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Murder-Suicides by Pilots Are Vexing Airlines as Deaths Mount

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Re: Murder-Suicides by Pilots Are Vexing Airlines as Deaths Mount

#51

>> Preliminary evidence suggests the crash of a China Eastern Airlines Corp. jet in March may be the latest such tragedy, a person familiar with the investigation said. What is the preliminary evidence? For this type of conclusion I would think the first and last bit of evidence would be the control inputs as recorded by the black box. Supporting evidence should be on the voice recording. What is this "preliminary ev…

Another fact is that the plane basically dove straight down. Even with catastrophic control failure, modern airliners just don’t do that.

Re: Murder-Suicides by Pilots Are Vexing Airlines as Deaths Mount

#52
post #45

Not just a simple murder/suicide, either, which frequently involves people who know each other. This is flat-out mass murder, terrorism, call it what you will. Killing hundreds of strangers would rank you at the top of any serial killer list.

That’s what I don’t understand. Do they just ignore the passengers when they want to just commit suicide? Seems hard to believe a professional pilot would not have the passengers in mind. Otherwise you need someone who is both suicidal and with psychopathic murderous pulsions, which should be extremely rare. But clearly it’s not. Like for school shootings, I wonder how much one event inspires the next one.

Yes. Look up the German Wings case, flight 9525.

In short one pilot waited for the other to leave the cockpit, locked the door, and deliberately crashed the plane.

He was so suicidal and distraught (thought he was going blind and thus would lose his job) he was willing to do it.

If you read the full story it’s even sadder.

Re: Murder-Suicides by Pilots Are Vexing Airlines as Deaths Mount

#53
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what the right answer for the media outlets is here; if they didn't report on things like this, the contingent that are constantly shouting that "the main-stream media is hiding the truth from you" would get louder and have another bit of real evidence to underpin their conspiracy theories.

Given the choice between more deaths and noisier crazies, well, you don't have to listen to the crazies. Except when they get elected, I suppose.

I like how you jump directly to crazy from gp's "contigent of people saying the media is hiding the truth". Do you see how your response is part of the problem? Instead of addressing issues brought up, its just a label slap and then dismissal. Yeah there are real crazies who also say those things, but they are dwarfed by the amount of normal people who don't trust media and with many good reasons.

I have a feeling it was the mention of "conspiracy theories" having a modern intellectual connotation of ridiculous, but its a shame because conspiracy is a legal term and it happens all the time, and there is a lot of good analysis left on the chopping block due to mere association with similar sounding phrases and conspiracy theorists being enough to shut down thought on the matter.

Re: Murder-Suicides by Pilots Are Vexing Airlines as Deaths Mount

#54
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The video of the plane going down is enough to strongly suggest it. It was almost completely nose-down before it hit the ground, which is basically not going to happen without the pilot commanding it.

This is also (IIRC) how one recovers from a stall, so it could be a “malign” command, a best-effort at fixing a bigger problem, or anything in between.

Stall recovery and intentional dives look very different.

1. In a stall recovery, you don't move the trim to the limit or move the throttles to idle and keep it there for tens of thousands of feet.

2. Planes don't want to keep going in a stable, near vertical dive. You have to force them into that position the entire way down. The flight path for stalls, breaking apart, and control problems are all shallower or slower.

Re: Murder-Suicides by Pilots Are Vexing Airlines as Deaths Mount

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of like how child mortality in car crashes has decreased below gunshot deaths. And all other pediatric causes of death are now dwarfed by those two.

Source? I don't think that is an accurate summary, but curious what data you based it on. edit: Ty! edit2: ouch at that firearm suicide number jump

This article links to the study that made the claim, and many articles like this were circulating recently

https://www.webmd.com/children/news/20220422/guns-now-leadin...

Re: Murder-Suicides by Pilots Are Vexing Airlines as Deaths Mount

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of like how child mortality in car crashes has decreased below gunshot deaths. And all other pediatric causes of death are now dwarfed by those two.

Source? I don't think that is an accurate summary, but curious what data you based it on. edit: Ty! edit2: ouch at that firearm suicide number jump

This is in the United States: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2201761

Re: Murder-Suicides by Pilots Are Vexing Airlines as Deaths Mount

#57
post #7

> Fatal crashes of private, business, and corporate-executive airplanes have increased after publicized murder-suicides. The more publicity given to a murder-suicide, the more crashes occurred. The increase in plane crashes occurred primarily in states where the murder-suicides were publicized. These findings suggest that murder-suicide stories trigger subsequent murder-suicides, some of which are disguised as airpla…

I don't know what the right answer for the media outlets is here; if they didn't report on things like this, the contingent that are constantly shouting that "the main-stream media is hiding the truth from you" would get louder and have another bit of real evidence to underpin their conspiracy theories.

I suppose that they could have something like the "some asshole" initiative[0], where they can report that a thing happened, and provide historical perspective and statistical analysis, but without identifying who carried out the attack, or what their motives were, or even who the victim(s) were other than "a fortune 500 CEO", or "a regional business owner".

They wouldn't be hiding any information. They'd still be reporting that the thing happened. A record of who died is still going to be available in the obituaries, or public FAA reports. The media just don't have to publicise the specific details that tend to inspire copycats.

...but they'd get fewer clicks/views, so it'll never happen :-(

[0] http://nonadventures.com/2015/06/20/the-some-of-all-fears/

Re: Murder-Suicides by Pilots Are Vexing Airlines as Deaths Mount

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of like how child mortality in car crashes has decreased below gunshot deaths. And all other pediatric causes of death are now dwarfed by those two.

Source? I don't think that is an accurate summary, but curious what data you based it on. edit: Ty! edit2: ouch at that firearm suicide number jump

No post body was provided.

Re: Murder-Suicides by Pilots Are Vexing Airlines as Deaths Mount

#60
post #7

> Fatal crashes of private, business, and corporate-executive airplanes have increased after publicized murder-suicides. The more publicity given to a murder-suicide, the more crashes occurred. The increase in plane crashes occurred primarily in states where the murder-suicides were publicized. These findings suggest that murder-suicide stories trigger subsequent murder-suicides, some of which are disguised as airpla…

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