I think his family will definitely help with the investigation, and also his closest friends, if he had any. Not to mention the valuable input from his GP and psychologist.
He must have shown previous signs of mental weakness.
It is true that mental health conditions can affect anybody but this guy had a confirmed history of depression, stress, exhaustion, he probably did not plan his mission but he was vulnerable and he needed help. I have the image of a young fragile person, possibly fatigued and very stressed, exhausted, unhappy, who would see all those around him as enemies, nobody listening to him, nobody aware of his deep mental suffering, nobody helping or supporting him, a human being simply ready to explode at any time: the trigger could have been anything, including the Captain's landing briefing instructions, e.g. the way he spoke to him, anything really could have made this young FO very upset, and even angrier with his life, maybe he suddenly got so upset with the Captain to the point that he decided to give him a lesson and "prove to him and to the world who was really in charge of the plane", his action would have finally ended his state of mental pain and suffering. His revenge vs all suffering and pain. Maybe the deliberate act of crashing had not been planned, it could have just been the result of a malfunctioning and depressed brain, a sudden reaction to the extreme emotional pressure of the moment or of the day.
There are cases of mothers killing their small children when they decide to commit suicide and take their own lives, this is another example of how unpredictable and dangerous mentally ill brains can be for innocent people around them. It takes only a moment of uncontrollable anger or extreme emotional pressure to commit a mass suicide. The brain is incredibly complex and fragile.
Let's try and mitigate risk factors of hectic modern life like stress, fatigue, over-work, lack of rest, career pressure, extreme competition, unrealistic targets, micro managing people etc. as a good start; mental health has never been such a huge issue as nowadays in our very advanced western societies. Our brains are not meant to be constantly working under the extreme pressures of modern life, our brains do not work as computers.
Maybe we should all start to slow down a bit and think of real priorities in life, this would really be a good start and we would also be a bit happier, we could finally enjoy our jobs; we are just human beings in the end and we must take care of our feelings, emotions and essentially we must protect our fragile brains from mental illness.
A malfunctioning brain killed so many innocent people, again.
Societies and governments should therefore do all possible to mitigate the risk of creating more "ill brains" which simply means creating more mental health cases.
