this way? I've used aviation medical certification facilities - and the ones I used were totally separate from my GP etc.

2. If the doctors did know - did they rely on him to declare he was unfit to his employer? This raises particular issues if a doctor is saying - potentially on mental health grounds - you can't work. But at the same time leaving it to the patient to act honestly with his/her employer. How can you rely on someone with mental health problems to do that? I'd suggest you can't.

3. It is possible that he had received devastating medical news, and had realised he would loose everything - pilot licence, livelihood, girlfriend etc. putting him in a parlous state of mind - refuelling his earlier stress episodes. What precautions were taken?

I note that Lufthansa were careful to say "he had not informed them of a sick note on the day of the incident" - but this leaves the door open to him telling / lying to them that he was, for example "only a bit sick for 1 week in Feb but fine now" etc.

It is an interesting debate as to where the bucks stops - can you expect Lufthansa to really check he is not lying and withholding medical information? What duty does his GP have to report him? What duty does he have to declare he is a pilot? It seems there is a missing link here that may only be closed by linking professions to National Insurance numbers, or similar. Don't know.

It is the linkage between his health, his healthcare and his employer that has really failed here it seems.

Edited by ///ajd on Saturday 28th March 12:58

[Dr Jekyll]

M4cruiser said:

If the design says something like "door/lock must prevent access for 10 minutes when in 'lock' position" then it would pass the test, but the design is poor.
But if it says "prevent unauthorised access" then as a tester I would give it a "fail" because it didn't allow authorised access; so the Airbus test or tester was poor because it passed.

But how do you prevent unauthorised access while simultaneously allowing authorised access in such a way that an authorised person can't get the door open while under duress.

To put it another way. How do you define authorised?

[Steffan]

don'tbesilly said:

Magog said:

I can't help but think from the descriptions of him, and his behaviour, that rather than suffering from simply depression, he was actually a narcissistic sociopath.

Based on the latest comments from the ex-girlfriend (if true) I'd tend to agree.

I'm not convinced that publishing the ex-girlfriends comments were wise,it's not uncommon for an ex to embellish a story for what by many could be seen as a money making opportunity however grotesque the situation is.

Have the co-pilots parents made any statements about their son,it would be enlightening to get their side of their understanding of their sons medical history and and any mental health issues.

I agree with both of you you and the cavet 'providing what is being said is a true and fair view'. Sadly this may not as yet Be the case ex partners from a relationship can be somewhat fanciful if there is money in being fanciful.

Certainly there are going to be major consequences to this murderous act which I would think has, sadly, aready largely destroyed the families of all those directly affected. I do hope those directly affected, can, in time, find some process of reconciliation and peace. Major consequences for the Airline operators too who have insoluabe problems I think. Balancing the requirement that all air crew must report all of their Heath issues to their employer without any exception is a very two edged sword indeed. But is seems very probable that will become a fundamental requirement in the light of this muderous act by one crew member.

I have no idea how the conundrum of the security arrangements being reorganised in such a way as to satisfy the requirement that no unauthorised access to the pilots cabin can take place and at the same time still low access to the main aircarft and toilets for the flyers in the plane, can be achieved? Possibly an entirely separate toilet within the secure area accessible only by the pilots? Whatever changes are made there are dearly serious cost implications. The balance required of meeting the security issues without making the life of the pilots very different and to an extent, public, and keeping the plane secure and keeping the costs under control is going to be very, very difficult.

[trashbat]

///ajd said:

What duty does he have to declare he is a pilot? It seems there is a missing link here that may only be closed by linking professions to National Insurance numbers, or similar. Don't know.

It is the linkage between his health, his healthcare and his employer that has really failed here it seems.

There may be no linkage.

In the UK, to give the two examples I can think of, healthcare professionals are obliged to break doctor/patient confidentiality if (a) there is a credible threat to life, including suicide, or (b) the patient's condition needs to be reported to the DVLA. There are probably more instances.

In general though, much like the comments around punitive measures for declaring mental health conditions in the workplace, if you set it up so that your doctor will dob you in to your employer once you talk about your condition, the immediate outcome will be that the patient doesn't go to the doctor any more.

There's a balance to be struck and I don't know what it is.

[Sheepshanks]

gottans said:

Well I think the beeb has sunk to a new low, they are running a story about how much compensation the families will receive for losing a family member in the crash.

I think this is disgusting, I know the media is obsessed with telling us how much everything costs but please..

They had a lawyer on last night's news saying it would be different amounts depending on which country people are from.

I'm surprised by that, I'd have thought it would be based lots of things, country the airline was from, where the accident happened, where ticket bought etc, but not where you lived?

[///ajd]

trashbat said:

here may be no linkage.

In the UK, to give the two examples I can think of, healthcare professionals are obliged to break doctor/patient confidentiality if (a) there is a credible threat to life, including suicide, or (b) the patient's condition needs to be reported to the DVLA. There are probably more instances.

In general though, much like the comments around punitive measures for declaring mental health conditions in the workplace, if you set it up so that your doctor will dob you in to your employer once you talk about your condition, the immediate outcome will be that the patient doesn't go to the doctor any more.

There's a balance to be struck and I don't know what it is.

That is a good point. Perhaps the confidentiality - allowing those with mental issues the safety and security to get treatment
rather than risk suffering alone - is the sweet spot already as their treatment makes it less likely they will go off the rails etc.

You have to rely on individuals to some extent throughout life - there are no 100% solutions.

Grim though. I do wonder in this case exactly who knew what. The scary thing is that none of the signs were probably really indicative of the severity of what was to come, despite the benefit of hindsight.

[Cobalt Blue]

A long article on airline safety, pilot performance and AF447 Clicky

Not particularly relevant to the Germanwings incident, but possibly of interest to some on here.

Vanity Fair may not appear to be an obvious source for this type of information, but the link that led me to it said that the author had made a particular study of the AF447 voice recorder.

[anonymous-user]

My objection is to the story and how it monetises people in what are horrific circumstances. There have been other incidents like this but this is the first time I have seem a story in the media about how much a dead person is is effectively worth.

I think it is callous, cold and plums new depths.

[M4cruiser]

Dr Jekyll said:

But how do you prevent unauthorised access while simultaneously allowing authorised access in such a way that an authorised person can't get the door open while under duress.

By having something like the myth-based CashPoint PIN method of putting in your number backwards.

Dr Jekyll said:

To put it another way. How do you define authorised?

In this case the captain was authorised - as far as we know.

[M4cruiser]

///ajd said:

I have a feeling that the door design and 2 crew in cockpit issues are red herrings.

It is the linkage between his health, his healthcare and his employer that has really failed here it seems.

Edited by ///ajd on Saturday 28th March 12:58

Well yes I agree, but the other parts of the situation prevented others from minimising the damage.

[bitchstewie]

M4cruiser said:

Dr Jekyll said:

To put it another way. How do you define authorised?

In this case the captain was authorised - as far as we know.

Of course he was.

But in that scenario he'd still be authorised with a knife to his throat being forced to gain access to the cockpit.

I guess we can go round and round in circles but I can't think of any solution that wouldn't be exploitable or have a "what if" scenario.

[///ajd]

bhstewie said:

M4cruiser said:

Dr Jekyll said:

To put it another way. How do you define authorised?

In this case the captain was authorised - as far as we know.

Of course he was.

But in that scenario he'd still be authorised with a knife to his throat being forced to gain access to the cockpit.

I don't see how that is relevant. Captain with knife to throat does not get let in the cockpit. The end. There is no negotiation now as the assumption is the hijacker will crash the aircraft into a building anyway, so leave him out and land.

In many ways 9/11 has effectively killed off traditional 'hostage/let me in the cockpit/fly here or else' hijacking as the goalposts have moved.

[TTmonkey]

He was being treated for an eye condition apparently, not depression.

Soooooo, perhaps a few people need to rethink their diagnosis....?

[Ayahuasca]

I suppose it is to the copilot's very slight credit that he chose to fly into a barren mountain and not into a city.

[Puggit]

Ayahuasca said:

I suppose it is to the copilot's very slight credit that he chose to fly into a barren mountain and not into a city.

More luck than judgement I expect. Would he have planned that descent to such detail?

[Ayahuasca]

Puggit said:

Ayahuasca said:

I suppose it is to the copilot's very slight credit that he chose to fly into a barren mountain and not into a city.

More luck than judgement I expect. Would he have planned that descent to such detail?

Well he couldn't have predicted when the captain went to the loo, and maybe it was a matter of time before the door came down or the air force blew them up so he put it down quickly. Yes, some luck there I guess.