So much of this case revolves around whether or not he was giving any indication of mental problems before that day. I have an intense interest in this sad case, no doubt because of my experiences as a F/O, and indeed years later as a captain.
I hesitate to go down memory lane on this one, it has caused me a lot of personal grief in more ways than one, but years ago as a training F/O, I carried a particular captain's problems around for months. I was told no one else would fly with him. Would I please carry on.
Months of being a captain without a command. Trying to do his job while doing mine, it was flattering at first, but things got so bad I started one report after another. Nothing was done. It's wrong to say no one listened, they did, but still did nothing. The last flight I did before my enraged departure was so simply off the scale madness, that if it was put in a novel, no one would believe it.
The respected captain that checked him out said to me, "I allowed the fact that he was an ex ******* ******* captain, to influence my decision."
The chief training captain said, "I knew this was coming."
Yet nothing was done.
Just imagine, half way between Barcelona and Palma - "Tell them I'm going visual."
Masses of protests from me, but then time taken up with trying to explain to ATC, things like why we were over Inca - having gone on a tour of the north end of the island, and why we were at 1,000'. And that wasn't a particularly bad day.
The final straw was Rome. "checks done?" "no, we've only just got a GPU." (APU busted.)
Then an engine started.
I was grabbing for the parking brake and calling atc as our girl rushed in and shouted there were passengers on the ventral stairs. Given it was a BAC 1-11, that was a tad more than he usually threw at me. God, how I wished I'd shut down and ordered the passengers to be offloaded.
What happened next would no doubt have backfired on me if anyone had given a damn.
Fuel looked normal. 8 tonnes, nothing in the middle. Acceleration was Morris Minor-like. I fire-walled the power about 1/3 way down the runway. No reaction from the 'captain'. We flew past one of Rome's most important monuments - at about the same height.
It was some moments later I saw a small amount of fuel in the middle tank. Over the next 20 mins it increased, until it was showing full. 3 tonnes overweight, and the temp chopped. Even the looooong climb brought no reaction from the left.
No reaction either, when he finally deigned to look at the tech log.
Usual lining up with the wrong airfield, and the double, double scotch on landing. He declined my offer of taxiing as we veered towards the edge of the taxiway - several times.
I prayed for the ground engineer to tell me the centre fuel dial was at zero. It was. Not having power fooled the system, and despite knowing that aircraft well, it certainly fooled me. No one could ever explain why the gauge took half an hour to read full.
42 years later, I still have all the paperwork for that flight - I had it in my hand when I was told to, "Stop! - you'll have to get yourself a QC, and say these things in high court if you want to talk about a captain like that."
Nearly 30 years after the event, a quite extraordinary chance meeting with the captain's old boss in ******* ******* said to me, "you can not tell me that man flew again." He seemed genuinely taken aback. "We tried to help him, but couldn't. Severe alcoholic. Possibly . . . " He'd lowered his voice, but I think, in fact I'm almost sure, I heard the word, psychotic.
If he had lost his license on medical grounds, my life would have been totally different.
To this day I don't understand. I don't understand people. If I've learned anything, it is that there is no standard human mind. Every single person on this planet can be affected by something. You can know someone all your life and then be stunned to find some hidden facet of their character that you wouldn't have believed possible. Sometimes, it's very hard to accept.
At the end of the day, it's a very, very fine line between what we call normal, and . . . something else.