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Time to pray again....
federica
Seeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
This is extremely sad, particularly as it is hitherto unexplained....
Not so much 'crashed' as 'pulverised'....
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Sure isn't much left of it
I hope they didn't suffer with fear before the crash. Always so sad.
My dad is a pilot and I've flown my whole life in planes big and small, on land, water and even on frozen lakes. I've never been afraid to fly. But I always feel a bit nervous flying after a recent accident. My son is flying tonight on a class trip and we are going on vacation in 2 weeks.
So, so sad. Still amazes me we don't know the location of the Malaysia plane from last March, too.
I know, that's insane, right....?
Every day die millions of people. And every death shouldn't be totally meaningless to the others still living here.
I don't think anyone said that others who die are meaningless...it's just human nature to reflect on tragedies. It's not more valuable, but it's easier to put yourself in the place of people who die doing the same random things we all do every day.
Yes, it's easier to talk about our common feelings, if there's an event into which we can reflect ourselves.
Oh my... It seems that the latest is, that one of the pilots became locked out of the cockpit and was frantically trying to get back in. Which begs the question, what happened to the Pilot still IN the cockpit...?!
Too horrific to contemplate - can you imagine the terror the passengers must have been going through..?!
Three possibilities:
:: Total engine failure, and the cockpit pilot could not get up to permit the other pilot entry because he was wrestling with the controls (unlikely, as the plane had recently been given a 'clean bill of health)
:: Pilot suffered a fatal heart attack or similar
:: Pilot suicide. And apparently it does happen....
The current theory is that the act was deliberate. The pilot appeared to not be struggling or suffering, had to have purposely locked the captain out of the cockpit, and had to have purposely pushed the stick to put the plane in rapid descent. The door on the cockpit had 3 options, and usually was left to "normal" which means they can use their code on the keypad outside to get in. After the captain left it was changed to locked, which causes the key pad entry to no longer work. As best they can tell at this point, of course. According to the audio, the passengers weren't aware of what was happening until the last moments when they were heard screaming and they died instantaneously.
Hard to contemplate why people do such things. Why they take others so drastically along their road of suffering.
It's being said this was not 'suicide' because that is normally a lone personal act.
This was mass murder.... If reports prove the deliberate act to be the case....
It's deeply sad that one unstable person may cause so much sorrow. That kind of absurd insanity, which comes close enough, make people feel fear and anxiety. How about me? How about my children? And at the same time brutal superpowers are playing their deadly and sick games that cause so much more casualities and suffering.
Compassion every day and moment. And I'm not cynical.
But who is to say he was 'unstable'?
The authorities in question state that he passed every criterion required, with flying colours.
His actions are a complete mystery to everyone who knew him.
All his family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances are totally baffled as to why on earth me would have engineered such a fatal and destructive final act?
He seemed perfectly norma;.
There was not a single clue, not a hint, no suggestion or even mere allusion to any wayward suspect act or quirk to his character.
If he had a mental problem, he managed to hide it so expertly, that not one single person in his entire circle, would have had any form of clue as to his intentions.
His facebook profile gave no hint of problems; he discussed going out for meals, and what his hobbies were.
he seemed entirely well-adjusted and level-headed.
Which makes his reasoning and possible motive all the more terrifying.
I ask this with no prejudice or rudeness intended:
Can someone who is mentally unstable hide their tracks and mind-set, thought-processes and lines of thinking, so completely, as to fool every single person concerned?
Can someone with mental issues really conceal them so expertly?
Can an 'unstable' person maintain a public level of normality, and sustain it apparently indefinitely?
@federica
Our mentality is as subject to change as everything else,
with mentality just being one sense gate out of six.
Where sanity for most is anyone presenting a socially acceptable mentality,
perhaps real sanity is better measured when we stop allowing one of our sense gate to overpower the others.
To get to the most highest positions in this rat race, especially in the world wide-scale, you have to be more or less an extremely... errr tough guy. Although not necessarily a psychopath, like Hitler and Stalin. In the name of power, money, oil, culture, God, religion, there will always be the endless circle of sad, sad, sad violence.
I don't believe there is a religion behind this tragedy.
Neither do I... whatever happened, it was a tragedy for the relatives. Speculatively pinning blame on a group of people with a certain belief leads nowhere. So as @federica said in the OP, time to pray again... for those who have lost someone dear... whatever was the reason behind the crash...
@Federica said:
I sure prefer to think not
(re: your first sentence). I realize now this is a preference, rather than some scintillating truth. I am was a solid believer that the 'crazy' always shows itself.
I am waiting for the initial shock to wear down, and for people to move out of shock and stop gushing about what a 'normal' person he appeared to be.
Prefer it or not, 'more' is gonna come out in the wash.
He had to take a six month haitus during his pilot's training for 'depression', according to at least one source. That's the only 'crazy' I've heard yet, and it's hardly crazy at all, no more crazy than getting depressed is.
What seems congruent with the psychological profile of someone capable of this kind of unspeakable atrocity is they can and do appear 'depressed'. Maybe they even are. But it's not the kind of depression a pill can help with, it's more of a burning resentment that they've given up on getting all they feel entitled to (admiration, celebration for their extreme wonderfulness, and so on). I haven't checked in with the news since I woke up though, maybe there is more to the story now . . .
I thought I read somewhere that he has had friends report he was treated for depression a few years ago, like 5 years? But you never know about the stuff you read, especially in early reports.
I think true mental illness can be very hard to hide. But when people believe what they think is really true, no matter how bizarre it might be, then it doesn't show on reports who are looking for lies and signs. They don't show up because the people don't see the divergence from the norm. But usually, those people exhibit signs in their daily life of odd personality issues and so on. In any case, I doubt we will ever know the answer. They can speculate and determine, possibly, that the event was intentional. But the reasons why went down with him and the others
There are numerous serial killers and sexual predators and so on who lived completely normal lives with jobs, mortgages, kids, wives (generally speaking, they are mostly males) with no hint as to the depravity going on in their minds. So it is entirely possible. Gary Ridgway comes to mind, as well as Ted Bundy.
Today it seems that Investigating Police have removed a significant number of belongings from his home, and have made 'a discovery' but as yet, no further information has been released.
If he had a secret penchant for perpetrating this final tragedy, it seems he hid it well.
Apparently he wasn't supposed to be flying/working and hid it from his employer. They found medical notes and documents saying he was excused from working, including the day of the crash. He was found unfit to fly when he was treated for depression several years ago, so perhaps he had a re-occurrence. Or perhaps he was diagnosed with something completely different that he could not cope with. I can't imagine what it might feel like to want to die so badly that you are willing to take 150 people with you. To realize you are suffering and not comprehend (or maybe not care) the level of suffering you are going to cause by a choice like that just makes no sense to me. I guess there have been a couple dozen similar cases over the last 40 years though, of pilot "suicide."
I think it must have been a spur-of-the-moment decision for him, because how would he have known the Pilot would have needed to leave the cockpit? The flight itself wasn't all that long....
He belonged to a flying club... he could just as easily have gone there, hired a plane for a personal lone flight - and done the deed there.
I have also seen (although it hasn't been verified, so I'm merely repeating it out of 'interest') that it's also possible he had a fall-out with his girlfriend....
He may have been suicidally depressed . . . but he murdered 150 people along with. Depressed people who commit suicide generally only take their own life.
He could have suicided in several ways, but he chose to do it this way. That tells me he was simmering with rage, entitlement and resentment such that making a real big 'show' out of this seemed 'just'. This was revenge.
Well, this from the BBC News website, publishing live feeds:
All the Police prosecutors will do is obtain a Court warrant for the release of his records.
The man is dead, and he took another 150 lives with him.
It would be crazy to think his actual condition cannot be, or never will be, revealed....
It seems like people who are suicidal aren't really in a place to consider others, in any way. I wonder, why keep working if one has a medical reason to be excused? It seems to me that perhaps he didn't plan the day and time, but it seems he probably had some forethought if he knew he was not ok to work and chose to anyways. Perhaps being told not to work was the straw, who knows. Perhaps he did break up with his girlfriend and this is his revenge on her. I feel so badly for his family and others that knew him. One can't help asking themselves what they missed, what they could have said or done differently. That kind of regret (logical or not) has to be very difficult.
It's always interesting to me how hard we work to make sense of and explain away incidents like this. I do it, too, obviously. But why do we search for the answers? It seems like it is more a way to feel better about ourselves, to distance ourselves from those who do these acts. It's like a reality show-we can't stop watching or wondering for an explanation so that we can say "Whew. My life isn't perfect but I'm glad I'm not like THAT." I know the investigation needs answers to arrive at a legal conclusion. But what about the rest of us? I really don't know, that's just what I suspect. We need to know something was wrong, whatever it was, with the guy who did this so that we can determine it's not within us to do it and feel ok about ourselves as fellow humans again.
To follow on from my previous post (and my prediction seemed spot on):
(My bold).
I think in this case they're searching for answers for the 'benefit' of the bereaved.
I read an associated article by a psychiatrist at the scene, who also assisted relatives after the Norwegian massacre three years ago, which seems to make sense.
He stated that when people have answers, they cope better than those who either receive none, or are given inadequate ones...
Edit to add link.
I know as a Buddhist we suppose to have compassion for others, but I really thinkg > @karasti said:
For is not about comparing my life to that person, it's more about (trying) understand human natures and trying to understand what's the root cause oh someone action so you can better understand them and relate to them
Why do we seek to understand them though? This guy, this pilot, we'll never TRULY know his motivation. Most of us want to distance ourselves from relating to people like him rather than seeing how we are alike. We all have the gamut of human experience available to us, we never know what situation will send us in a spiral that causes us to do something we could not fathom today. But we do a good job of pushing those dark aspects of human nature away and pretending they don't apply to us.
I studied psychology and criminology and victimology in college, so I always look to find understanding. But why? Why do I want, or need, to attempt to understand when the truth is I cannot? I can logically arrive at a conclusion, and even put myself in their shoes to understand they were depressed, ill, or suffering in some other way. But no one can truly understand unless they are there, also. The extent of every cause and condition and what impact it has on each person is too vast and variable. So I tell myself that I just want to understand them, but I also know that I cannot, and so there has to be something else that makes me ask all these questions. For me, the answer I usually find is what I said earlier: that is creates a separation between my human experience and theirs, and cements my belief that I could never be like that because of all those factors that are different. Then I feel better.
I know people who have committed suicide, who with access to all manor of quiet & relatively painless forms of suicide, just choose the form that could provide it in that instant, regardless to any concern for whatever level of violence & suffering that process would cause themselves or others.
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Yes, especially those who involve others in their suicide. People who walk into the paths of cars/trucks/trains, suicide-by-cop and so on. So while most don't bring 150 other people into it, it isn't entirely rare for a suicidal person to involve other innocent people in their act. There was a guy who shot himself and did it in a manner so that when his kids (young kids, too) found him, the mess would be easy to clean up. I'm sure in his mind he was being quite thoughtful, but I can't imagine being a child and knowing your parent was thinking of you in that way as they prepared to remove themselves from your life.
As @Hamsaka noted, it was a revenge. The reason for the revenge may stay a mystery. I know cases in which a person has lost selfishly his/her faith in the humanity and life because of own personal adversities. "I'm a failure. I suffer now, but there will be others who will suffer, too."
(Still... I find the constitutional violence and terrorism, which kill for the name of something, as more scaring phenomenons as the random, absurd violence.)
I've now looked up the flight time, and it's 2 hours and 18 minutes.
so it stands to reason that it's probable (under normal circumstances) both the pilot and co-pilot would need to leave the cockpit to go to the lavatory.
The preliminary route takes the plane over the Med, across the bay of Nice and Marseilles... I would hate to think what would have happened, if the pilot had left the cockpit during this phase of the journey.
(Apparently the dog-leg is because much of French Airspace is off limits due to Military flying exercises taking place. ironically, the pilots train in low flying over uneven terrain....)
I also feel for the girlfriend of the pilot...How must she feel with some media saying he did it because of the break up of their relationship...At times some journalists can't think outside the box-the impact (their rush to get their story to print) will have upon others....
But how can you dismiss that as a possibility?
I think you're missing the point @vinlyn!
Of course it may have been one of many factors but is it ethical of the media to suggest it knowing the heartache it will cause her?
I guess most media these days have no ethics so it's a pointless questions.
Yes, actually I think it is. It's not the news media's job to hurt or spare feelings.
Because, when the news media operates that way, it often hides truth.
This country pretended -- led by the news media -- that FDR wasn't crippled. Go ahead...look for a photo of him in a wheel chair...there are less than a handful in existence. But FDR was crippled and in a wheel chair. It was just the truth. But the media played along with the charade. And while I'm a great FDR fan, the truth is the truth.
In the present case, the world is trying to piece together why a man became a mass murderer of people he never met. And people are identifying with this story because most of us have flown. And when we fly we put our lives in the hands of 2 men that we don't know at all. We just trust them and the airline. But when 150 people are murdered in an instant, we -- the public -- do have the right to know all the details, because it could have been us or our families or friends on that plane.
Think of the case of Adam Lanza. 20 children and 6 school staff members died at his hands in an instant. And what did we say afterward? Again we said, "All the signs were there. Why didn't somebody intervene before things went awry?"
And how many times do we say such things? Over and over and over.
Does the media ever lose its perspective? Yes, of course. But I'd rather have the new media lose perspective (and eventually be brought to task for it by the public, than have someone controlling the news media.
I can see your point @vinlyn ....But I'm just putting myself in the shoes of the girlfriend whom no doubt is feeling bad enough as it is...It's possible that she (being human and with a conscience) will be going over all the guilt tripping "what ifs"...It's just a sad/tragic state of affairs all round....
I agree, his ex GF is going to be needing some serious support.
Not everyone automatically has the very mature sense of self to know that they didn't 'cause' their ex BF to kill 150 people because they broke up with him.
People are often held 'hostage' by a loved one who threatens suicide if they leave, or make the same threat in a less overt way. "If I leave, and he kills himself, it will be my fault." This is a common reaction. If this man's ex GF is around his age, her youth has probably yet to cope with such a thing
I hope she's getting some kind of help and/or support. I think, in general, she'll get the picture that no one holds her to blame, but a person can hold themselves to blame looooooong past reasonable.
And I suspect he knew that when he took the plane off of autopilot.
I too understand where you're coming from @vinlyn however @Shoshin seemed to be implying that some in the media were suggesting it was the sole reason he murdered 150 innocent people.
Now, I'm no psychiatrist but you don't have to be a Rhodes scholar to work out that this isn't true.
I've been rejected by a girl I was madly in love with many years ago and it certainly didn't push me to want to end my life let alone anyone else's.
There were obviously other factors at play is all I'm saying......
Yes, people are very complex.
What worries me the most is that there is something like the Werther-effect and cluster-suicides.
People - who are psychologically unstable - can be tempted to imitate suicidal behavior.
MH 370 disappeared last year and that could have been the most recent case of pilot-suicide, but it’s not certain.
There’s a list of acknowledged cases though:
http://news.aviation-safety.net/2013/12/22/list-of-aircraft-accidents-caused-by-pilot-suicide/
I remember well what analysts said last year: “you can’t protect a plane against its pilot.”
The cockpit “rule of two” may help just a little.
edit: the updated list:
http://news.aviation-safety.net/2015/03/26/list-of-aircraft-accidents-and-incidents-deliberately-caused-by-pilots/
It makes me wonder how many other pilots there are out there with mental health issues.
There are too many mentally unstable people in various accountable occupations. In a smaller scale, it's assumed that really many inexplicable lethal car accidents are suicides. I mean those cases when a car hits another car on its lane, for instance. And a much bigger number of people drive a car regularly than take a flight.
And the winner/loser aspect in our culture. "Better off dead than a loser..."
Pilots are subjected to some serious psychological testing. I did a little search on airline pilots and the MMPI-2, which tests a lot of complex characteristics and theoretically 'can't be faked' because of the nature of the questions, how the questions were formulated, and the scoring weight of certain questions.
For instance, there is an "L" scale (L is for lie). A high L score can mean a 'normal' person trying hard to give a good impression or a rigid, moralistic, insightless compensated paranoid. Yeah, that's what I thought. There are several such scales and the way they all dovetail together is a proprietary secret. But basically, this psychological test, along with some simple observations about the person's life, can determine between a very confident and successful person and a deeply disturbed one who both receive the same score. Now that is amazing.
What little I know about this stuff makes me wonder if this guy, with his known history of 'severe depression' six years ago, and recent break up with his girlfriend, ALSO had a characterological disorder that should have shown up on the MMPI-2, which he would have taken to get into pilot's school.
Not everyone with a severe depressive episode and a recent break up of a significant relationship acts out like this, we all know that. Some folks with severe character pathology are completely functional at work. Their personal lives are almost always disasters of domestic abuse or chaotic serial relationships, or addictions. The pathology finds its way out, but not always so's anyone can see it. How could you see something you aren't looking for? This guy was a babe, in top physical shape, very successful at the age of 28, and had a ton of interests.
He reminds me a bit of my ex, in that my ex was very intelligent, successful at work, took great care of himself physically, and had talents and interests. He fooled everybody, even me, until about six weeks after I finally turned him into the police so I could get some kind of protection from him. That's been 8 years ago, all is well now, so my personal experience doesn't shock me THAT much that such a young man was deeply disturbed in a way that he could keep hidden.
The only thing I can think of that might have prevented this is if there were a way his psychiatrist (who's notes were found ripped up) could have or would have been required to notify Lubitz's commander (or whatever they have). It's a huge breach of a person's privacy, but with the kind of responsibility a pilot has, and with a MENTAL condition that affects personal judgment, this might have been avoided. It ought to have set up a red flag or rang a bell, where the doc HAD to report. Lubitz wouldn't have flown that day.
One more thought; Just watch for more tidbits to hit the media. A friend who admits that Lubitz had 'a bit of a temper', went from zero to 60 in a second when he got angry. Who reacted very poorly to some kind of rejection (perceived or real), who mentions overly risky behavior Lubitz engaged, or some other 'out of character moment' a friend recalls where this nice young man behaved strangely.
After all, narcissism is a virtue in our culture. Those extrovert, social, manipulating winners are so charming.
Are you saying this is standard in all countries?
No, embarrassed to say I just checked for 'pilots' but not all countries. Good question. I imagine there are comparable standards across the world but HOW comparable when it comes to psychological screening, I dunno.
This made the news:
Passengers on a flight on a Lufthansa plane were spoken to by the Pilot who personally greeted all the passengers as they boarded their flight, who then asked them to observe a minute's silence , after which, he announced:
'Sure, I will take your from Dusseldorf to Barcelona. You can rely on the fact that I want to sit this evening with my family at the dinner table,' he told passengers over the intercom.
He added: 'People should see that in the cockpit there is also another human being.'
I'm sure testing is less rigorous in some areas of the world, but Europe has similar standards to the US for pilots, and generally pilots going to or from those countries have to meet the same standards. IE someone from, say, Africa couldn't simply fly a plane into the US without meeting US pilot standards even if Africa didn't require them.
The media can be pretty dark. There is a difference between pushing back the emotion to do the job (like doctors do as well) and completely showing indifference to people who are clearly and obviously hurting greatly. I did a paper in college about the media and how they react and their ethics with big stories. It's pretty horrible. Many of the quotes were from journalism textbooks and college classes where students and new workers are told "how someone feels is always secondary to us getting the story and being the first to report it." It's not nearly as much about investigative reporting as it was years ago, and especially in the internet news world, being first with a fact in a story is most important, no matter what.
My paper was specifically about media coverage over school shootings and the privacy of the families was the least of the concern. To the media, the story belongs to everyone and how the families of the murdered kids felt didn't matter. It was largely the same with Sandy Hook and other similar stories. I don't believe in that kind of journalism. The journalist needs to be objective...but the story shouldn't come at any and all cost. If a story creates more suffering then that isn't good reporting. This pilot's girlfriend and his family will probably get death threats. It always happens. Not everything should be reported. But when we hunger the way we do for every little detail in stories like that, that is what we get from the media.
National media especially are pretty much a lot of dirty, rotten scoundrels who are only after the money involved in hooking viewers by having the juiciest fact or the first reporting the story. That is all that matters to them. You can tell by how many spelling and grammar errors alone appear on front page stories in the rush to beat their competitor to the time stamp. Ridiculous.