Could the pilot have been hypnotised? I always thought that you couldn't be hypnotised into doing something that would really harm yourself then I found this on the web...
Quote:
A classic study which illustrated how far individuals would go in hypnotic responses to contrived hypnotic situations was Lloyd W. Rowland, "Will Hypnotized Persons Try To Harm Themselves or Others?", Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 34(1939):114-117. This study is described in William Corliss' The Unfathomed Mind: A Handbook of Unusual Mental Phenomena, pp. 120-123. This study showed subjects sticking their hands into boxes with what they presumably believed were live rattlesnakes, and throwing concentrated acid into what they presumably believed was the unprotected face of another person.
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Would hypnosis explain why he shut off the engines? What I mean is... most non-pilots (eg the Hypnotist) believe that to crash the plane you shut off the engines, where as increasing power is probably more effective.
That research article is dated 1939. It would be interesting to know if it's has been repeated more recently.