Originally Posted by
Rushed Approach
...innocent until proven guilty...
To be fair, I'd argue that the concepts of innocence and guilt have no place whatsoever in accident investigation. That stuff's for the legal beagles - and frankly, they're welcome to it.
As far as accident investigation goes, the central matters are:
- What happened?
- Why and how did it happen? (if possible to determine)
- What are the possibilities regarding why and how it happened? (if not)
- How can we stop it from happening again?
At present, the standard procedures in France (and I believe Germany as well) require that a criminal investigation be opened in the event of an aviation accident as a matter of course. It's worth reading up on the differences between their methods and ours before pontificating IMO.
Despite the apparent leaks, the investigators themselves have released only the information that they can confirm and deem necessary. However, the fact that they have not explicitly contradicted the leaked information implies a likelihood that they consider this to be a deliberate act based on the evidence they have so far. It's a rotten thing to have to contemplate, but contemplate it we must.
On a bit of a tangent, I'm fortunate enough to have a missus who has several friends who specialise in mental healthcare, and from what I've heard the vast and sweeping majority of clinical depression cases pose no risk of harm to anyone but themselves. Willingness to harm others is very much atypical of clinical depression pathologies.
It follows that - if this was a deliberate act brought on by mental health problems - the pathology is likely to be far more complex than usual - it's certainly going to be more than a case of clinical depression.