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Re: German aircrash, what do we now know............
Perfect is the enemy of good (or better).
Perfect is the enemy of good (or better).
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Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. -Groucho -
Re: German aircrash, what do we now know............
Maybe Lisa Raitt should have ordered there be a flight attendant in the cockpit at all times? Somebody to cast the tie-breaking vote.Originally posted by GRG55 View Post
Landing gear ripped off when Air Canada flight 624 hit antenna array: TSB
March 29, 2015 12:20 am
Updated: March 30, 2015 11:57 am
HALIFAX – An Air Canada flight heading from Toronto to Halifax crash landed after hitting an antenna array at Halifax Stanfield International Airport injuring 25 passengers, Transportation Safety Board investigators confirmed Sunday...
...“At approximately 12:30 local time, early this morning, the aircraft touched down approximately 1,100 feet prior to the end of the runway,” Cunningham said. “At that point it hit an antenna array… this caused considerable damage to the aircraft and the main landing gear came off at that point.”
The plane’s nose and an engine detached and a wing was severely damaged in the landing...Comment
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Re: German aircrash, what do we now know............
another twist to consider . . . .
UPDATE: It is now confirmed that Andreas Lubitz was taking psychiatric medications. He underwent 18 months of “psychiatric treatment” and mind-altering medications have now been found in his home by law enforcement authorities. Click here for full details.The Mirror (UK) is now reporting that “Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz ‘suffered burnout or depression’ a few years ago, a former classmate has claimed.”The reported behavior of Andrea Lubitz is eerily similar to SSRI-drug-induced school shooters who carried out mass murders in the United States (see detailed list below). In case after case, school shooters have been found to either be on prescription antidepressant drugs or recently taken off them, causing withdrawal side effects.What U.S. school shootings and the Germanwings mass murder have in common is a dissociation from reality where individuals often think they are “playing a video game” and don’t realize their actions are literally harming other people in the real world.As the Mirror reports:
The mother of an ex-classmate of Lubitz told how the co-pilot – who deliberately flew the passenger jet into the Alps killing 150 people – had confided in her daughter a few years ago.
She said: “He apparently was suffering from burnout or depression.”
These days, almost everyone who is described as suffering from “depression” is on mind-altering prescription medications which are marketed in a deceptive way that glosses over the murder-suicide risks associated with such drugs.
Antidepressants literally alter brain chemistry and cause people to think and act in ways they would not normally exhibit.It’s not unusual for pilots to fly planes into terrain in flight simulatorsHere’s something else most non-pilots don’t realize. Although it’s not a condoned practice, all of us who are trained to operate aircraft have trained at one time or another in flight simulators. And all of us — including myself — have done things in those flight simulators that we would never do in real life.
I’ve performed loops and barrel rolls with a Cessna, for example, even though I would never be crazy enough to try such a thing in a real airplane.Attempting these maneuvers in a simulator has legitimate training value that saves lives in the real world, because these “games” help pilots learn the limits of aircraft power, stability and maneuverability. To know the limits of an aircraft, it’s useful to exceed those limits in the safety of a simulator where you DON’T die…At the same time, I’ve also seen other pilots in simulators intentionally fly aircraft into mountains as a way to end the current scenario with a surge of excitement. Again, this is undoubtedly frowned upon in the commercial aviation industry, but I’ve seen it happen with my own eyes. I’ve never done this myself, it turns out, but plenty of other pilots have.In a simulator, of course, it’s perfectly safe to fly your airplane into a mountain. What if Lubitz thought he was in a flight simulator?
Could antidepressant drugs have caused him to confuse reality vs. simulation? It’s speculation, of course, but it’s consistent with other SSRI-related mass murders we’ve seen over the years.Comment
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Re: Mega and CTU
SJ is one of my favorite actors. I watch some movies only because he is in them.Originally posted by Mega View PostHmmmmm thinking about it i think they needed Sammel L Jackson on the job........
Or May Be Winston................
"Can you give me my time back?"Comment
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Re: Mega and CTU
There is no perfect solution. A human pilot with the will can crash a plane on takeoff or landing pretty quickly regardless of who is sitting next to him. Not sure getting in the door is the real issue here.Comment
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Re: Mega and CTU
Originally posted by flintlock View Post
There is no "perfect" solution.
But there may be partial solutions. This crash did not happen "suddenly". The plane was in midflight, and the co pilot had to take advantage of the captain being out of the cockpit. There was time for counter measures, but no means of taking them. During takeoff and Landing, both of pilots are in the cockpit, because that is the time of greatest risk.
When the machine is perfect, human errors will be the only cause of crashes.Comment
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Re: Mega and CTU
the captain always has an option or 2...Comment
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Re: Mega and CTU
When the machine (created by imperfect humans, of course) is perfect, there won't be any need for humans in the cockpit. And therefore by definition there won't be any human errors causing crashes either.Originally posted by Polish_Silver View PostComment
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Re: German aircrash, what do we now know............
A good read, to keep things in perspective (hopefully).
The magic of flying: A pilot shares his passion for one of the wonders of the modern age
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Re: German aircrash, what do we now know............
don, i don't know where you get this garbage, but there are so many mis-statements here i don't know where to start. first, don't confuse cause and effect. e.g. were shooters shooting because they were on antidepressants? possibly the arrow of causation was in the other direction- they were on antidepressants because they were miserable. otoh, it is possible they had latent or misdiagnosed bipolar disorder, which can be worsened by antidepressants. can antidepressant withdrawal make you want to shoot people? antidepressant withdrawal, when it occurs, is characterized by dizziness, nausea and lightheadedness. sure would make me want to pick up a gun. and on and on.Originally posted by don View Post
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Re: German aircrash, what do we now know............
don, i don't know where you get this garbage, but there are so many mis-statements here i don't know where to start. first, don't confuse cause and effect. e.g. were shooters shooting because they were on antidepressants? possibly the arrow of causation was in the other direction- they were on antidepressants because they were miserable. otoh, it is possible they had latent or misdiagnosed bipolar disorder, which can be worsened by antidepressants. can antidepressant withdrawal make you want to shoot people? antidepressant withdrawal, when it occurs, is characterized by dizziness, nausea and lightheadedness. sure would make me want to pick up a gun. are people with "depression" on antidepressants? how about this: are people with "diabetes" on insulin? i'm sorry to tell you that putting quotation marks around a word does not deprive it of its meaning, except perhaps in the mind of the person who put the marks there. and on and on.Originally posted by don View PostComment
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Re: Mega and CTU
My point is just that a pilot who wants to crash a plane doesn't have to do it like this German pilot did, by flying at 30,000 ft then locking the door and slowly desending. So why put the effort into doors and worrying about how many are in the cockpit at one time? Better psychological screening will be 100x more effective but will NEVER eliminate 100% of the risk of course. There are just too many ways for a pilot that really wants to to crash a plane. Trying to fix the problem after the deranged pilot is in the cockpit and flying the plane is probably the least effective means.Originally posted by Polish_Silver View PostComment
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Re: German aircrash, what do we now know............
Cause and effect, good point. I see these type of conclusions being misapplied all the time.Originally posted by jk View PostComment
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Re: German aircrash, what do we now know............
Agreed, it's a tabloid posting but it did get anti-depressants into the conversation.Comment
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Re: German aircrash, what do we now know............
SCIENCE | NEWS ANALYSIS
The Mind of Those Who Kill, and Kill Themselves
By ERICA GOODEHe was described, in the immediate aftermath of the Germanwings crash, as a cheerful and careful pilot, a young man who had dreamed of flying since boyhood.
But in the days since, it has seemed increasingly clear that Andreas Lubitz, 27, the plane’s co-pilot, was something far more sinister: the perpetrator of one of the worst mass murder-suicides in history.
If what researchers have learned about such crimes is any indication, this notoriety may have been just what Mr. Lubitz wanted.
The actions now attributed to Mr. Lubitz — taking 149 unsuspecting people with him to a horrifying death — seem in some ways unfathomable, and his full motives may never be fully understood. But studies over the last decades have begun to piece together characteristics that many who carry out such violence seem to share, among them a towering narcissism, a strong sense of grievance and a desire for infamy.
Adam Lankford, an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Alabama, said that in his research on mass killers who also took their own lives, he has found “a significant number of cases where they mention a desire for fame, glory or attention as a motive.”
Before Adam Lanza, 20, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter, killed 20 children, six adults and himself in 2012, he wrote in an online forum, “Just look at how many fans you can find for all different types of mass murderers.”
Robert Hawkins, 19, who committed suicide after killing eight people at a shopping mall in Omaha in 2007, left a note saying “I’m gonna be famous,” punctuating the sentence with an expletive.
And Dylan Klebold, 17, of Columbine High School fame, bragged that the goal was to cause “the most deaths in U.S. history…we’re hoping. We’re hoping.”
“Directors will be fighting over this story,” Mr. Klebold said in a video made before the massacre.
If authorities know what might have driven Mr. Lubitz, they have not made it public. Prosecutors said last week that it was now clear that he planned the crash, researching ways to commit suicide and how to operate the cockpit door on his iPad.
Lufthansa, Germanwings’s parent airline, has said that Mr. Lubitz suffered in the past from severe depression and had talked to a counselor about suicide during a break in his training.
Yet mental health experts who study mass murder-suicides said that depression and thoughts of suicide, which are commonplace, fall far short of explaining such drastic and statistically rare acts.
“People want an easily graspable handle to help understand this, to blame something or scapegoat,” said Dr. James L. Knoll, the director of forensic psychiatry at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University.
But to zero in on depression is “a low-yield dead end,” he said, adding, “There’s something fundamentally different here, aside and apart from the depression, and that’s where we need to look.”
Serious mental illness, studies of mass killers suggest, is a prime driver in a minority of cases — about 20 percent, according to estimates by several experts. Far more common are distortions of personality — excesses of rage, paranoia, grandiosity, thirst for vengeance or pathological narcissism and callousness.
“The typical personality attribute in mass murderers is one of paranoid traits plus massive disgruntlement,” said Dr. Michael Stone, a forensic psychiatrist in New York who recently completed a study of 228 mass killers, many of whom also killed themselves.
“They want to die, but to bring many others down with them, whether co-workers, bosses, family members or just plain folk who are in the vicinity.”
Mr. Lubitz, Dr. Stone noted, now ranks among the deadliest of mass killers, in a league with Adilson Marcelino Alves, who in 1961 killed as many as 500 people in a circus fire in Brazil, or Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, who killed 168 people and injured more than 680 others.
Dr. J. Reid Meloy, a forensic psychologist who consults on threat assessment for universities and corporations, said perhaps the most salient feature of mass killers was their belief that they had been wronged.
“What’s become clear over the past 30 years of research is that there’s virtually always a personal grievance that will start a person on a pathway to mass murder,” Dr. Meloy said.
The target of the grievance, he said, could be a person, a company, an institution or a government, “but it is felt personally and typically involves a major loss or anticipated loss.”
In Mr. Lubitz’s case, whether he knew or cared who would die as result of his actions remains unclear.
“For some people, the targets are very much the purpose of the attack,” Dr. Meloy said, referring to mass killers. “I think for other cases, where the purpose of the attack is, for example, primarily to gain notoriety, then the targets in a sense become the means to that end. One could think of them as being collateral damage.”
Murder-suicides make up only a small percentage of homicides in the United States, accounting for about 1,000 to 1,500 deaths a year, according to a 1992 epidemiological study. The vast majority are committed by men and most are domestic violence cases: an estranged husband, for example, who kills his wife, girlfriend or lover.
Suicides accompanied by the killing of multiple strangers represent an even tinier fraction of homicides over all. But they seem to differ in significant ways from their domestic counterparts, researchers said.
In domestic cases, depression does appear to play a significant role. A recent psychological autopsy study of murder-suicides in Dallas, most of which involved domestic violence, found that 17 of the 18 perpetrators met the diagnostic criteria for major depression or some other form of the illness.
The study, conducted by Dr. Knoll and Dr. Susan Hatters Friedman, a forensic psychiatrist at Case Western, found that a majority of the killers also abused alcohol or drugs. Four had a family history of suicide. The study has been submitted to a scientific journal.
Domestic murder-suicides are almost always impulsive — committed in fits of rage or jealousy, often enabled by the presence of a firearm. In contrast, killers who take groups of strangers as targets plan their crimes carefully, waiting for an opportunity to act.
And while domestic murder-suicides are frequently fueled by alcohol, people who plan ahead to kill themselves and others seem concerned about keeping a clear mind for the task ahead.
George Sodini, 48, who killed three people and injured nine others at an aerobics class in a Pittsburgh suburb in 2009, said as much in a blog he kept, detailing his plans.
“I haven’t had a drink since Friday at about 2:30,” he wrote on Monday, Aug. 3, the day before the massacre. “Total effort needed. Tomorrow is the big day.”
An airplane may seem an unusual vehicle for mass murder or self-destruction. But as a pilot’s method of choice, several psychiatrists said, it is perhaps not that surprising.
In a study of 85 aircraft suicides from 1965 to the present, Dr. Hatters Friedman and Dr. Chris Kenedi, a psychiatrist at Duke, found that 18 of the crashes appeared to be murder-suicides, 15 perpetrated by pilots. The study looked at general aviation and commercial airline crashes, and included the deliberate crashes by pilots of a Mozambique Airlines jet in 2013 and an EgyptAir plane in 1999.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was not among those studied, although pilot suicide was one theory about the jetliner’s disappearance last year.
“Not all of them had a history of mental illness,” Dr. Hatters Friedman said of the pilots. “What keeps coming up is family stresses, relationship stress, work stresses, financial stresses.”
In several cases, the pilots, all men, seemed to be acting on grievances. One crashed a plane into his former mother-in-law’s house, another into the offices of the pilot’s employer. A third pilot flew a Piper Dakota into a building occupied by the Internal Revenue Service.
Yet few murder-suicides are as chilling as those involving the deliberate crashing of jetliners with hundreds of passengers aboard.
In a mall or in a school, Dr. Knoll noted, people can run and take cover.
“On a plane, your number of victims is set,” he said, “and nobody can go anywhere.”Comment
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