Bitcoin Forum

- 12:54 p.m. ET: The doomed Germanwings plane is obliterated, with no piece of debris larger than a "small car," said Gilbert Sauvan, the president of Alpes de Haute Provence region.

Sauvan, a high-level official who is being briefed on the operation, said that human remains are strewn for several hundred meters. Helicopters have flown over the crash site but have not been able to land.

Authorities may not be able to retrieve any bodies Tuesday, according to Sauvan, with the frozen ground complicating the effort. Wednesday may not be much easier, with snow in the forecast.

- 12:20 p.m. ET: There were 144 passengers (including two babies) and six crew members aboard Germanwings Flight 9525, an airline spokesperson said.

......
Full story:

A Germanwings Airbus A320 plane crashed Tuesday in the foothills of the Alps in southeastern France with at least 150 people on board, according to Germanwings managing director Oliver Wagner.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls told reporters he fears all those aboard the flight from Barcelona, Spain, to Dusseldorf, Germany. The plane crashed near Digne-les-Bains, in the Alpes de Haute Provence region, Valls said.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/24/europe/france-plane-crash/index.html

It is a really bad news  :-\. All my support to the families

I read about it today, very sad and disturbing as I'm flying German A320s once or twice a year. I read it went off course before the crash and they are suspecting a pilot's mistake, because 320s are automated and easy to fly. I remember in 2012 one of these hit a helicopter and still managed to land despite the damages.

Damn, it seems like there's been a lot or air disasters recently. Has there been any comment on the cause of it?

Few other links:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/24/german-a320-airbus-plane-crashes-french-alps
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32030270
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11491587/Airbus-A320-crashes-in-French-Alps-with-148-people-on-board-live.html

There isn't any one cause. Each disaster has it's own causes. Most likely you're just identifying what you perceive to be a pattern (grouping of air disasters) in recent memory. It's kinda how people say "deaths always happen in threes" when two celebrities die in close proximity, and then people wonder who the third is going to be. Logically, that makes no sense, it's just how our brains are wired to see patterns and is a type of information and confirmation bias.

There was only 1 other plane crash this year, which still makes planes very safe and reliable. Just think about it, most airports in the world have over 10 takeoffs every hour and out of these thousands of planes in air every day we have maybe one crash every 2 months. I read a lot about plane crashes and most are due to human error.

just saw this on the news today. my full condolences to the families of the missing passengers.

you'd think that the more advanced our technologies are, the less accident will happen. but for some reason we have a lot of plane crashes these days.

I think there are less plane crashes relative to the number of flights than there have been in the past. There are just many more flights now than there used to be.

Just like cars, plane travel will become a lot safer when humans are taken out of the equation and only used for emergencies (mechanical problems).

Just the thought of being the parent that finds out that there isnt any kids comming home.
And there is nothing of them left.

Its impossible to describe it.

Condolences to the families of the missing passengers, really bad news I am really sad  :'(.

Is that not how planes operate now? I assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that the pilots are mainly used for takeoffs and landings and the majority of the flight time is now spent on autopilot or to reroute around storms or turbulence.

Awful tragedy. Children and babies aboard. 
Prayers to the families and may all the victims RIP.

Condolences to the families of the victims.

except when there is only one cause...

Your assumption is correct. And even landings are often performed on autopilot in the larger airports with ILS CAT III. During the flight, the pilot will set the plane on autopilot and only adjust settings through the autopilot to change the course or altitude.

There was a disaster when the plane's autopilot was automatically switched off without the pilot being notified, when too much pressure was applied to the yoke.

Each plane crash is a tragedy, but speculation as to what happened in France are fruitless until the flight recorders are found and decoded.

Sincere condolences to the families...

What a terrible last few months it has been for the aviation industry.  RIP to all the travelers.

That's a weird crash site.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2kh32q_first-footage-of-germanwings-flight-4u9525-airbus-a320-plane-crash-site_news

Not sure if it's relevant but it seems that the particular A320 in question was nearing the end of its natural lifespan which does raise the possibility that the crash was caused by some sort of mechanical malfunction:


Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525

Airplane crashes are always terrible.  I guess the best thing about them is the quick death - you don't suffer in any way - other than the anxiety before.

Thoughts to all the families involved.  The world needs less crashes.  :(

They already found it, though not sure how long it takes to decode. Don't flight recorders only collect certain flight data? I guess if it was shot down or just blew up randomly the box wouldn't be able to help (not saying it was anything to do with those two but speaking in general about crashes).


Looks like it might have broken up mid air and scattered debris over a distance.

Crew conversations are actually recorded by (at least some) flight recorders, so you should still be able to infer something about circumstances of accidents. As an example, in the Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870 case (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerolinee_Itavia_Flight_870) pilots chatting about nearby aircrafts movements suddenly stop, due to the airliner being hit by a missile.
 

The fact that they didn't maneuver at all is definitely weird. I believe visibility was decent so it's not like they didn't see mountains coming if they were alive and conscious.

My knowledge is that there are usually two different "black boxes" in a single plane although they can sometimes be integrated into a single unit. One is the flight data recorder (FDR) which records the technical details of the flight (e.g. control inputs, airspeed, altitude, pitch, roll, yaw, magnetic heading, etc.) while the other is the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) which records the conversations in the cockpit.


Interestingly, one of the theories currently circulating as to the cause of the disaster is that the pilots of the plane lost consciousness due to a cracked windscreen and the resulting loss in cabin pressure which would have knocked them unconscious or otherwise incapacitated them to some degree:


Link: http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/566170/Alps-crash-Rumours-circulate-cracked-windscreen-blame-Germanwings-tragedy

Officials say that a pilot was locked out of the cockpit and was banging on the door.
Atlast he tried to kick the door in.

Sadly he was unable to get it.

This still leaves the question... Why did the other pilot not respond?

Sad story. Yes, the number of flights is definitely higher - but no where close to the amount of regular traffic, not sure, I just think it's hard to make comparisons as people often do (not you). Also, while some people can miraculously survive a traffic accident, survivors of plane crashes are a very, very rare occurrence.

I just heard on the news this morning they suspect the pilot committed suicide. In the black box recording they said you can hear him breathing calmly and the captain in the background trying to break down the door.

Yes, I also have heard this news this morning but it has not any sense. why he did that thing? He has killed all those people (RIP) without any reason (kill a person has not any sense, only in defense cases). However It could be a jihadist (terrorist) but I don't understand why he crashed to a mountain instead a city, so the chance of a jihadist could be very low.

That is not true actually:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_commercial_aircraft

There are actually quite a lot of crashes that do not kill everyone on board. The majority of crashes kill all on board, but it is not very very rare. There were 2 crashes of the 7 in 2014 that had survivors.
The number of plane crashes in 2014 was lower than in 2014, there were a lot more fatalities though.

Suicide doesn't need to make sense to anyone other than the one committing it. Therefore, regarding all the other lives lost: A Muslim may believe he is doing the will of Allah, by waging jihad.; A Christian may even rationalize that they will all just go to heaven (or hell) a bit earlier; A Buddhist might think they were doing everyone a favor by ending their suffering; A nihilist believes everything is meaningless, therefore it doesn't matter how many lives are taken. Aside from any religious or philosophical regards, if you commit suicide, it is often simply an act of desperation and you probably just don't care anymore (emphasis made) about the repercussions of your actions.

They check passengers too much instead of thinking if pilots are proper to this job.

Well think about the speeds involved. The difference in kinetic energy of hitting a solid object at 60 mph (or less) vs. 600 mph is enormous, plus cars are engineered to protect the passengers as much as possible with devices that lessen the impact (seat belts, airbags, crumple zones, steel frames built around the seats), vs. planes which cannot do much to lessen such an enormous impact. I'm not surprised at all that the vast majority of people involved in air crashes die. The forces involved are just too great to protect against effectively.

You are right, it could be a raptus attack. This situation reminds me this film : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Tales_(film)  They should check the story of each passenger (it is very strange).

Passengers planes needs a escape system that have been equipped on fighters. There should be a solution for that dangerous situation instead of sitting waiting for death.

I think it is better to add a new security system to the airplane, why not add something like a key "multisig" so if the co-pilot (like in this bad situation) close it into the cabin the pilot and one hostes can open the door with their "keys". I hope you understand, it is the same system of the multisig address (2of3).

Its hard to be involved in their personal life and address each pilot in particular. Its still not clear what the intention was, but I don't see anyone thinking of suicide taking down a lot of people with him, unless he developed hate due to a terrible experience.

That looks like an interesting movie. I'll definitely try to find a copy to watch. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3011894/

Cool idea, but it would be far too costly, not to mention add a lot of weight to the plane. I could think of a few (more political) reasons why it would never happen.

Do you mean the ejector seat? There's technically no way to do it and I can already tell you that it won't be implemented. There are many reasons and here's a few obvious ones:
-It would greatly increase the weight of the plane as each seat has its own parachute, air supply for the passenger and gas tanks to achieve thrust.
-Each ejector would open the ceiling and decompress the cabin, so you'd have to eject everyone at the same time. That said, who would be responsible for the ejector? What if somebody would panic and eject 300 passengers, wearing t-shirts, somewhere over the arctic circle...

Germanwings flight 4U9525 deliberately flown into mountain, says prosecutor

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/26/germanwings-flight-4u9525-deliberately-flown-into-mountain-says-prosecutor (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/26/germanwings-flight-4u9525-deliberately-flown-into-mountain-says-prosecutor)

<< The co-pilot of the Germanwings plane that crashed in the French Alps on Tuesday, killing 150 people, appears to have deliberately flown it into a mountain after locking the flight captain out of the cockpit. During the last eight minutes of the flight, the co-pilot "voluntarily" carried out actions that led to the destruction of the aircraft, Brice Robin, a French public prosecutor, said at a press conference in Marseille.

Citing evidence from a cockpit voice recorder recovered from the Airbus A320, Robin outlined the last moments of the doomed plane in a chilling account of the actions of the co-pilot, whom he named as 28-year-old Andreas Lubitz. Robin said Lubitz could be heard breathing right up until the point of impact, suggesting he had not lost consciousness. However, he failed to respond to increasingly desperate calls from the captain trying to break down the cockpit door, or to air traffic controllers. Passengers could be heard screaming just before the crash, Robin said. >>

Is there any indication if it was religiously motivated?

Updated: 26 March 2015

MARSEILLE, France -- Barely a day after the New York Times reported that the voice recorder of Flight 9525 revealed the pilot banging on the door to get back into the cockpit, authorities have released the name of the presumably suicidal co-pilot, and happily, his first name is not "al-".

French prosecutor Brice Robin said that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, 29, was initially "courteous," though when the captain asked about going for lunch after the flight, Lubitz gave a cryptic reply about preferring virgins.

Evidently, the pilot left for the toilet (für gepißßing) and the co-pilot locked the door, hardened cockpit doors being an innovation adopted after the last time a plane was intentionally crashed. The Airbus A320 is designed with safeguards to allow emergency entry into the cockpit — which can never be used by anyone who does not belong inside to begin with — but the override code is disabled in the case of a co-pilot desiring to commit mass murder and suicide.

Standard U.S. operating procedure is not to leave the co-pilot alone in the cockpit but to put a stewardess inside, because she is never a jihadi, as of course the co-pilot is not either.

Mr. al-Lubitz was a veteran flier who had flown thousands of flights without ending any of them in the side of a mountain. But Mr. Robin refused to disclose the co-pilot's religion.

Yeah, it'll most likely shape up into yet another Allah Akbar.

I'm confused by your "updated" post. Are you satirizing, speculating, or something else?

Please don't start another complaint : "I hate muslims" , because this not the correct thread. Thanks for the attention and also (why not) for your opinion.

Not disclose the co-pilot's religion seems suspicious, but if it was religious motivated I assume someone is going to take credit for the attack.

He seems to have suffered with depression a few years ago, maybe that had something to do with what happened:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/03/26/germanwings-co-pilot-reportedly-battled-depression-in-0/ (http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/03/26/germanwings-co-pilot-reportedly-battled-depression-in-0/)

Where the fuck are huge parachutes for whole cabin? Totally technically plausible.

This is going to increase airfare prices for sure in Canada, now that you need at least three people in the cockpit.

(Air Canada is requiring two people in the cockpit at all times, so unless the pilots can "hold it in" the entire flight, you need three!)

http://globalnews.ca/news/1905570/air-canada-to-implement-new-policy-requiring-2-people-in-cockpit/

Such a senseless tragedy... What absurd reason can any human conjure up to calmly descend into the nearest mountain with 150 innocent souls on board without so much as a verbal justification or sigh of relief?

the mechanism to unlock the door by punching in a code from the outside, was overridden from the cockpit. That would mean that the co-pilot was actively working to keep the pilot out, and knew what he was doing.

That's what I always think about when they start yet another demonstration of how to employ the floating vests...


Someone who has been hypnotised. The co-pilot might not have been aware of what he was doing. The captain going out might have been a trigger condition for him to take action. The prosecutor mentioned the the co-pilots responses changed from jovial/normal to short when the captain mentioned that he is about to go out of the cabin.

I watched a documentary on Discovery about such "programming".

The flight recorder revealed the passengers were calm until seconds before the crash, there was no time to evacuate even if they had parachutes.

It's harder than you might think. Usually people are afraid of heights and would hesitate or even panic before the jump, so the evacuation would take at least 10 min. What is more, you wouldn't be able to use front doors because they would be sucked by the engines, so everyone would have to jump out the rear.

What about a modular construction, where the whole seat groups of 3 are ejected with a common parachute...

I'm imagining a horror scenario where the pilot and a few others are frantically trying to beat open the door and succeed only right before impact.

Wow.  Why is overriding this even an option?   :o

What a terrifying last few minutes for the passengers.

I assume, to prevent unauthorized entry by someone who may have intimidated the crew into giving them the passcode or key.

A young man full of proud and hope in a top career, selected to end his life in such a horrible way, the only cause is woman  ;D ;D

Again the spirit of bitcoin shines: Trust a system instead of human

The only people that should have the key (it can be changed on every flight) should be the two pilots.  When one leaves, he should be guaranteed a way to return.

I'm going to guess the reason was religion.  The world needs to rid itself of that cancer.   :-\

Yep it's a standard being set now
Air Canada WestJet all the carriers as the policy went into law, by consideration this actually is a return to Pre-911 policy though so it's interesting to see that it has gone back full circle in a sense.

I know that's what we've all been told, but I don't really buy that.
After a minute the captain would of been hammering hard on the door, his voice raising every second. There's no way the passengers wouldn't of realised something was very wrong early in the 8 minutes. The flight attendants wouldn't of been able to hide the fear from their faces.
Also the plane was descending fast, the passengers would of known this.

Let's hope I'm wrong though.

From what I've seen and read, the pilot tried knocking and then kicking the door down for 8 minutes. I wonder why he didn't try to get others to join in - a la United Airlines 93? Granted, the doors leading up to the cockpits on modern planes are stronger nowadays due to new safety regulations passed since the 9/11 terrorist attacks but surely three or four people + a drink cart or fire extinguisher would have afforded a better chance of breaking the door down?

And really, anyone no matter what their job, age, wealth, or status can go crazy so the risk of these types of things happening cannot be entirely eliminated - only minimized. Having two pilots in the cockpit at all times makes sense. Think about it: If a typical pilot has a one percent chance of going berserk during a flight, then two pilots going berserk at the same time is one percent of one percent - i.e. 0.01 percent. That alone reduces the risk by a factor of 100 (although I suppose a truly motivated pilot could use social engineering to force or manipulate the other pilot into leaving the cockpit).

I heard on a news report that cockpit door was designed to withstand a grenade blast.

Another "Allah Akbar" case?

I don't think the suicidal (co-pilot) was inspired by a religion. Its was only a stupid way to die (and condolences to the all victims families).

A theory. If he was suffering from depression but that went away, however depression rarely disappears without a mayor positive change in ones life or without treatment. (In many cases it doesn't even disappears but turns to a "background process".) So I guess he might be on antidepressants. Antidepressants have a range of well known side effects from minor inconveniences up to "suicidal thoughts or actions" and "violent actions"... (Like a bloke in the States who got antidepressants to help quit smoking but after a few doses he killed his two kids and himself, instead.)

I dont understand one thing , if pilot can eject , why not people ? Also I have heard that the co-pilot wanted to crash the plane making it an Intentional Plane Crash

There are no ejector seats on A320s.

Dont you think there should be ?  I mean if this goes on , many people will keep dying in front of our eyes and we wouldnt be able to do anything.

No, there is no way to provide ejection equipment for passengers.  They could be provided with airbags,which would help in some cases.

The air at 38,000 feet is so thin you cannot survive without immediate and continual pure oxygen such as from an oxygen mask.  It is really, really cold.  Like -50C.  This is why in a depressurization the pilot must dive the aircraft to immediately get to a safe altitude like 10,000 feet.

On a passenger plane no one can eject. Everybody goes where the plane goes. Splitting the plane to ejectable cabin sections would be useful indeed, but I'm not sure how effective that would be as 80% of the accidents are used to happen during the take-off or landing (low altitude but high speed) what isn't ideal for such a solution.

Then I think huge parachutes can be a good option to lower the speed. Or there can be a big fan underneath the plane like those having stability like helicopters.

It wouldn't work anyway. Hundreds of seats flying up at once, parachutes all getting twisted up.

Those are doesn't really matter if the pilot want to crash the plane.
A big parachute needs high altitude and "thick" air to open and slow down stuff. In addition we are talking about a big and relative fragile 60-70 tons plane, so you would really need quite a lot of huge parachutes.

No the pilot suffered depression in the past it is known now. And furthermore the media mentioned there might be indeed relationship problems since a few months. So we will get to know more soon I think.
This is a real tradegy. I feel with the people who lost their family members. It must feel pretty terrible to know you lost your relative because of one person who choosed to end his life and was willing to take 149 other souls with him.
Really really sad story! :'(

They found a suicide note.

No. They found torn up sick notes.

Well, BBC isn't very reliable but they wrote the opposite: "Prosecutors said there was no evidence of a political or religious motive to his actions, and no suicide note was found." But they wrote about some torn sick notes in his apartment what suggests that he wasn't fit for flying.

Re the concept of passengers being able to use ejector seats, an average ejector seat weighs 150lbs+

Ignoring the issue of designing a plane that could eject people safely, questions arise about how such a system could be activated and also the cost of carrying 22,500lbs of ejectors seats and parachutes. 

Not to mention the explosive charge in each ejector seat.

There have been some successful experiments with whole airframe parachutes but only when a plane is at stall speed. 

I read that too. And a German newspaper said he had psychological problems and had been under psychiatric treatment for 18 months.
And recently that he had a breakup with his girlfriend. : /

Please can you stop? Thanks.


So most probably wasn't a religion reason, he was only affected by a psychiatric pathology and he has committed only a suicide without any religion purpose.

Just one more reason why everyone needs their own personal jetpack.

Own jetpack won't work at extreme height, too cold and no oxigen, but the whole plane might be possible to first eject slowdown parachute at tail then lots of parachute/airbag around the body, thus ATC can override with an emergency brake and shutdown the engine

I think you're underestimating how much parachute you'd need to slow down a jetliner traveling at 600 mph. And a parachute to slow down an entire plane, assuming this was physically and mechanically feasible, would ostensibly be deployed from the cockpit, which makes this a solution that wouldn't have worked in this case, since the co-pilot locked out everyone who didn't want to crash the plane.

When you are taking a car driving course, your instructor can always step on break and stop the car.  Air Traffic Control can not do this to an airplane because of safety concern, but if the plane can be safely parachuted, the control of plane can be overridden by ATC, the pilots will have no control over the plane when ATC take over

In fact if ATC can override, parachute is not needed, it can just autopilot the airplane to land on any nearby airport. You only need to code a specific emergency landing sequence in the airplane computer and trigger that sequence when something is wrong. But parachuting is easier than autopilot since it could also solve other problems like computer/engine/gear failure etc...

Would the autopilot be able to land everywhere? Someone said above that it worked on large airports but airports can be different and with different sizes, etc. And maybe it could cause problems for the airport if they weren't ready.
And if you can send information to the plane to do that, or to say it can't land there, can't there be the risk of it being used to hijack the plane? : /

The amount of engineering this would require relative to its utility keeps this from being a worthwhile endeavor. (In my opinion.)

A very interesting read:

The Germanwings tragedy: inside the mind of a pilot (by Michael Bloomfield)

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/27/germanwings-tragedy-pilot-psychiatrist-psychological-evaluation-andreas-lubitz (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/27/germanwings-tragedy-pilot-psychiatrist-psychological-evaluation-andreas-lubitz)

<< French prosecutors have reported that first officer Andreas Lubitz appeared to want to destroy the aircraft carrying 149 innocent people aboard Germanwings flight 4U9525. As a qualified pilot and a psychiatrist, I have since repeatedly imagined nightmare scenarios in that cockpit. Although we will never know what was truly going through Lubitz's mind as the aircraft plunged, one of the many alarming aspects of this tragedy is that his depression is being quickly blamed. Obviously depression cannot be the sole cause of a likely mass murder. Understanding this could yield many important lessons, and for now, the black box flight recorder will continue to yield vital information. (...) >>

(Michael Bloomfield is a research fellow in psychiatry at Imperial College London)

Apologies. I'm 99% sure they did say "suicide note" on the news this morning, but I suppose it's possible I misheard them.

This is very sad and selfish if you want to suicide why do you have to take so many people's lifes with you ...

It is really insane, now after the fact, thinking that any guy who seems normal can do something so disgusting and awful.  That pilot would nto have had any red flags in my book if I had seen him, but look what he did.  Lawd, I am sure all of our respects go out to the families that were affected by this and hopefully the dead rest in peace.  <3

There is no relation.  Psychology of suicide is well understood.

This is mass murder which has a corollary of the death of the perp.

The most chilling thing I can think of is that he apparently breathed normally until the very end. Sounds like he didn't breath any faster. Just as if everything was normal.

Unfortunately no.

How the system works is, a signal beacon is placed in the beginning of a runway and the autopilot aims for it. If you miss it and try to land a passenger jet on a field you will crash it  because the gear is not made to handle rough terrain.
What is more the autopilot won't land by itself. You still need to manually choose the beacon, reduce speed, operate the gear and flaps and after touching the ground reverse thrust and break.


Might work, but you'll still need someone to operate the system. Who would that be? The pilot? The flight attendants?
Where would the button be? If we put it outside the cockpit a rogue passenger could eject everyone. If inside, it would make it easier for the pilot to kill everyone without crashing the plane. He'd just have to push it somewhere over the Arctic Ocean and they'd be all dead of hypothermia within an hour.

I agree with this notion that we don't know enough. There is very much a lack of information to establish motive, and in that absence, the media rushes to report and connect dots. Then the more it gets reported, the more it's cemented in the public's mind. They keep bringing up his past mental state or torn up sick notes, and this draws an implicit link for motive where one may not exist. We don't know why he crashed the plane. Everything is just speculation driven by the 24/7 news cycle.

That's why parachuting is a better practice, hijack the plane just make it parachuted (Those pilots will be crazy after being parachuted forcefully ;D)

Maybe not, since the increased safety in air plane will draw more customers. A big obstacle for many people to take airplane is this psychological barrier that there is no parachute on commercial airliners, once you entered the cabin, you can only pray to god, quite scaring. High speed train will gain more support if airline's safety is not improving

How Germanwings Co-Pilot Hid Secret Mental Illness
Families' fury at airline as police find pile of torn-up sick notes in home of killer nicknamed 'Tomato Andy' - including one for day he crashed jet
The co-pilot who crashed his plane into a mountain killing himself and 149 people hid a secret illness from his employers, German prosecutors have revealed.

‘Obsessive’ Andreas Lubitz locked the captain out of the Airbus A320’s cockpit before setting the plane’s controls to descend into a rocky valley, it emerged yesterday.

Following a search of Lubitz’s Dusseldorf apartment, investigators today revealed they had found old torn-up sick leave notes, current ones and one issued for the day of the disaster.

Prosecutors said the finds indicate 28-year-old Lubitz may have had a medical condition which he kept secret from his employers, budget airline Germanwings. They have found no suicide note or claim of responsibility and no evidence of a political or religious motivation for his actions.

As the revelations emerged, families of those killed in the disaster expressed fury that Germanwings allowed Lubitz to fly a plane. Claude Driessens, whose 59-year-old brother died on the Airbus A320, said the co-pilot should not have been anywhere near the cockpit.

Responding to the developments, Mr Driessens said: ‘Looking back, I slowly start to be angry. I don’t understand how a serious company can let a depressed man pilot a plane.

‘Because the boy was depressed, it was necessary to say he was. It’s not normal to leave somebody by himself in charge, and who shuts the doors, I’m very angry.’

More...https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/03/no_author/killer-pilot-was-under-psychiatric-care/ (https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/03/no_author/killer-pilot-was-under-psychiatric-care/)

How was the airline to know the pilot was depressed?

There is no central database to store that information.  Even if it was required to disclose the info to the current employer, a person could just switch jobs and be anonymous again.

Should we set up a registry?  How would that clash with privacy rights?  Depression is a pretty private issue.

I've been depressed in my life.  I would be horrified if an entire forum found out about that, so I keep it a secret.

Absolutely heartbreaking to hear, it all seems so senseless. Can't imagine what it must have been like during those 8 minutes in descent.

I don't think you'd need to go that far; I imagine some form of regular psychological assessment of the flight crew, mandated by the company, would go a long way in helping to determine if they were fit to fly. Now, this wouldn't work in every scenario, of course, as there is a limit to what those tests can do; but it might be better than just expecting them to self-report, which often doesn't seem to happen, perhaps out of fear of losing the job, financial problems, and so on.

I feel that you are not really depressed but if you do. Why would you go as far as avoiding talking about it and keeping it secret? Closing in with your depression is nothing good, you should be seeking help and not running away from solution. I would rather know if someone I know or have contact with is under effect of depression...

Pilots have to undergo regular (annual) medical testing, but these are just physical examinations and do not include a psychological assessments.


The possibility of losing your job (and just the stigma) is a real deterrent.

The solution to this new wave of maniacal use of the heavy locked door to the cockpit is to simply mandate that it be unlocked.

Then any crazy or religious-crazy pilot or copilot would have to deal with the passengers not being inclined to participate with the crazy.

Crazy passengers would have to deal with the other passengers.

Majority would rule.

Exactly, human error is the cause for most of the accidents found in automobiles and aircrafts.

http://www.planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm (http://www.planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm)

This site is full of air accident stats. Number of accidents and fatalities have both been trending down, even though the number of flights increases year over year. 2014 was an outlier year in terms of number of fatalities.

https://i.imgur.com/wXGUidb.png

https://i.imgur.com/RdDLbBM.png

Always fun to listen to these guys,,, always good analysis of major events.

https://www.noagendaplayer.com/listen/707/12-58

On the Germanwing Crash

It's happened before see SilkAir 185 and Pacific 773

Guess they'll have to start doing better background checks on Pilots, as well as mental health checks, etc. Scary. Poor people on board must have known as the other Pilot was banging on the cockpit door.

is it the plane crash because the pilot suicide ?
bcos in my country that news said the pilot suicide and something.

Yes, they just published the tapes from the cockpit. The captain went to the bathroom and the co-pilot closed the door and started to descend. The captain couldn't get in and started to hit the door and shout from the outside, but the other guy never answered. Apparently he had problems with his eyes and could lose the licence, so it seems the whole thing was planned.
I can understand he wanted to die, but why not rent a plane and crash it yourself? Why would you kill so many innocent people? Such people should be brought back to life and then slowly killed again.

So what are the odds of this not being a murder-suicide now? While the evidence gathered so far certainly points towards the co-pilot being the one at fault, could there be any other reasons that might explain why he was unresponsive and why he flew his plane into the ground?

Could it be possible that the co-pilot suffered a stroke or brain aneurysm which left him in a delusional state as he tried to land the plane? If so, then perhaps he mistook the captain for an intruder. Or perhaps he fell unconscious at the controls? Perhaps there was some sort of breach in the cockpit's windshield (e.g. a leak which would not have been detectable by the voice recorder) which caused a decompression incident in the cockpit which caused loss of consciousness and shut the cockpit door firmly closed?

A decompression in the cockpit would have blown the door open, not closed it more firmly.  Pilots usually have oxygen masks that auto inflate above 25,000 feet, since there is no time at those altitudes to grab a mask and put it on, should decompression occur.

"as he tried to land..."

There was no attempt to land this plane, it was deliberately crashed from 38,000 feet.

The cockpit voice recorder heard the faint breathing of the co-pilot as the plane descended. It would of certainly heard a broken window.

Edit: Disturbingly the co-pilot's breathing was completely calm and relaxed!

Have the Flight Data Recorder been recovered yet. Last I read, only its empty shell was found with no content.

Also, not all seems to be as streamlined with the suicide theory as it first seems:

Hacked: Did You Really Think Cockpit Door Was Locked?
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/03/27/350535/

and

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/03/27/neo-trailing-isis-to-tel-aviv/

If there is a decompression, wouldn't the air pressure in the cabin compartment be greater than the air pressure in the cockpit? And since air tends to expand outwards, wouldn't that cause the cockpit door to slam shut (assuming that the cockpit door doesn't open into the cockpit).

EDIT: Nevermind. Looks like the door actually opens into the cockpit:

http://s21.postimg.org/47etjmvgn/cockpit_Custom.jpg


This is probably true.

All of this "was the copilot alive" could have been solved with video in the cockpit.

Unlike many other vehicles operating with heightened safety concerns, airline cockpits don't come with video surveillance. The reason, in part, is that airline pilots and their unions have argued vigorously against what they see as an invasion of privacy  ??? that would not improve aviation safety.

How can you expect to have privacy when you are in charge of 150+ people's lives?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-27/why-the-final-moments-inside-the-germanwings-cockpit-are-heard-and-not-seen

Lessons need to learnt from this horrific tragedy. There should be 3 people in the cockpit (all pilots) if one leaves the cockpit there is another in place at all times. Depression can happen to anyone at anytime- some recover quicker and for others it take years - more tests to be done more regularly for pilots who have already suffer from depression. This may or may not stop this from happening again but safeguards need to be in place. Focus need to be on safety than profits too.

I listened to the whole thing. It's actually an interesting point of view.
For those who didn't listen to the program, they pointed out that everything a pilot does is calculated by the computer and then if it agrees with the pilot it allows the plane to perform a maneuver.
There were cases when the computer decided to decrease altitude by itself, so it's possible the plane was going down by itself and the pilot couldn't just leave his seat to open the door as he was struggling with the controls.

Cockpit cameras are probably coming, it's just a matter of time.

Why did the airlines not require their pilot's doctors to notify the airline if the pilot is unfit to fly?

Two things

- 2014 was actually the safest year on record for commercial flying if you exclude the shooting down of the plane over the Ukraine.  I know lots of civilians died but for the purposes of airline safety statistics, acts of war are generally excluded.

- It is grossly offensive to suggest that depression was the reason this plane was crashed and those people murdered.  It shows a misunderstanding of what depression is.  Whatever the reason is that the co-pilot crashed that plane, it wasn't simply because he had been treated for depression .  It could even have been a failure by his GP to taper his depression medication appropriately.  There is also a non-depression health related issue that will be reported in the coming days which may have been a contributing factor to his state of mind.

Suicide is never a rational act.  Attempting to rationalise it by using depression as a cause is at least partially misleading and the mass media (at least in the UK) has been shameful in its reporting.  

As previously mentioned, the periodical medical tests pilots go through don't usually include psychological assessment - and those that do include it, never do so in great detail.

---

I haven't listened to the program, but going by your description alone, it seems unlikely that was the case; the pilot was apparently calm enough to breathe normally, yet he completely failed to respond to those outside who were trying to open the door - then add to that the time this whole thing lasted, and the pilot's experience.

Another two interesting article about this bad story  :-\ :

It will be mandatory for two people to be in the cockpit at all times on all international and domestic flights, the Federal Government says. Authorities reviewed Australia's aviation regulations after 150 people were killed when a Germanwings plane crashed in the French Alps last week. Co-pilot Andreas Lubitz has been blamed for the crash, and was alone in the cockpit when the plane slammed into the mountainside. Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said the new policy would apply to aircraft with 50 or more passengers.

More at: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-30/federal-government-announces-new-cockpit-safety-standards/6358474

---

Alps plane crash: What happened?


The co-pilot of a Germanwings flight that crashed into the French Alps sent the plane into its doomed descent "intentionally", according to French investigators. He was alone in the cockpit when he initiated the plane's dive and refused to allow the captain back through the cockpit door, they said. Speculation over the reasons for his actions has centred around the co-pilot's mental wellbeing. The German A320 Airbus flight 4U 9525 from Barcelona to Duesseldorf came down in a remote mountain valley in France on Tuesday 24 March, killing all 150 people on board.


More at: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32035121

---

I really want to know what is happened in that day, and maybe if it is related with any passengers.

They had a number of ideas. Some other were that the tapes weren't released, the events were instead described on the base of the tapes. It's not an actual proof.
There were also cases of Airbus pilots feeling dizzy because of fumes from leaking hydraulic fluid, and the most important thing: this plane has systems that don't allow the pilot to suddenly start diving and crash it, but maybe he knew how to override it, just like he knew how to block the door from the inside. There's definitely a lot of questions here.
They also pointed out that it's extremely rare for a pilot to go to the toilet during such a short flight and I agree with this, as I've flown over 10 times in German 320s and never seen a pilot go out during the flight.

I remember a similar situation when the plane carrying the Polish president crashed, killing everyone on board. Years have passed since that day but the questions still remain.

Not the airline, but the FAA medical examiner, who can revoke the pilot's license.  In the case here, you had a pilot who was lying about his condition.

Likely he went to a different doctor (in Europe the doc could even have been in a different country) for the depression and medications for it, than the doctor he used in conjunction with his flight status.  Perhaps he paid cash.

In the US, his medical history would have been disqualifying with, I believe, no exceptions.

How do they know he took an axe to the door? It is all based on sounds. I'm sure he was hitting with anything he could find

A 'good' news :

Earlier Tuesday, Lufthansa said its insurer, Allianz, had set aside $300 million to “deal with all costs arising in connection with the crash,” Lufthansa spokeswoman Kerstin Lau said. Lufthansa also announced that the company has canceled proposed celebrations of its 60th anniversary on April 15 "out of respect for the crash victims of flight 4U9525."

“Instead of the originally planned anniversary event, Lufthansa will provide a live broadcast for its employees of the official state ceremony in the Cologne Cathedral on the 17th of April 2015, where the bereaved families and friends will gather to remember the victims.”


More at: http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-france-crash-lufthansa-pilot-depression-20150331-story.html

http://82.221.129.208/a320crash.html

http://82.221.129.208/frenchowl.jpg

It was probably a guess and the sounds from the cockpit voice recorder were similar to that of an axe pounding on metal. Later news reports claim that an axe wasn't used since the only axe in the plane was actually located inside the cockpit. It has been suggested that the captain used a crowbar instead:


Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/german-plane-crash/germanwings-pilot-patrick-sonderheimer-fought-open-locked-cockpit-n332206

(Reuters) - A video of the final seconds aboard the Germanwings plane that crashed in France last week has been discovered, reports said on Wednesday, just hours before executives visiting the crash site dodged questions about the mental health of the pilot.

The video was found on a mobile phone belonging to one of the passengers killed on the plane which investigators say German pilot Andreas Lubitz deliberately flew into a mountain in the French Alps, Bild newspaper reported.

The scenes seen on the video were chaotic and very wobbly, said Bild, adding screams and shouts of "My God" could be heard, indicating the passengers knew what was happening.

Prosecutor Brice Robin, who is handling the case in France, said the phones collected from the crash had yet to be analyzed and were being kept on site. France's BEA investigation authority could not immediately be reached for comment.

A video : http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/01/us-france-crash-idUSKBN0MS3JI20150401

Well this is confusing. MSN claims that the video was deemed to be a fake:


Source: http://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/world/germanwings-plane-crash-video-that-reveals-chaos-in-moments-before-disaster-is-a-fake-insist-investigators-into-french-alps-tragedy/ar-AAaiLHh

But I see many other news sites saying the opposite too. For example, this (http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/01/us-france-crash-idUSKBN0MS3JI20150401) article was published just an hour ago and seems to support the idea that the video is real:

Finding evidence to support a finding of premeditation.


More: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/prosecutors-lubitz-probed-suicide-methods-cockpit-security/ar-AAalGDv?ocid=ansnewsap11 (http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/prosecutors-lubitz-probed-suicide-methods-cockpit-security/ar-AAalGDv?ocid=ansnewsap11)

Just watched german news.

right now if you fly in the eu there is no id control if you check into the airplane.
this is gonna change now, reason is that the police had great trouble of identifying the victims.

There is also more information about the co pilot.
the german police found his tablet which he used to get information about suicide and the technical aspects of security doors to the pilot cabin.

As a co-pilot, wouldn't he know how the cockpit security door works? That seems odd he would search for that.

It's really a catch 22 situation. If a pilot is depressed, then it's not really in their best interests to seek help and report it since it means that they will no longer be allowed to fly planes. However, if they didn't report it and kept it a secret to their employer, then they will continue to fly while depressed and without treatment which would only worsen things even further and make situations like this even more common.

Just a thought but would it not be possible to give pilots who report their mental health an equally high paying job on the ground instead? At least until their condition improves?


Yeah, it does seem a bit odd. However, he was a newbie pilot with just 600 hours of flying time and I doubt pilot training schools go into depth about how the security door works, how it's reinforced, etc. - i.e. information that would probably be of great interest to someone who wanted to do the things that he did. :(

Unfortunately I know first hand that antidepressants can have horrific side effects.
http://www.cchrint.org/2015/04/01/flying-under-the-influence-germanwingscopilot-drugs/ (http://www.cchrint.org/2015/04/01/flying-under-the-influence-germanwingscopilot-drugs/)

The second black box recovered from the crash site of a Germanwings airliner confirms that the co-pilot deliberately crashed the plane and even increased its speed before the Airbus A320 slammed into the French Alps, killing 150 people, French investigators said Friday.

Information from the first black box, which captured conversations in the cockpit, had confirmed Lubitz locked out his pilot, who could be heard shouting and banging on the cockpit door as the plane headed toward the mountains for almost 10 minutes.


http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/04/03/french-investigators-co-pilot-accelerated-plane-on-descent/25230771/

So now we have to worry about the guys on our side as well as the terrorists.

Yeah, everyone now can be a risk so I do not trust anyone, the world is changed and much has changed this time; slowly the world is getting worse.

Yes and the worst is some or maybe all passenger knows what happen, their scream and shout captured in the first black box when the pilot try to open the cockpit door.

This is a far fringe concern. People who want to commit suicide generally don't participate in mass murder in the process, and whatever concern this warrants has already been solved with all the airlines announcing no pilot will ever be in the cockpit alone anymore.

If a pilot was truly determined to crash a plane, then I believe they still can even with the new rules in place. It might be possible to use social engineering to manipulate the other pilot into leaving the cockpit. Or they could push the other pilot out of the cockpit while they're not looking and then slam the door shut. Or as a last resort, they could simply force the plane into a stall or an uncontrollable dive during take off or landing that would be impossible to escape even with the other pilot in the cockpit.

Example of a pilot who succeeded in destroying a plane by deploying thrust reversers mid-flight:


Link: http://murderpedia.org/male.K/k/katagiri-seiji.htm

...and this is the era of the far fringe....

So sad to hear this and this should not be happen if Germanwings take more attention on pilot health check up procedure.



I'm imagine if I were on the plane, that's is trully scary  :-X  :-X

 ::)

The profile that has emerged of Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz has become more troubling by the day.In the hours after Flight 9525 crashed in the French Alps two weeks ago, Lubitz was regarded as one of 150 victims in an unexplained disaster. Two days later he was the prime suspect of an unfathomable act.

By now, French and German prosecutors have little doubt that the 27-year-old intentionally slammed the Airbus A320 into a mountain, killing everyone on board, and there is growing evidence that his actions weren't just a split-second decision but the result of days of planning.
---
The crash has prompted particular soul-searching in Germany. Seventy-two of those killed were German citizens, the worst air disaster in the nation's history since the Concorde crash of 2000, in which 97 Germans died."Germany, a byword for technical perfection where security isn't just a hallmark of quality but an article of faith and a measure of value, has been traumatized," historian Michael Stuermer wrote in an op-ed Saturday for Die Welt newspaper.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/05/andreas-lubitz-germanwing_n_7006496.html

Search for bodies at Germanwings plane crash site ends

French investigators have ended their search for bodies in the Alps where a Germanwings passenger jet crashed last month, killing all 150 people on board, a local official said on Saturday.
....
"The search for bodies is over, but the search for the victims' personal belongings is continuing," a spokesman for the local government authority in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence region told Reuters. "Lufthansa has also hired a specialist firm to remove the debris of the aircraft, under the authority of the French public prosecutor and an expert in charge of environmental supervision of the operations," he said.

Lufthansa is the parent company of the lowcost Germanwings carrier.The identification of victims will now continue through the analysis of 150 sets of DNA found at site, which could take several weeks. The prosecutor leading the French legal probe has cautioned that the number of DNA sets does not necessarily mean all the victims have been found.

More at: http://www.afr.com/news/world/europe/search-for-bodies-at-germanwings-plane-crash-site-ends-20150404-1mepyc

<< A German woman reportedly flew to the region twice at the expense of the budget airline's parent company, Lufthansa, after falsely claiming to be a cousin of one of the teachers who were killed in the tragedy last month.Lufthansa had organised special flights for victims' relatives following the crash in the French Alps on March 24.

Markus Tewes, a police spokesman in the town of Hoexter in Germany, said officers are investigating possible fraud.He confirmed that the woman will be questioned after Lufthansa took the case to authorities, according to German newspaper Halterner Zeitung.The airline said it is looking into what appears to be a "regrettable isolated case" but gave no further details. >>

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/569447/Germanwings-crash-woman-falsely-claimed-related-victim-receive-free-flights

I don't get it. So analysis of the voice recorder showed that everyone was calm and that it wasn't until the final seconds that the screaming can be heard:


Link: http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/566644/Germanwings-A320-plane-crash-last-moments-passengers-scream-terror

And now the official story is that passengers started screaming and panicking for five minutes before the flight crashed? How can both interpretations of the same recording be correct? ???

And here's a picture of the angle of descent:

http://s23.postimg.org/d40j9f2gr/resize.png

It's much more rapid than a typical descent (twice as rapid apparently) but I'm not sure if it was extreme enough for the passengers to have realized that something was wrong. Would be nice if someone who knows more about planes would shed some light into this.

Oh, and someone else posted here that the autopilot wouldn't allow maneuvers that crash the plane. This is not true. What happened in this case was that the autopilot's altitude was changed from 38,000 ft to 100 ft. The altitude at the Alps is 6,000 ft but this isn't programmed into the autopilot so the plane just continued descending and descending until it eventually crashed.

The foreign ministers of Spain, France and Germany have attended a wreath-laying ceremony at Barcelona's airport in memory of the 150 victims of the Germanwings plane crash last month.

Source: http://www.independent.ie/world-news/ceremony-for-plane-crash-victims-31138090.html

---

Other information:

German police are looking into an allegation that a woman obtained free flights to the south of France by pretending to be a relative of one of 150 people killed in the Germanwings plane crash last month.
....
The freeloader claimed to be a cousin of a female teacher who died, reported the Halterner Zeitung, a newspaper in Haltern, Germany, quoting the teacher's father. Haltern's high school lost 16 schoolchildren and two teachers in the disaster.


More at: http://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/travel-troubles/67692150/germanwings-plane-crash-fake-relative-claims-free-flights-to-french-alps

It's interesting for sure. You would have thought they'd have wondered what was going on because even on a normal flight you notice when it slowly starts to descend - you can just feel it and your ears always pop so I can't imagine what the effect of this speedy drop would have done but once they saw the terrain and the pilot banging on the door they would have quickly relaized what was going on. Descending so early in the flight would have been unexpected too.

I wonder what her motives were? Perhaps it was done to satisfy some morbid curiosity or the woman had Munchausen Syndrome and wanted to draw attention and sympathy to herself. I don't think seeing wreckage and corpses and being surrounded by mourning families is any normal person's idea of a fun vacation. :(

One expert thinks the crash could have been because of hackers. : /
But he didn't say how the door was locked from the inside, or why the co-pilot was searching for ways to kill himself.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/04/09/germanwings-crash-could-engineered-hacker-claims-aviation-expert_n_7031748.html
“It could be from any number of causes, including external electronic hacking into the aircraft’s control and navigation systems through malware or electromagnetic interception.”
“This is one reason military and head-of-state aircraft are generally installed with specific shielding and additional active protective measures. Civilian aircraft are not.”

This is really insane, hackers caused the crash  :-\? Really?

---

Memorial service held in Cologne:

Emotional tributes have been paid to the victims of last month's Alps plane crash at a memorial service in Germany.
....
Organisers placed 150 candles inside the church, one for every person who died, including Lubitz. Asked about the decision to include the co-pilot, Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, Archbishop of Cologne, said: "It's not for us to judge." Lubitz's parents were invited to the memorial but chose not to attend.  Spanish Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz told the congregation: "We must try to fill this hole with love and hope".

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32346252

Another article about the memorial in Cologne :
- http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/04/17/406752/German-plane-crash-victims-commemorated

Seeing the terrain come slowly closer and closer without some sort of obviously catastrophic plunge probably would have caused confusion among the passengers rather than panic. The A320 is a smaller plane but it's still fairly long (40m & 30 rows of seats). Those who were in the front of the plane probably realized what was going on while those who were closer to the rear were probably oblivious until the final moments before the crash.