He didn’t blame anyone. The evidence strongly indicates a deliberate act. It’s irresponsible not to disclose and address this, using caution.
I would doubt both of these, giving “name change” a slim possibility.
Germanwings couldn’t have predicted or planned that something like this to happen, and like most tragedies like this it involved a perfect set of circumstances to acquiesce.
There’s nothing Germanwings could have really done to prevent this, and if every airline that had something like this happen to them filed for bankruptcy or changed their name we wouldn’t HAVE any left (save for, of course, that one airline mentioned in Rain Man).
They might take a hit for a while, but this story will eventually just become another tragedy that took place.
Most likely he had to pee. Probably the co-pilot thought about this before but this was the first opportunity where he was alone in the cockpit and in an extreme depression.
Reports now are that he recently broke up with his GF.
As always in such cases… that’ll show her.
in the news account i read earlier was that a doctors note was found. news didn’t detail what it was for. mention was made that these notes are common and might be minor. they didn’t state what that was but it seemed like a cold or stomach upset could be minor things that could generate a note. it also could have been that he should get to the hospital because of something serious.
I was thinking of stealing an A320. You’re right though he could’ve rented something small.
Yes but if you have 630 hrs multiple years into a career then most of the hours consist of on the job training flying real people around. He was trained by LH from zero hours which is scary. He had little real world experience.
As I noted up-thread the information was leaked to the New York Times who reported it, not Lufthansa.
In the wake of MH370 and late December’s Indonesia AirAsia crash, there was a lot of press over here about how high stress flying for a budget carrier is. These airlines are burgeoning, demand for their flights is spiking, and some analysts have been doubting the thoroughness of pilot training in the rush to get those flights up in the air.
Could this be a case of such high job pressure pushing Lubitz over the edge?
The only way to make sure would be to err on the other side and hire optimistic pilots.
But you want a pilot to be a pessimist. That way, he or she will be more likely to recognize problems early, rather than thinking it will all work out. And pessimism is associated with depression.
I’ll gladly fly with a depressed pilot. What I don’t want is a pilot who is a grandiose narcissist.
I’ll buy that.
But as for next time: Twice since November 2013 we have had a very similar crash scenario (LAM Flight 470 also had one pilot struggling to get into a cockpit deliberately locked by the other). Some new preventive measures are obviously needed.
I’m sure there are some measures that can be taken in the short run, but not sure what it is. Are these cockpits really big enough for three people to easily fit, without there being a moment when the malefactor can close the door against the other two? I’m sure airlines are thinking through the details. In the long run, this will influence how Boeing and Airbus design cockpits.
The husband of a cow-orker, a policeman, took flying lessons and secured an airline job within a year. He turned down an air marshal job. I think he would have been perfect, able to shoot people and fly airliners.
His Wife, G-d help her, was still pumping out babies and living in a strange city far away from family and friends when last heard from.
Several airlines announced today policies that will leave no one alone in the cockpit.
That sounds good to me.
They could have had two people always in the cockpit like a lot of airlines do. I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up being sued.
The known mental health issues should have ended his career before it started.
It’s more common in the US to take people who have a background in aviation and have worked their way up through multi-engine commercial ratings. But I’ve known pilots with that PLUS turbine time who did not make it through the screening process. Flying experience alone was not the hiring criteria.
This is not the case in many countries. Whether it’s a lack of self motivated private pilots to choose from or cultural barriers these countries hire people and train them from scratch. This means it costs them much more to train and they get a pilot with virtually no flying experience. It also means there is a built in incentive to look the other way because of the investment of time/money in newly minted pilots.
I would not gladly fly with a pilot with depression issues or for that matter one with so little training.
Article from Wired about the ease of locking a pilot out of the cockpit:
http://www.wired.com/2015/03/remarkably-easy-lock-pilot-cockpit/
This Associated Press story makes me skeptical of American exceptional in this area:
http://news.yahoo.com/little-vetting-pilots-mental-health-us-experts-041514187.html
But what what if they did vet? The hyper-responsible worrywort, prone to sadness, who would no more take others with him, if it ever came to suicide, than he would ever shortcut a pre-flight check, would give honest answers. So this ideal pilot would score poorly on a depression screening test. And the one in a million manipulative SOB, who secretly thinks the Germanwings co-pilot checked out the right way, would play it close and score high.
So just give up on screenings? No, I wouldn’t give up. But I would look for personality traits that make for a careful pilot, rather than expecting to weed out the depressed.
That’s pretty much what I described. They try to weed out not just the depressed but anyone that they feel can’t handle the job.
The bad news is that there are going to be a lot of pilots retiring soon. By default the pickings will be slimmer and the seats will be filled no matter what.
A sticky wicket.
Always having two people in the cockpit is a good deterrent. But well, anyone strapped into a pilot set would be able to put the plane through such gyrations that the person bouncing around the cockpit is going to only be just that.
I hate the idea of additional overrides and taking control from the flight crew while also giving them move shit to worry about and possibly go wrong. But how about this…
If the door is in it’s lock mode, where the key code does not work, have another control and key code that would lock the plane in auto pilot at the CURRENT altitude and heading for a period long enough to overcome the door. The door is probably still too strong, but we could re-engineer that. Perhaps at that point, when the plane is now on autopilot ‘override’, just have it unlock the door after a period of 10 minutes.
This would also give some time to plan/negotiate.
Yes, yes if terrorists (or whomever) did this, they could lock the plane in auto pilot (at CURRENT altitude). If that happened, well I would think that the passengers could sort that out. At least (they would quite literally) have a fighting chance.
I think this would solve the problem of bad guys on either side of the door. But it does put more responsibility on passengers to fight if the bad guys are on their side of the door. We would have to amend the safety procedure instructions in the back of every seat 
I’m looking at this from purely an outside of the box solution standpoint and not $ and sense since no matter how you look at it, it’s still very safe to fly.
Why should there be a mode that locks the pilot or co-pilot out of the cockpit? If you want the ability to lock the other “authorized crew” out, just give them a different code.
Pilot/Co-pilot code -> opens the door, no matter what
Cockpit override -> locks the door for anyone but the pilot/co-pilot
Authorised crew code -> opens the door unless the override is active
My concern would be that screenings and bannings simply give pilots further incentive to hide mental problems. A pilot who knows that he will lose his job if he seeks professional help for a mental disorder, and his disorder becomes known, has every reason NOT to do that - not to risk his job/career. The same thing, supposedly, happens with surgeons, etc. - no surgeon who knows that he will risk his job if it becomes known that he has mental issues, will do anything to let anyone knows that he has mental issues.
There is simply no incentive.