Not having seen any published research on this matter, I suspect that “endogenous” depression doesn’t make you any more likely than non-depressed people to commit mass murder.
Possibly even less likely, seeing that markedly depressed people may barely have enough energy to get out of bed.
I’d like to add to this pitting:
I pit the dumbasses commenters on news websites who (as soon as the news broke), could only talk about “muslims mullims muslims”
Folks chimed in about how they “had proof” that this was a Muslim terrorist act.
This is in the National Post (Canada). I’ve seen more and more of this lately, as the racist fucks become more emboldened to spew their messages of hatred. Perhaps not so coincidentallly, this has coincided with the Federal Conservative Party changing the conversation ahead of the next election, away from the tanking economy, and towards FEAR OF MUSLIMS as the central plank in the upcoming election.
Sigh… deserves it’s own pit thread.
CNN has said repeatedly that once German pilots are hired, they do not have to have further psychiatric evaluations, unlike American pilots.
As for the LOA he took from his pilot training, the reason why has not to my knowledge been revealed.
ETA: The BBC just said it MAY have been depression.
I also thought of this thread in the meantime.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=18228070#post18228070
American pilots undergo psychiatric evals? What do they entail?
So this online news source says the authorities are removing articles from the pilot’s apartment which will be tested, which may give them some answers.
I am trying very hard to imagine what kinds of things, and what kinds of tests, will give any answers. I guess I was supposed to stay tuned.
Why is suicide always associated with depression? Is it at all possible that this pilot was just a monumental arsehole who wanted to go down in a blaze of glory, taking as many out with him as he could?
But yeah, fuck him. I cannot begin to imagine the sheer terror those poor passengers and crew experienced once they knew they were flying to their deaths.
The older I get, the less I understand the evil depths to which the human psyche can stoop.
Just incomprehensible. 
More or less my thought. Instead of being depressed why couldn’t he have been some narcissistic fuckwad who so needed to be the center of attention that he figured out a way to commit suicide that would get EVERYONE to pay attention to him.
Fucked up yeah, but hardly a result of depression.
Yes.
Now, the guy was 27 and this is highly unlikely, but can we suppose that he had some sort of freak medical accident. From what I gather the black box just has recordings of the co-pilot in question breathing, which does not mean he was conscious. Or he may have been other wise incapacitated.
Now, if proven not the case, then yeah, fuck his ass in hell for all eternity, but also fuck you to the airline carrier for not having a 2 in 1 cockpit procedure in place either. Idiots.:smack::smack::smack:
He set the autopilot to descend to the minimum altitude and then locked the door. Do you suppose that he did these two things - and only those two things - by accident?
He wouldn’t even crash the plane himself.
Lufthansa issued an immediate rule change yesterday adopting the FAA rule that there always be 2 flight crew members in the cockpit. Apparently 5 or 6 other airlines also adopted the rule yesterday. Some good came from this tragedy.
It’s now the official regulation in Germany and Canada for all carriers as well as the US, and a number of other carriers are doing it as company policy pending regulatory changes in their own countries. “The rules are written in blood” is an old saying.
No doubt many crewmembers will feel a bit uneasy at first, knowing the reason behind it, but they’ll adapt.
It would depend on what caused it. And even if it was endogenous, if it is treated it is perfectly possible to keep on truckin’ without deciding that the best moment to kill yourself is when you’re going to be taking a planeful with you.
I’ve known several people who were on long-term psychiatrict medication, either daily or occasional, and people would point it out if they seemed off-kilter. That’s not possible unless you do know that the other person needs those pills. Although in at least one case, people found out the guy did take pills when someone asked him about them jokingly…
I have a hard time pitting someone with a mental illness, regardless what tragic events he or she caused.
I don’t have a hard time with it. There are millions of chronically depressed people in the world. The vast majority don’t even kill themselves, let alone take 150 innocent others with them.
I mean…Seung-Hui Cho (the Virginia Tech shooter) was clearly mentally ill. I still have no problem calling him an asshole.
I understand. Although if this event was caused by a physical illness, like epilepsy, we’d all be much more understanding. We need to be aware that mental illness is also debilitating and causes people to do irrational things.
I’m not condoning this event. I just have a hard time pitting the guy. Surely he was struggling. Sane people don’t do such things.
If he didn’t know right from wrong, why did he lock the other pilot out of the cockpit? Why didn’t he make it a solo act? What motivated him to take 149 innocent people with him? I have no problem pitting this bastard for his intentional, deliberate murder of all those people.
No problem, we’re happy to Pit him for you. It takes a village.
If he had epilepsy, didn’t report it, and deliberately locked out the other pilot when he felt a seizure coming on, then, no. He’d get no sympathy from me.
The “news” are reporting they found a torn-up note in his apartment from a doctor declaring him “unfit for duty”.
Will we get to see those medical records?
He ran marathons, too. I don’t trust people who run that far on purpose. 