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Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'

#91

Post by VLM »

mrec wrote: post #58
mjburgess wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or to put it in a more general way: is security theatre now costing lives?

To be fair, reinforced cockpit doors is pretty much the one measure that's NOT dismissed as security theatre.

I can't imagine a more false statement, as the business model before 9/11 was do nothing and cooperate and everyone will be safe, and the business model after 9/11 is every person on the plane must rush the hijackers or thousands will be killed. So the reinforced door is a response to a problem that no longer exists.

Ideally you'd have a door that is strong enough to be "people proof" for long enough for the entire passenger compartment to rush a dude, but not strong enough to survive the entire passenger compartment trying to get in and save the plane in this situation. Something that can survive a couple kicks but isn't a bank vault door. Pretty much a typical apartment door would be about right.

Re: Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'

#93

Post by sinesha »

verytrivial wrote: post #17

These doors very effectively mean that control of the plane would be put into the hands of the cabin crew, but magnifies the cost of a rogue operator -- I am certain the risks were evaluated and the challenge of a determined suicidal pilot was ruled outside scope. And yes, there are emergency override codes, but there are also time override-overrides from within the cabin. Even if the protocol where two members of st…

Do you know the rational behind having override-overrides from the cockpit? For me, this only makes sense under the assumption that Prob(malicious agent who knows emergency codes in cockpit and good agents knowing codes outside ) is much smaller Prob(good agent knowing codes in cockpit and malicious agents knowing codes outside). How is this assumption justified? Under current regulations, the latter is becoming more and more unlikely. Or this could be fixed by letting the protocol to lock the door from inside the cockpit depend on an exchange with a trusted third party like air controllers. [edit: language]

Re: Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'

#95

Post by jordigh »

znt wrote: post #2

Can someone with aviation experience share how often pilots receive psychological evaluation? I just asked a friend who used to be a pilot for Ryan Air and he said he had never received one.

I am not a pilot, but my father was and I have a brother who is. When my dad flew, up until the early '00s and past the WTC attacks, there were only yearly medical exams. No psych exams. Like many other pilots, my brother is an alcoholic, and this has given him trouble with some airlines, so he has taken jobs in the Arab world and east Asia (we're Mexican, from Mexico). As far as I know, the airlines have never offered him direct help for his alcoholism.

Btw, my brother knew some details about the accident before they were public news, I assume there must be some pilot grapevine where more details about the accident must be shared. Like I imagine most other pilots must be, he's very shaken by the incident. It's a matter of professional pride amongst the pilot community, I assume.

My father would sometimes be called as an expert witness for blackbox analysis. As a child, I remember him falling into deep depression whenever he had to do that, and he was always given a couple weeks' vacation time whenever that happened.

Re: Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'

#96

Post by caf »

eik3_de wrote: post #25
lolo_ wrote: post #16

Of course it's really early so you have to be very careful as to making judgements at this point, but if it really is pilot murder/suicide there is some (limited) precedence:- * An EgyptAir flight in 1999 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990 * A Silkair (Singapore airline) flight in 1997 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SilkAir_Flight_185 There is debate in both flights as to whether it was murder/suicide…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAM_Mozambique_Airlines_Flight_...

Also

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Air_Maroc_Flight_630

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_350

...and of course deep suspicions remain about MH370.

Re: Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'

#99

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

leephillips wrote: post #6
znt wrote: post #2

Can someone with aviation experience share how often pilots receive psychological evaluation? I just asked a friend who used to be a pilot for Ryan Air and he said he had never received one.

Are you aware of any evidence that there is any such thing as a "psychological evaluation" is any scientifically meaningful sense?

Actually, yes. There's the MMPI, there are standard tests for conditions like Alzheimer's, and many others. These tests have reasonable - not perfect, but useful - correlations with observable and reported behaviours.

I'm not aware of any specific tests for suicidal ideation, but the FAA explicitly disqualifies pilots diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and other personality disorders are cause for concern.

I don't know if carriers include other checks. IMO it would be weird if they didn't - but I'm not a carrier.

My guess is that if it's aggressive suicide there will be some high-stress triggering incident in the recent past - debt, blackmail, a weird sexual history, a relationship breakup, or something of that ilk. Possibly even a very negative work review from an insane boss.

If there's nothing at all, that would be very strange and unusual.

Re: Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'

#100

Post by userbinator »

prawn wrote: post #41

Is it realistic that we see human controls largely removed from passenger plane pilots? Or ground-based group overrides? I know that for the largest jets, pilots already operate within some sort of computer-decided 'envelope' (I think it's called) of reasonable decisions. I think we will see personal driving banned in some cities (CBDs at least) or routes in the coming decades as self-driving cars come to dominate ou…

The problem with automation is that it's completely dependent on inputs from sensors, and those do malfunction. This incident from last year involves fighting the automation due to exactly such a problem:

http://www.aeroinside.com/item/4946/lufthansa-a321-near-bilb...

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