German Airbus 320 Crash in the Alps

There was a SF/Bay Area radio talk show host, Duane Garrett, who was a big-wig in the Democratic Party. One night I'm listening ready to hear his program and without notice he didn't show up to work and the radio station had to scramble to find a substitute. Turns out the guy jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. So as you may expect the radio station when they found out was all about talking about the loss of their colleague. All of them said there were no signs that he had problems. Maybe on the inside they couldn't see but I could tell by listening to his program the couple weeks leading to his suicide he flew off the handle with callers like I've never heard him do before. He was particularly angry with topics and callers during that time. Sounds like some things go unnoticed or denial sets in where people close don't see some things going on with people they know.

Equation said:

Suicide perhaps?

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That is what the official line seems to be tonight. I strongly disagree with this assessment. Jeff says we should not speculate so I will deal with facts:
It is physiologically impossible for anyone to be quiet, calm and relaxed in this situation. The only way someone could be "unaffected" by the commotion and situation would be because they were unconscious and utterly unaware.

So how could the CoPilot become unconscious at the very time he is left alone, the Cockpit door locked and the Plane dived to destruction?
Not for me to speculate......

Arguably, another plausible theory would be that the pilot was unconscious, either through intention or by virtue of an accident/malfunction; that would explain the lack of a response when the captain was pounding on the door as well as his calm breathing.

Of course, such a hypothesis does not preclude the possibility of any foul intention and malice aforethought.

That doesn't explain how the pilot was locked out when he had the code. It would have to be an intentional act to lock out the code as well. Also they heard the audio so I believe they would have heard something like an alarm if the cockpit depressurized or a scuffle occurred.

SampanViking said:

That is what the official line seems to be tonight. I strongly disagree with this assessment. Jeff says we should not speculate so I will deal with facts:
It is physiologically impossible for anyone to be quiet, calm and relaxed in this situation. The only way someone could be "unaffected" by the commotion and situation would be because they were unconscious and utterly unaware.

So how could the CoPilot become unconscious at the very time he is left alone, the Cockpit door locked and the Plane dived to destruction?
Not for me to speculate......

Click to expand...

As I stated before we new all this, it is a stumper, and I was absent my normal "intuition", but you've got to admit Sampan, the human mind is capable of the most sublime kindness and generousity on one hand, and on the other the most despicable cruelty and coldness??? may God have mercy on each one involved in this tragedy, most particularly those who lost little people and children. I even feel so bad for the co-pilots parents, they have lost a son as well as the shame he has left them to bear?? just senseless and sorrowful???

In general when an aircraft is lost it is due to a chain of occurrences each of which wouldn't have caused the disaster. A Dutch pilot responsible in the society of Dutch commercial pilots for looking into aircraft accidents and incidences reminded me of this yesterday in an interview in my Dutch newspaper. The example he gave was that the door might just have malfunctioned. The copilot was 28 years old, the same age my nephew was when he died from an undiagnosed heart failure. Let's wait for the evidence.

I believe the investigators found evidence of deliberate steps to bring down the plane. They probably did not see evidence of sudden and short jerking.

Let's look at the possibility that it was a deliberate action. I learned more that half a century ago that the wages of pilots were so very high because pilots shouldn't be worried about any thing but executing their work. Nowadays companies like German Wings safe money by paying much less than old fashioned companies like its mother Lufthansa. I read about a pilots living on the US East coast who flew on the West coast ( from LA IIRC ) for five days a week and then returned home for the weekend. While in LA he slept in a porta cabin beside an active runway because he couldn't pay for proper accommodation. There have been earlier allegation about pilots committing suicide by crashing aircraft with passengers, mostly disproved by the way, but there IIRC still suspicions about the Silk Air Boeing that crashed in a Sumatran river from a height of 10 km a few years ago.

A solution might be to re-establish proper norms for pilot pay and conditions. In general central banks are executing bizarre policies in order to achieve inflation while the old method is to increase wages. I remember that in 1963 angry collective wage negotiations in The Netherlands concerned wage increases would be 2.6% or 2.8% when the government decided the proper rate was 10% .....

Btw this is discussion in a thread that should contain any. Can this be moved to a separate thread?

Apparently according to the latest news the co-pilot has been suffering from some kind of illness (they didn't say whether it's physical or mental) and hiding it from his employer. We have to wait and see. Either way I still think his action is very selfish. I can understand the pain or suffering he's going through, but there's no excuse to kill one's self and taking hundreds of innocent people with you.

The system is screwed up. His doctor should have been required to inform his employer since he is responsible for the lives of many people.