He took a break from his training for six months because he was burned out and / or depressed.

You can consider this to be a huge red flag but at the same time we all probably know some people who went through something similar.

This will end up costing $600 million to $1 Billion. That is the value of a major league sports team. All in the hands of a human.

I am surprised how quickly they labelled this suicide/murder.

I believe the doors are latched so someone can't bum-rush the cockpit. Also, I don't really know anything about flying a plane but if someone collapsed on the controls couldn't that be an extremely time-sensitive problem? Maybe not since the requirement to have two people in the cockpit isn't a universal thing. Shrug.

Edit: Oh I misunderstood your first part. Nvm that.

I've been having this thought all day. Look, based on evidence that has been released so far, it seems like intentional copilot suicide/murder is the most likely of scenarios, but the probability of other scenarios isn't 0%. What they've released re: the cockpit recorders certainly stops short of iron-clad proof that the guy deliberately waited until the pilot was out of the cockpit, locked him out, then crashed the plan. As W0X has mentioned ITT, there'd be much faster ways to end it all than a controlled descent over...what was it: 5-10 minutes?

I'm not just being a contrarian for the sake of it -- certainly deliberate suicide/murder is the leader the clubhouse of theories right now...just saying that what has been released as the 'evidence' doesn't really add up to the certainty with which officials are describing what happened.

if only the main pilot had asked him not to latch the door then all these people would have been saved.

Takes a crazy crazy ridiculously crazy person to fly into a mountain. Crashing into a populated area would've been catastrophic. Glad this nutbag didn't do that, at least.

Seems a semi-regular check on mental stability of pilots should be in place. Surprised it's not.

btw...on my rare US flights, I've noticed when a pilot goes to the lavatory, a flight attendent will position the drink cart in front of the door, with cockpit door open the whole time. Pilot comes back from bathroom, then closes the door. If he really wanted to, the non-bathroom pilot could push the flight attendent out of the way and close the cockpit door pretty easily.

if the want/need was control over other people, i could see a twisted **** getting enjoyment out of a slow, steady descent into the alps.

I read they do psychological testing every 5 years. That is a ridiculous long amount of time.

Then again, a sociopath could easily pass a test everyday.

That really is tragic that the co-pilot couldn't get into his 'own' plane.

***The Germanwings co-pilot blamed for deliberately crashing Flight 9525 and delivering 149 others to their deaths took time off from training because he was depressed, according to a report.

Andreas Guenter Lubitz, 28, stopped training for six months because of "burnout syndrome" or "depression" in 2009, former classmates told Der Spiegel journalist Mattias Gebauer.***


This is going to be challenging to figure out how to deal with this situation. If they start eliminating any person that is every depressed, you will increase the number of secretly depressed people. A pilot would never report that they are depressed. I am not sure that is what we want as a society.

Does anyone know why/how a French prosecutor is the man with all the details and, seemingly, the official spokesman?

If he had crashed this plane into the Med. Sea, would death also have been as instantaneous?

Given the descent path, I think not.

Crashing into solid rock seems the action of someone afraid of pain.

I read that if the door is locked, a code can be entered on an outside keypad to unlock the door. A person inside the cockpit has 30 seconds to override the outside attempt to unlock the door. If that attempt is overridden, then the outside keypad is disabled for 5 minutes. After that time, the person outside can again enter a code to unlock the door.

So, if the co-pilot was the only one in the cockpit and suffered a health condition that caused him not to be able to operate the plane, the pilot would only have to wait 30 seconds to get into the cockpit.

Because it is a mass murder that happened on French soil? Lol.

Yes, at those speeds.

Like this?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/vid...ash?CMP=twt_gu

Looks like he'd have to actively hit the lock toggle and it's not some latch that locks the door until removed.

Also, i'm sure if this guy was a "terrorist".

He would've at least taken out a primary school, or Monte Carlo instead of a mountain.

I understand that, I just don't understand why he's the man and an independent inquiry is not handling this in a more forthcoming manner. I guess he must be the spokesperson chosen for it.

could happen in any form of transport, truck driver, military, the list is endless. **** happens. given it has happened <5 times out of how many flights there have been in history i think people are overreacting about the dangers of pilots being able to lock each other out.

He's not a terrorist. Terrorists commit vicious attacks with a political motive involved. There's no political gain in this tragedy.

The guy is a mass murderer.

I think if I purposely crashed my ferry people would just get really irritated, maybe someone would spill their coffee.

yeh nobody has ever died in a ferry accident, my bad.

This is a pretty big rush to judgment with such little definitive proof.

What if someone drugged his coffee?

It seems just as strange to murder innocent people in that manner.

He doesn't seem like he wanted huge attention. If he did, he would have decimated a city and killed thousands.

But, given that he may have had symptoms of depression, trying to get 'inside' his head is an exercise in futility. Depressed people don't think 'rationally'.

If someone drugged his coffee the other pilot could come back in the cockpit ?

You really think drugging the guy's coffee so he passes out while the pilot takes a piss was the plan? C'mon son.

Don't make the mistake of lumping in depressed people with this guy. There are millions of depressed people world wide.

This dude had a lot more problems than just depression.