# Someone has to pit this mass-murdering bastard. (Germanwings crash) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 26, 2015, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/someone-has-to-pit-this-mass-murdering-bastard-germanwings-crash/716036 "2015-03-26T16:28:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/someone-has-to-pit-this-mass-murdering-bastard-germanwings-crash/716036/81 "2015-03-28T15:59:37Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > Too bad. If the guy had merely gone apeshit and run up and down the aisles screaming about Al Qaeda and had to be forcibly restrained, rather than crashing the plane, he might’ve scored a [huge payout](http://news.yahoo.com/jetblue-pilot-yelled-during-flight-sues-airline-16m-230731819.html) for the horror he put everyone through. Because, of course, anyone who sues gets a payout. No need to wait and see if they win… ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/someone-has-to-pit-this-mass-murdering-bastard-germanwings-crash/716036/82 "2015-03-28T16:10:43Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Because, of course, anyone who sues gets a payout. No need to wait and see if they win… I’d be willing to bet airline passengers are favored by strict liability attaching to their flight. IE, you fly, you get hurt, they are liable as in MH370. No one knows what happened, but the passengers didn’t arrive safely so the airline pays. ---
**Author:** ![eclectic\_wench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ac91a4/32.png) [@eclectic\_wench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eclectic_wench)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/someone-has-to-pit-this-mass-murdering-bastard-germanwings-crash/716036/83 "2015-03-28T18:56:02Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > I have not had time to confirm this or look into the details, but what I most recently heard from the standpoint of the FAA was this (paraphrased - do not use as a direct quote): > > Pilots with a mental health issue should undergo appropriate treatment until their condition is stabilized. If they pass an evaluation (keeping in mind the FAA is mainly concerned with whether or not a pilot can control and aircraft AND is not a danger _to others)_ they can return to flying with monitoring and any medication appropriate to their condition. > > [snip] That sounds like a way better policy than the one my amateur-pilot friend described. It’s possible that he wasn’t up on the rules, but we had that conversation maybe a year or eighteen months ago, so it could be that the changes you describe came in since then. Either way, it’s good to hear. ---
**Author:** ![BigAppleBucky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigapplebucky/32/178_2.png) [@BigAppleBucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigAppleBucky)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/someone-has-to-pit-this-mass-murdering-bastard-germanwings-crash/716036/84 "2015-03-28T21:26:24Z")
If Germany had the NRA he could have bought a pistol to blow out his brains with. 18 thousand people a year do it in the USA. SIAP (Couldn’t be bothered to read the entire thread) ---
**Author:** ![get\_lives](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecb155/32.png) [@get\_lives](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/get_lives)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/someone-has-to-pit-this-mass-murdering-bastard-germanwings-crash/716036/85 "2015-03-28T21:33:27Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > [And he wanted to impress his girlfriend:](http://www.ibtimes.com/germanwings-co-pilot-andreas-lubitzs-former-girlfriend-says-he-wanted-make-people-1862484) How is something like this not uncovered during the routine psych exam? This is like a cop saying “I want to teach those minorities a lesson”. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/someone-has-to-pit-this-mass-murdering-bastard-germanwings-crash/716036/86 "2015-03-28T22:27:53Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Because, of course, anyone who sues gets a payout. No need to wait and see if they win… Golly, **BigT** , you’re right. Thanks for setting me straight on that, because until today I was _sure_ that everyone who sues is awarded money. If anyone deserves a big payout, it’s you, for all the life wisdom you’ve shared with us. But I’m happy to keep taking it for free as long as you keep offering! LOL :)😉 ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2015, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/someone-has-to-pit-this-mass-murdering-bastard-germanwings-crash/716036/87 "2015-03-29T04:22:42Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > Golly, **BigT** , you’re right. Thanks for setting me straight on that, because until today I was _sure_ that everyone who sues is awarded money. If you were aware of that, then your previous post was wilfully misleading. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2015, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/someone-has-to-pit-this-mass-murdering-bastard-germanwings-crash/716036/88 "2015-03-29T10:24:38Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > I can’t answer for the airlines, but I’ll try to come close to what the FAA requires. > > Self reporting. They rely on self reporting. If someone has a mental issue, it’s up to that person to seek treatment, and it he does, he can get disability for a period of time until his MD certifies that he’s once again safe to fly. Once he’s stable, even with the underlying problem, he may be allowed to fly again if the MD so says. If he is taking drugs like Prozac, he MUST continue to take those drugs as prescribed. If he’s caught with those drugs in his system (drug testing), and he reported it, he’s fine, if he didn’t report it, then he may face sanctions like any other drug abuse. > > Note. When I say MDs in this case, I’m not referring to your local doctor who has no idea what an airplane is. Most, if not all (at least when I flew) of the doctors, who are approved by the FAA to do the medicals, are pilots who understand the (physical) demands flying puts on an individual. I have, however, never heard of a psychiatrist providing medical certifications so I have no idea what the FAA does for mental cases. It seems that there must be a few of those somewhere though. Thanks, and to **Broomstick** as well. I guess what I’m interested in is how the US requirements and particularly the **practical application of those requirements** , including voluntary company policy, differs from how things are done elsewhere. For example, **get lives** , referring to statements made by the FO to his then girlfriend, says: > [@](#): > > How is something like this not uncovered during the routine psych exam? This is like a cop saying “I want to teach those minorities a lesson”. What routine psych exam is he referring to? Do pilots in the US have routine psych exams? The info you’ve given only covers voluntary disclosure which really means nothing, it doesn’t state that you must have psych assessments and it is useless against anyone who chooses to hide any mental health issues they have. I’ve been a pilot for 20 years now, and for my licensing in New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and Australia I’ve never once had a psych assessment of any kind. There’s probably a question during my medical that says something like, “do you or have you ever suffered from a mental illness such as depression etc?” tucked in amongst all the other routine questions, but it is hardly a psych assessment. I’m interested to know whether my experience is normal or not. I’m also interested to know, when **get lives** states that he: > [@](#): > > … learned something. Stick with airlines that have stringent mental health policies for their pilots. I don’t need to learn anything else. How is he going to judge the psych assessment policies of various airlines? Is he going to request a copy of their operations manuals from airline management and make his decision based on that? Or what? It reminds of another poster a while back who stated authoritatively that he wouldn’t fly with any airline that didn’t use ACARS; I was never able to find out what method he was going to use to ascertain the equipment fit of all the different airliners he flew on. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2015, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/someone-has-to-pit-this-mass-murdering-bastard-germanwings-crash/716036/89 "2015-03-29T10:37:08Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > I’ve been a pilot for 20 years now, and for my licensing in New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and Australia I’ve never once had a psych assessment of any kind. There’s probably a question during my medical that says something like, “do you or have you ever suffered from a mental illness such as depression etc?” tucked in amongst all the other routine questions, but it is hardly a psych assessment. I’m interested to know whether my experience is normal or not. That has been my experience as a private pilot in the US I did have to sing a release allowing the FAA access to my medical records, but I have no idea if they ever looked at them or if that is a “just in case” sort of thing, where if they think there’s a problem they’ll look but otherwise won’t bother. Things may or may not be more involved for a commercial or an airline pilot (there’s actually more than one level of commercial pilot, with airline or “ATP” rating at the top). ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2015, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/someone-has-to-pit-this-mass-murdering-bastard-germanwings-crash/716036/90 "2015-03-29T22:53:04Z")
I pit the newspaper editors that didn’t pull today’s Wumo comic (can’t link from phone). ---
**Author:** ![Master\_Wang-Ka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/master_wang-ka/32/3325_2.png) [@Master\_Wang-Ka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Master_Wang-Ka)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2015, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/someone-has-to-pit-this-mass-murdering-bastard-germanwings-crash/716036/91 "2015-03-29T22:53:26Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > I’ve been a pilot for 20 years now, and for my licensing in New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and Australia I’ve never once had a psych assessment of any kind. There’s probably a question during my medical that says something like, “do you or have you ever suffered from a mental illness such as depression etc?” tucked in amongst all the other routine questions, but it is hardly a psych assessment. I’m interested to know whether my experience is normal or not. I am not a pilot at all, but considering what I have heard pilots say to my face, the diff between getting a pilot’s license and getting commercial flight certification is a pretty wide gap… comparable to the difference between getting a pilot’s license and getting greenlighted to fly Apollo spacecraft to the moon. Yeah, I’m exaggerating, but not by much. They’re tested, regulated, and restricted out the wazoodle. Sure, I wouldn’t mind being the famous idol of jillions, but I do not think I would care to be known as a famous crazy man who murdered over a hundred people because I was having a bad day. Or even a bad month. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2015, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/someone-has-to-pit-this-mass-murdering-bastard-germanwings-crash/716036/92 "2015-03-29T23:17:37Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > I pit the newspaper editors that didn’t pull today’s Wumo comic (can’t link from phone). This one? [http://www.gocomics.com/wumo](http://www.gocomics.com/wumo) ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2015, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/someone-has-to-pit-this-mass-murdering-bastard-germanwings-crash/716036/93 "2015-03-30T00:39:48Z")
Indeed, poor taste, that. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2015, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/someone-has-to-pit-this-mass-murdering-bastard-germanwings-crash/716036/94 "2015-03-30T01:33:40Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > Indeed, poor taste, that. Or timing, really, to be fair. ---
**Author:** ![buddy431](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6a8cbe/32.png) [@buddy431](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddy431)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2015, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/someone-has-to-pit-this-mass-murdering-bastard-germanwings-crash/716036/95 "2015-03-30T05:33:17Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > Or timing, really, to be fair. Yeah, the comics are made well in advance. Newspapers can probably pull them and run an old strip if they want to, but it’s not like they’re getting them the night before. I didn’t find it in too poor of taste though. The only way it’s related to the plane crash is that someone is killing innocent people as part of his job. The method is different, the scale is different, the reason is different. Newspaper comics are already pretty much the least-offensive form of entertainment there is, and then you get all the easily-offended people writing in whenever there’s anything at all that can be construed as mildly disparaging to any identifiable group or remotely related to any recent tragedy. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2015, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/someone-has-to-pit-this-mass-murdering-bastard-germanwings-crash/716036/96 "2015-03-30T06:15:38Z")
> [@Master\_Wang-Ka](#): > > I am not a pilot at all, but considering what I have heard pilots say to my face, the diff between getting a pilot’s license and getting commercial flight certification is a pretty wide gap… comparable to the difference between getting a pilot’s license and getting greenlighted to fly Apollo spacecraft to the moon. Yeah, I’m exaggerating, but not by much. They’re tested, regulated, and restricted out the wazoodle. That’s 20 years of commercial, class 1 medicals. Edit: I’m not sure if you were agreeing, disagreeing, or neither? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2015, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/someone-has-to-pit-this-mass-murdering-bastard-germanwings-crash/716036/97 "2015-03-30T06:17:56Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > This one? > > [Today on WuMo - Comics by Wulff & Morgenthaler - GoComics](http://www.gocomics.com/wumo) Am I looking at the wrong comic? Your link takes me to a picture of three roosters. ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2015, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/someone-has-to-pit-this-mass-murdering-bastard-germanwings-crash/716036/98 "2015-03-30T06:38:27Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > Am I looking at the wrong comic? Your link takes me to a picture of three roosters. The site must have changed the pics Richard. Previously it was a rather more bleak comic about how an employee, faced with challenges by his employer, alters the road-lines so that the road runs off the edge of a cliff in the mountains. ---
**Author:** ![buddy431](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6a8cbe/32.png) [@buddy431](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddy431)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2015, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/someone-has-to-pit-this-mass-murdering-bastard-germanwings-crash/716036/99 "2015-03-30T06:39:29Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > Am I looking at the wrong comic? Your link takes me to a picture of three roosters. > **[WuMo by Wulff & Morgenthaler for March 29, 2015 | GoComics.com](https://www.gocomics.com/wumo/2015/03/29)** > > Hey boss, just want to say that your pep talk about finding more joy in my work, was really inspirational ... ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2015, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/someone-has-to-pit-this-mass-murdering-bastard-germanwings-crash/716036/100 "2015-03-30T07:40:08Z")
Thanks. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/someone-has-to-pit-this-mass-murdering-bastard-germanwings-crash/716036.md?page=4)