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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 27 2015, @06:18AM
However the strict door locking was only introduced after 9/11.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Friday March 27 2015, @10:10AM
However the strict door locking was only introduced after 9/11.
Indeed. The the list of hijackings in GP link above does not even include cockpit invasions by drunks and abusive passengers.
As someone else pointed out here, originally (like in the 1930's and 1950's) aircraft travel was considered to be something that only cultured gentlefolk would afford. The aircraft themselves were not the cattle trucks they are today, and the pilot was regarded as a respected friend - typically admired and assumed to have been a WW2 hero flier. The flight was like a social occasion, and passengers would be invited into the cockpit to admire the view.
People clung to this idyllic notion of aircraft flight long after the reality had gone. Some people still think of it as romantic even today. When UK trains went from spacious compartmented carriages to open saloons with the seats all facing the same way, in order to pack more people in, the marketing people declared it as "airline-style seating" because the idiotic public were supposed to think that was something desirable.
UK trains adopted locked drivers' cab doors in (AFAIR) the 1980's because of increasing problems with drunks. It had been needed with aircraft too for a long time, even without the risk of hijacking.