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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 engblom on Thursday March 26 2015, @04:52PM
You can not call it suicide. That would not put things in right perspective. It was a mass slaughter. He is more a murder (149) than someone who did suicide (1).
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 26 2015, @05:20PM
no no no, people, we're on SN : it's a Schroedinger pilot. It is both a suicide and a massive slaughter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 26 2015, @05:42PM
> You can not call it suicide. That would not put things in right perspective.
I look forward to the day we start calling suicide bombers just bombers.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday March 26 2015, @06:02PM
The generally accepted term is "murder-suicide" [wikipedia.org] since he did both.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 27 2015, @06:26AM
FOX News goes with "homicide bomber" (after the Bush Administration suggested it,)
So let's all agree to call this a "Homicide flyer".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_attack#Homicide_bombing [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 27 2015, @01:12PM
> So let's all agree to call this a "Homicide flyer".
More like a "homicide lander."