Ever done any combined CRM training with flight attendants? You get to know your colleagues pretty well especially when you socialize with them back at base or on overnights. I'd guess in the corporate flying world, you're on your own; byo food and coffee in a thermos perhaps?

Breaking news from New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/29/wo...=68980622&_r=0

He was being treated for vision problems.

If the Doctor had informed the airline, it probably would have prevented this tragedy. However, the other 5 major murder/suicide incidents would not have been picked up or prevented by a Doctor. And I think that is important - those 5 pilots were fit to fly, with no history of mental health problems.

However - all 5 were experiencing one or more feelings of shame, anger, resentment, frustration and rage. Triggered by work or personal situations and the perceived attack on their inner sense of self.

And I suspect the same will be true here. A trigger event and his personality profile created a deep inner rage / frustration - and led to his (and the others') desire to punish 'someone' for the intolerable injustice they imagined had been visited upon them.

As such, his medical depression may be contributory or it may be irrelevant. Either way doctor-reporting won't stop it happening again. Preventing the opportunity to be alone at the controls has worked in the USA and may turn out be the best solution of all.

I have followed this thread from the outset,but have not contributed because I didn't feel that I had anything worthwhile to add. All i will say is this. The number of commercial airline pilots employed throughout the world probably numbers tens of thousands,the chances of none of them going sufficiently mad to commit an act such as this are probably quite long.

You can't really get over the problem by installing sky marshalls because the same mathematical formula applies,and I would have thought it quite likely that in general people losing it are going to try to cover their deteriorating mental state.

Interestingly we have not seen it happen with coach drivers who could achieve something of a similarly horrific outcome on an Alpine road. The Moorgate tube disaster is one where the possibility of driver suicide remains not ruled out.

Is it the spectacular nature of an air crash that is the main motivatiion? Sadly I think what has happened makes a re-occurence more not less likely and I cannot imagine any scenario that could entirely prevent it if an individual is minded to try. Only time will tell of course if it does happen again.

An inevitable corollary will be a big loss of passenger confidence in airline safety. Mechanical and technical failures have been largely eliminated and we are now faced with human frailty which I think may prove a much tougher nut to crack.

I wouldn't dare to comment on the aviation aspects of this horrible business, but it occurred to me that LH may have preferred the news of the FO's apparent actions to leak early and 'bring the public along with them' so to speak, rather than have the terrible revelation hit the headlines later with even more impact on public perceptions of the company.

Capvermell . . .
 

Supplementary steel bolts on most armored cockpit doors, when manually latched would override the electronic lock.

For all the ones who propagate that the two personas at all time rule in the US has never brought any problems...

Sorry, flawed argument. Until the 10th of September 2001 one could have argued that noone has ever used a commercial aircraft as a weapon and that therefore it will never happen.

The rule in the US is there as otherwise the armoured and locked door is not cerifiable, exactly because a pilot left alone with psychological problems may take advantage of the situation.

The concept of the door is wrong to start with, as it assumed that all pilots are superheroas and will unde no circumstances ever let the baddie into the cockpit under extreme duress. Unless you have ever been under duress you don't know how you would react to it.

The whole system is based on a series of flaws that look good, but in reality are not. Time for a complete (and non public) rethink.

The Independent has picked up on Lubitz's eyesight problems.

Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot Andreas Lubitz 'sought treatment for eyesight problems' - Europe - World - The Independent

An ex-girlfriend is also quoted:

More realistically it gives the pilots time to safely select the appropriate squawk and make a radio call before opening the door.

While you might believe opening the door is to invite a 9/11 most recent hijacks have been for asylum purposes. Either way, would you sit safe in your bubble while people were shot, aircraft depressurised, set on fire or whatever?

And for your second point, been there so I have an idea.

Not the FDR but the memory module. First stated by President Hollande but also confirmed by other sources, the FDR was discovered the second day with the memory module dislodged (meaning gone). Observing pictures of the recovery, as expected when an aircraft hits a steep slope a lot of dirt was dislodged and mixed with aircraft debris rolling down the hillside. I have watched videos of recovery workers digging into the loose soil to recover components with part protruding from the soil, and with such a part in one video there was an electronic circuit board. FDR recovery still could be as easy as picking up the right piece of debris or it could mean sifting through tons of soil.

Have to say this but it will never happen.The best way out of this dilemma would be the return of the third pilot.

The third pilot was a "roadblock" on the route from the cockpit door to the pilots and the controls.
The inclusion of a third pilot means that there would never be less than two pilots on the flight deck.
Pilots work at 25% of their maximum capacity most of the time, 95% of capacity some of the time and on occasions, when things go wrong, at 125% of their capacity. The third pilot dropped that 125% back to 95% and made the whole operation safer.
The third pilot had a 3D view of everything the pilots were doing and what they were seeing on the instruments, a much better view than the pilots had of each other. The third pilot was often the first person to detect an incipient problem.
Somehow, having a third pilot on the flight deck moderated any opinions and actions of the two pilots, a stabilizing influence.

Incidentally the third pilot increased the number of new jokes on the flight deck by 33%:):)

ASN News » List of aircraft accidents and incidents intentionally caused by pilots

40 years: 591 dead in 11 world jet suicide events. Matched in the USA every 1 day (hospital errors) & every 6 days (gun deaths). Get a grip.

Until the marshal has a problem. There is no vetting that's 100%. The current solution (another crew member in the cockpit) makes as much sense as just having a pilot and copilot alone in the cockpit (which does make sense).

We're never going to get 100% prevention of this, and certainly if the copilot wanted to commit suicide we couldn't prevent it, but we can at least deny him the opportunity to commit murder in the process

First stated by President Hollande but also confirmed by other sources
 

According to the officials searching / investigating no part of the FDR has been found. I think they know better than Pressy Holly.
Which other sources (exclude journos please) have confirmed what?

Trying to find a technical solution on the aircraft to the “problem” of a suicidal pilot is pointless, IMHO. Whether it involves doors, other people, computers or whatever, if the guy trying to crash the aeroplane and kill himself and possibly others is determined enough, they will succeed despite any precautions.

There have been many fatal accidents in the past where the pilot(s) have been doing everything in their power NOT to crash, yet it has still happened. I think most people who don’t fly for a living truly don’t understand how a moment’s inattention or an incorrect control input during a critical phase of flight (like takeoff and landing) can lead very quickly to disaster. A deliberate contrary action could speed that up to almost instantaneous.

For non-pilots, imagine sitting in the passenger seat of a car doing 60mph. Just as you are about to pass a car going in the opposite direction at the same speed, the driver turns sharply into the path of the oncoming vehicle. Even if you had a duplicate steering wheel fitted on your side, it would be too late to do anything in the fraction of a second that remained.

The real problem is how to avoid having a pilot with severe mental health issues operating an aircraft. By the time they are sat in the seat it is too late...

Hempy, you said

40 years: 591 dead in 11 world jet suicide events. Matched in the USA every 1 day (hospital errors) & every 6 days (gun deaths). Get a grip.


Perhaps you could relax your grip a little? There is a very significant difference between implementing a homicidal mass casualty event, and - for example - making a mistake with treating a patient, or a patient infecting their bed-neighbor with a lethal bug.

At the end of a 'perfect' state-of-the-art flight everyone should arrive alive; while at the end of state-of-the-art treatment not everybody survives.

Purely as a matter of interest, Mrs 411 and I were discussing this crash last night. She flew as CC on the 1-11, the 707 and the DC-10 with Laker (I only ever flew the DC-10). She tells me that it was standard procedure on the 1-11 for one of the CC to sit up front whenever one of the pilots took a break and that was 30 - 35 years ago. (All the other aircraft in the Laker fleet carried a flight engineer so the problem didn't occur).

Odyssues, You did read the article, didn't you?

The point being that a little bit of perspective wouldn't go astray. It's happened before, it'll probably happen again, and no amount of 'do this, do that' will change it. Odds are you'll die in a car accident on the way to the airport, so just relax and put it down to a statistical anomaly.

What a heart wrenching statement by the father of Paul Bramley. Very dignified and full of what looking to the future should be.