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posted by LaminatorX on Thursday March 26 2015, @04:19PM   Printer-friendly
from the trust-no-one dept.

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...

 
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  • (Score: 2) by subs on Friday March 27 2015, @08:21PM

    by subs (4485) on Friday March 27 2015, @08:21PM (#163312)

    He's a depressed suicide, not a terrorist bent on taking down a plane.

    How do you know? Do you have access to some preliminary investigation results that us others don't? If not, then you're simply speculating. In fact, I'm not certain I'd agree that anybody with enough empathy to not wanna do personal harm would commit suicide by taking 150 people with them. He heard their screams, the shouts, the banging on the cockpit door from the back, he knew damn well ahead of time he's killing them personally. I'd wager that if you're willing to endure that, you're pretty ready to whack somebody unsuspecting over the head with a fire extinguisher first. If you just wanna die by flying, rent a freakin' Cessna single and stuff it into the ground at 170kts - death guaranteed 100%.
    Fact is, until the full report is out, we're all just speculating. The reason why this case gets under my skin is because I think it fuels a sense of paranoia and surveillance among airline employees, as has already happened between passengers since 9/11, where you get stupid cases of people being reported and planes diverted simply due to Orwellian "suspicious behavior" with no added benefit to security.

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  • (Score: 2) by vux984 on Saturday March 28 2015, @08:43AM

    by vux984 (5045) on Saturday March 28 2015, @08:43AM (#163480)

    How do you know?

    I don't know. It doesn't matter to the argument one way or the other. ( But FWIW if he was a terrorist organization act they'd have claimed responsibility for it.)

    In fact, I'm not certain I'd agree that anybody with enough empathy to not wanna do personal harm would commit suicide by taking 150 people with them. He heard their screams, the shouts, the banging on the cockpit door from the back, he knew damn well ahead of time he's killing them personally.

    Its really completely different; nearly opposite extremes even. He is merely pointing the plane setting it on a crash course. From there it is his inaction to re-orient the plane that leads to the crash; and it is under his total control. The event becomes passive as he "lets it happen". Eventually the course passes the point of no return and he couldn't save them even if he wanted to any more. At the end it becomes a passive acceptance of the inevitable.

    That is entirely removed from an act of violence taken directly against someone; where each blow is actively dealt and the result immediate. There exists a possibility they will fight back, that they will even successfully overpower you. The event is uncontrolled. It couldn't be more different.

    If you just wanna die by flying, rent a freakin' Cessna single and stuff it into the ground at 170kts - death guaranteed 100%.

    Sure. But its obviously not the case that he "just wanna die by flying". Suicides are never that simplistic.