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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: 3, Insightful) by Rich on Thursday March 26 2015, @06:18PM
I don't know more than others on the net about the case discussed, so I won't do any judgement here. Still, I was asking myself, whether the devaluation of the job might have to anything with increasing risks due to "malfunctioning" crew. Especially as this happened in the "discount branch" of Lufthansa.
Back in the days, flight crew was ranked really high, socially and financially. I'd guess four stripes could be considered equivalent to chief surgeon or (successful) professor. Same for cabin crew: if you were considered, but ultimately rejected, you could still have a great career as model. Today, pilots, especially in the discount/short range sector hardly find much more appreciation than bus drivers. Maybe with the exception of passenger applause after landing on these all-economy-class flights. Pilots even have to shoulder the load of debt for their training in many cases.
I wouldn't be surprised if a significant correlation could be found between this increasing pressure and the likelihood of cracking under it in bad ways. Of course the "but we've got do something because of the children" brigade will now call for extra psych checks. Such actions might actually work in the wrong direction. Think of the seasoned captain who now has to fear for his job because some background checker with the humor of a TSA agent might discover some silly pictures from flight school 30 years ago, with him wearing a "kamikaze" headscarf...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by CRCulver on Thursday March 26 2015, @07:55PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 27 2015, @02:45AM
For Europeans? OK.
When you include Asians and Africans? Not so much. [wikipedia.org]
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by CRCulver on Friday March 27 2015, @03:01AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 27 2015, @05:19AM
True.
...and when that filter is applied, the results become rather counterintuitive.
I would think that the stresses on the folks working on a shoestring would be greater, skewing the numbers against them.
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by Rich on Friday March 27 2015, @05:08AM
Well, it's pretty obvious that, with a sample size of one, statistics don't really work. But then, "cracking" also doesn't magically cause the pilot to plan a suicide mission. Look how many youths "break" in school and how many of those broken go on a shooting spree. Yet I still guess those who've "made it" in the "air liner captain" class might well be more reliable in some ways than those who have to pay off their training debt in the "bus driver" class. And I also guess that there's a point where extra pressure (in whatever ways) will start to have a negative effect on the attempt to turn the human into a perfectly functioning machine.
(Score: 2) by hubie on Thursday March 26 2015, @09:01PM
Flying is no longer glamorous nor a unique experience. You no longer dress up to get on a plane, and you no longer get decent individual service. Pilots have become glorified bus drivers because flying on a plane is basically little different than riding a bus. Train riding had its glamorous heyday, just as airline travel did. We will get to the same point with suborbital flights one day, and then it will become more affordable to the riff-raff and it will be less exciting and more utilitarian as well.