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BBC reports the co-pilot of the Germanwings flight that crashed in the Alps intentionally locked the pilot out of the cabin and initiated the flight's descent into the ground:
The co-pilot of the Germanwings flight that crashed in the French Alps, named as Andreas Lubitz, appeared to want to "destroy the plane", officials said.
Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin, 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.
Mr Robin said there was "absolute silence in the cockpit" as the pilot fought to re-enter it.
Air traffic controllers made repeated attempts to contact the aircraft, but to no avail, he said.
The story seems SN-worthy because it is an object lesson in the consequences for our lives when we put complex machines and systems into the hands of others. In this case it was a trained pilot who killed a plane full of people who were powerless to stop him. Another example could be engineers who sabotage a dam and wipe out entire communities downstream. We mostly don't think about stuff like this because there is an invisible web of trust, sometimes called a "social contract," that leads people to get on a plane, or go to work, or take their kids to school without giving it a second thought. But when that social contract unravels, all bets are off...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Archon V2.0 on Thursday March 26 2015, @04:42PM
All public and private? So background check *millions of people* periodically. At that level of paranoia and expense and logistical nightmare you might as well just make everyone walk.
Also, what if he's a garden variety crazy and not anything to do with the terrorist-du-jour? Should we psych check everyone?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 26 2015, @05:37PM
Yes, and yes. Do you personally know who is at the controls? It only takes one to slaughter hundreds. And, what logistical nightmare? I'm sure some 3-letter agency already has that info, all they need to do is take action and deport the sick fuc*s. Only the limp wristed flower lovers and terrorists would complain about it. This isn't Kansas anymore Dorothy, get used to it or do something about it.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by wantkitteh on Thursday March 26 2015, @06:32PM
Flightradar24 [flightradar24.com] is listing 10853 planes in the air right now. Deliberately crashed commercial planes in the last 30 years can be counted on one hand - 3 [businessinsider.com] to be exact. Spending any further significant amount of time beyond the screenings already in place would do nothing but waste money and inconvenience passengers when pilots get grounded by the inevitable false positives. After all, since when were TLA's any good at actually catching terrorists without causing infinitely more collateral damage than good in the process?
"All they need to do" - that says right there that you know nothing of which you speak. Go post your bullshit with your own kind where it belongs. [dailymail.co.uk]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 26 2015, @06:49PM
Duhh ahh, OK Dorothy. Ignore what's happening and who wins?
(Score: 1) by cmdrklarg on Thursday March 26 2015, @06:24PM
Periodic psych evals for airline pilots seems reasonable.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 26 2015, @09:16PM
It would only seem reasonable if they worked and the benefits outweighed the costs. Since this happens extremely, extremely rarely (assuming this was even intentional), that doesn't seem likely.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 27 2015, @06:18PM
Perhaps there is another reason the plane failed and someone is trying to cover it up? Maybe it was really a mechanical failure and the plane manufacturers don't want to look bad? Or the air traffic control accidentally messed something up but it's so much easier to blame dead pilots than it is to blame, say, air traffic controllers or the air traffic control system? Or the airlines did something wrong causing mechanical failure?
These days, with huge conflicting reports among differing nations (ie: one country saying a military aircraft suffered mechanical failure while another saying it was shot down, depending on what country is speaking and what kinda propaganda is being pushed) who would know the difference? It's not like mainstream journalists really dig that deep. For all we know the reason the plane crashed could be something completely different from the various reports. Those responsible for determining what gets reported to the public (ie: reporters, airliners, government officials, etc...) could say or fabricate anything, it's not beyond them to do so, and who would know the difference.
(Score: 2) by sigma on Friday March 27 2015, @01:10AM
The NSA etc already do that, and consistently fail to prevent incidents like this one.