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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: 1, Insightful) by legont on Thursday March 26 2015, @04:51PM
you don't deserve either one. - Benjamin Franklin
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 26 2015, @04:56PM
It's Obama's job to provide both freedom AND safety. -- Merica
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 26 2015, @05:21PM
How hard is it for you to comprehend that sometimes, you can't have both...
Freedom and safety is a case like that.
I think you have a saying for this kind of thing... something about cake and eating stuff...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Mr. Slippery on Thursday March 26 2015, @07:02PM
That's completely wrong. Freedom and security are mutual dependent. If you don't have freedom, that means you're not secure from state violence. If you don't have security. that means you don't have the freedom to do what you want, that you're being threatened -- coerced -- into doing or not doing some things.
"You must give up freedom to be secure" is pure authoritarian bullshit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 26 2015, @07:59PM
I the idea is:
Freedom to or Freedom from
you cant have both, but you can have a blend.. as allways the answer is allways Grey (not black and white)
-> You cannot be free to do 100% whatever you want, while also ensuing with at 100% certinty that your freedoms do not impact me and mine.
Freedom to knock down pilot doors, VS freedom from having the pilots door knocked down..
The solution is some sort of lock overide, as in 3 flight attendants can over rule 1 pilot, but not a 2 pilots or something.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 26 2015, @05:21PM
If you post the first half of your sentence in the subject line you don't deserve to post or write sentences.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 26 2015, @08:52PM
I think we've got a new category here, a subcategory of the karma whore. It is the person who posts some mangled version of this and attributes it to Franklin. It is almost always NOT insightful, it is almost always mis-quoted (you don't paraphrase a quotation), and it is always wrong [techcrunch.com], and you just show your ignorance and blind ability to follow the herd when you post it (yes, I guess that makes you a sheeple).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 27 2015, @12:47PM
Anonymous cowards can't accumulate karma.