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Airbus A320 crashed in Southern France

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Airbus A320 crashed in Southern France

Old 26th Mar 2015, 22:35
  #1621 (permalink)  
 
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"Clues add up to co-pilot locking him out."
Or that the keypad wasn't functioning properly. Just last week a 10-key keypad, that had worked flawlessly for over 10 years had a malfunction (6 key wouldn't register) leaving me with a locked gate between my vehicle and myself, and no way to get through it.
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Old 26th Mar 2015, 22:41
  #1622 (permalink)  
 
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We may never know

Still hard to figure though why someone wants to kill another 149 people deliberately and yet not tell the world at large their motives for doing so.
Given the F/O's reported change in demeanor during the TOC/TOD briefing, he may only have wanted to kill the Capt. The other 148 may be collateral damage.
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Old 26th Mar 2015, 22:42
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leaked to the NYT, so let's hope he gets found.
I hope he doesn't get found.
Plus I don't think it is a prosecutable crime.
Did this revelation cause any damage? I doubt it.
Perhaps if the story was totally false there could be damage/harm but it doesn't appear to be the case.
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Old 26th Mar 2015, 22:42
  #1624 (permalink)  
 
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I guess I'll wait for the final analysis of the CVR and the FDR (if the data can be recovered).


All I've heard is the FO was breathing 'normally' and ignored the CA's request to come in.


Questions:


-Was the breathing based on the boom mic input from the FO?


-Did the FO get up and lock the deadbolt after the CA left?


-What is the medical possibility someone's breathing could remain 'normal' under the duress and the inevitable impact even if intentional?


-If the deadbolt wasn't locked, is it still possible the FO had a medical condition occur where he slowly became unconscious and thought he was hypoxic, and rolled the ALT selector down before blacking out?


Apologies if this has been already covered.
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Old 26th Mar 2015, 22:46
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What about some form of altitude sickness? Trying to understand this.

Not a pilot but was once a health pro'. Ex military and have been on plenty of transport aircraft. How to explain his behavior? What about some form of Monge's disease? Reports are that he seemed normal and had no known history of mental health issues, but some people, have been known to become susceptible to Chronic Mountain Sickness aka Monge's disease. What is the normal cabin altitude of airliners? He may have had a low tolerance combined with repeated exposure to non sea level altitudes. Why is it that he took so many innocents with him? Madness.
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Old 26th Mar 2015, 22:46
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Don't flinch from calling it what it is; this was a terrorist mass murder. The piece we're missing is the motive - and even if it turns out it isn't political, that doesn't diminish the terrorism.
100% agree Ranger.

This (and MH370) were not simple suicides. They were more complex than this.

They were both terrorist acts. However it is a different version of terrorism, and hence some people are having difficulty recognising it for what it is. Instead of the stereotyped religiously / politically motivated terrorism from "outside", this is terrorism from within.

Could be lots of things. Resentment at company. Resentment at society. Something else.

Sad depressed people kill themselves. Angry people kill others, and are willing to die in the process. But the killing of others is an important goal.

Unless the investigators have access to information not in the public domain, we don't know the specific goal in either case.

But pretending it was a simple suicide is as ridiculous as pretending this (and MH370) was the result of some bizarre combination of random equipment malfunctions / failures.
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Old 26th Mar 2015, 22:47
  #1627 (permalink)  
 
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^^^ not really possible, if the keypad had malfunctioned you can just call the flightdeck on the interphone and the remaining pilot can automatically or manually open the door for you to get back in.

What is more likely:

- Captain leaves flight deck
- FO has some sort of unexplained medical event rendering him incapacitated
- FO still for some reason while incapacitated initiates a descent without clearance.
- Captain tries to call flightdeck for re-entry and either fails to use the emergency entry code or some mysterious fault prevents it from working.
- Aircraft crashes.

or:

- Captain leaves flight deck.
- FO initiates descent without clearance.
- FO ignores entry requests
- FO puts door into LOCK preventing emergency entry.
- FO sits back and waits to the end calmly as it is almost all over.

Having know someone who did commit suicide, I concur with all the previous comments. Often people who have decided to end it all are calm and happy as they feel it is almost all over, there is no rational thought at this stage.

The prosecuter did NOT rule out suicide just said that the act of taking 150 people with you would not be classified as suicide by him. Mass murder probably.
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Old 26th Mar 2015, 22:47
  #1628 (permalink)  
 
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Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz had to STOP his training because he was depressed and suffering 'burnout' | Daily Mail Online

Good article

Police found something at his house of importance
His 'leave' or 'break' was for mental health issues

The door was not locked bybaccident or inadvertantly
It was deliberate as were the control inputs
He locked the door and changed the alt setting within secs of the cpts exit

We know what happened
We will never know WHY
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Old 26th Mar 2015, 22:49
  #1629 (permalink)  
 
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Grrr

In the UK (Swanwick AC/TC and Prestwick) can see Selected Flight Level on their radar screens. This was a cartainly a major contributor to the reduction of Level Busts within the London TMA. You input it wrong, they will question you.

Assuming the French ACC has this, it would have been obvious rapidly that the SFL was zero! Without knowing the intentions of the flight (no RT response), the Air Force would no doubt have been informed rather quickly!
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Old 26th Mar 2015, 22:56
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@hawkerjet

Mass murder over a salary dispute?
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Old 26th Mar 2015, 22:56
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A pilot in command has to wear 02 mask if he is the only one on flight deck?
Is it not possible that the Co-Pilot started to breath contaminated 02 the moment the door was closed?
Murphys Law says that it may be possible to charge the 02 system with Nitrogen?
"The reported normal breathing and no talk could still be the result of being incapacitated."
Only above FL410 in EASA/ICAO rules. Above FL250 in FAA rules, but there is an active movement to harmonize the US rules with the ICAO rules. ALPA and FedEx have a petition in the system to change the regs.
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Old 26th Mar 2015, 22:57
  #1632 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by md80fanatic
Or that the keypad wasn't functioning properly. Just last week a 10-key keypad, that had worked flawlessly for over 10 years had a malfunction (6 key wouldn't register) leaving me with a locked gate between my vehicle and myself, and no way to get through it.
loads of poster doing as you have picking on 1 point and giving a example of doubt, you must look at the whole picture.

A) why didn't he answer radio, ah they failed at just the moment the captain left FD

B) why didn't he get out of his seat and let the pilot in -ah he was paralysed with fear.

C) Finally why did he change altitude setting having just reached ToC, just having a play was he.

COME ON look at the whole picture.
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Old 26th Mar 2015, 22:59
  #1633 (permalink)  
 
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We know that one thing the French prosecutor said cannot be true:

He said the passengers wouldn't have been aware what was happening until the last few moments.

But we also know the captain was trying to knock down the door. Many of the passengers must have been aware of this.
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Old 26th Mar 2015, 23:00
  #1634 (permalink)  
 
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Pulling the CVR/FDR breakers and then initiate descent a few minutes later would be... suspicious I would say. It is very hard to explain a scenario along the lines of "the aircraft suffered rapid decompression and lost the flight recorders in the process" even if it would be possible to argue about damaged wiring as a cause of the recorder loss.

To me, CVR/FDR circuit breaker pull followed by a "bad event" is just too much of a coincidence for an "accident" scenario to fly.

It is the same thing with theories along the lines of "failed door" that has been posted in the thread. I would say that based on the available data, i.e. a normal climb to cruising altitude, no pressurization problems, captain leaves the flight deck, the autopilot is set to a very low altitude and descent being initiated followed by a failure to allow the captain to enter the flightdeck all points in a very specific direction.

I just don't believe in strange coincidences and "random events" such as:

1. The captain leaves the flightdeck.
2. Some "event" takes place and the F/O reacts to it by selecting the A/P to the lowest possible altitude.
3. As some kind of "bad luck", the flightdeck door jams, thus preventing the captain to enter the flightdeck after his lavatory visit.
4. The F/O becomes paralyzed by the "event" and/or becomes unconscious and never hear the attempts from the captain to re-enter the flightdeck, the repeated calls from the ATC and finally the GPWS/TAWS "Too Low, Terrain" and "Pull Up" warnings.

The only thing I could think about, if everything else (the door problem...) is disregarded is an event where the F/O becomes dizzy and then mistakenly turn the knob to "100 feet" instead of "10 000 feet". Even if we would assume something like a "fume event" making him dizzy and drowsy, the problem lies with the related door event (locking etc).

Especially the combination of an incapacitated F/O, which just re-set the A/P AND a door malfunction at the same time, exactly at the "right/wrong" moment is a very... low-probability event and therefore hard to believe. It feels to me like talking about a failure of the generators on engine number 1, loss of APU and then engine failure on engine number 2 and then insist that an accident was caused by this exact failure to the power generation onboard.

Another one would be loss of the FBW AND all hydraulics at the same time and then use it as a "number 1, main thesis" in an accident report or investigation without having concrete proof.

To me, a deliberate act would make "sense" out of the available data. Different technical failures would produce a different outcome. I have a hard time to find any failure that could explain the course of events, especially one that would be initiate the A/P setting selected. In any "incapacitation" scenario, the captain would have been able to regain access to the flightdeck and in this case we have data indicating not one but two deliberate activations of the door lock....

It had been better if the CVR data had been withheld for further analysis before being released but I am afraid that the final conclusion just can't be anything else than a deliberate act involving an autopilot re-set to lowest possible altitude followed by an open descent until the aircraft impacted the mountain paired with prevention of flightdeck access for the captain.
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Old 26th Mar 2015, 23:02
  #1635 (permalink)  
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Given the evidence anyone suggesting ulterior explanations is in fantasy land !
There is no way someone could of done the commands necessary without being in control of their actions...

Also from the Daily Mail:

"Police investigating the Germanwings crash said tonight they had made a 'significant discovery' at the home of pilot Andreas Lubitz, who deliberately ploughed the Airbus A320 into the French Alps.
Officers refused to reveal details of the potential breakthrough but said it was not a suicide note.
Speaking outside the flat on the outskirts of Dusseldorf, police said they had 'found something' that would now be taken for tests, adding it may be a 'clue' as to what happened to the doomed jet."
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Old 26th Mar 2015, 23:07
  #1636 (permalink)  
 
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FD door locked or not locked.

Just saw the statement of LH CEO Spohr again. Some had claimed that CEO Spohr had confirmed today during press conference that FO had locked the FD door. He did not say this.

Spohr said that either the Captain did not try to enter the emergency code or that the FO locked the door for 5 mins inhibition. He said they did not know which of the two was the case. But more probable was the latter one.

I also heard about the news from his home that they may have found something significant. But no further yet.
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Old 26th Mar 2015, 23:10
  #1637 (permalink)  
 
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Language Differences

Perusing the last few pages here, I see a few comments quoting various officials which were made in at least 3 different languages, none of which were originally in English, the primary language of this forum.

English is my primary language, but I grew up in a Spanish speaking country and my Spanish is almost as good. Even so, it's very difficult for me to translate from one to the other because different words carry different connotations in different languages and cultures. It's very easy for the wrong message to come across, especially on subjective things, such as whether what someone said was "harsh", "unfeeling", or "callous".
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Old 26th Mar 2015, 23:10
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Originally Posted by slats11
100% agree Ranger.

This (and MH370) were not simple suicides. They were more complex than this.

They were both terrorist acts. However it is a different version of terrorism, and hence some people are having difficulty recognising it for what it is. Instead of the stereotyped religiously / politically motivated terrorism from "outside", this is terrorism from within.

Could be lots of things. Resentment at company. Resentment at society. Something else.

Sad depressed people kill themselves. Angry people kill others, and are willing to die in the process. But the killing of others is an important goal.

Unless the investigators have access to information not in the public domain, we don't know the specific goal in either case.

But pretending it was a simple suicide is as ridiculous as pretending this (and MH370) was the result of some bizarre combination of random equipment malfunctions / failures.
Terrorism has a very specific definition tied in with political aims, and this (and potentially MH370) ain't it - that has nothing to do with stereotypes, just legal & academic definitions. This is a simple case of mass murder - essentially the same as some fed up kid shooting up his school & committing suicide, or some office worker "going postal". Only in this case the weapon was a stick & the victims were all aboard.
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Old 26th Mar 2015, 23:13
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I have read the so say transcripts in english, they are not transcripts they are press precis. I can read them in 10 min but the program was 40 mins and his answers were long.

the two poster who said it this morning were both german nationals watching the presser.

also if he set the 5 min lock once would have had to set it again, whether the CEO said that exactly or not.
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Old 26th Mar 2015, 23:13
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This is in reply to someone who asked what difference it would make if the cabin crew/ any locked out flight crew had the ability to contact ATC outside the flight deck (at present not possible on older planes like the 320). Well for a start we would be a good deal better informed about what actually happened on the plane from the get go instead of having to piece it together afterwards.
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