I seem to recall a pilot that committed suicide with his plane full with passengers somewhere in Indonesia, around the end of the 90's.

Edit:
Found the episode I was thinking of on youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig9LE0Vp1YM

Markus

That one's still controversial - there is a plausible alternate explanation to pilot suicide. It could have been the dreaded 737 uncommanded rudder deflection glitch that downed several planes in the early 90s.

The more famous case would be the Egyptair flight - where everyone but Egypt seems to agree it was suicide.

There's also the Mosambique Airlines crash:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAM_Moz...nes_Flight_470

What has surprised me regarding this co-pilot is the few amount of hours flying time under his belt. I think he had 630 hours all told. I don't know about other airlines but there is no way you could ever become a co pilot in the South African Airways without a minimum of 6,000 hours of flying time.

While I accept it was not his flying capabilities in question here, it would mean more time given to pick up any mental issues before been entrusted with a plane.

The other thing, if this was his intention on boarding because of whatever personal problems he had, how did he know the captain would even leave the cockpit - or was this maybe an opportunity that came his way and he seized the moment.

You should visit the pprune forum. Huge thread there about it. The explanation for the low number of hours is due to demand in Europe for pilots but not enough pilots plus the training system. That's potato paraphrasing what I picked up elsewhere. But something just doesn't add up. Only based on the CVR and radar data the French prosecuted concluded it was suicide. The investigation is in is infancy and such a conclusion already accepted as fact. Could it be he was suffering from something that precluded his judgment, like a mini stroke, adjusted the height control by mistake and then succumbed. Or given he was a low hours pilot maybe he made the adjustment by mistake, then panicked and froze. Granted 8 minutes is a long time.

The thing is, though - the copilot had to hold down the lock button to prevent the captain from overriding the keypad lock on the door. So he must have been conscious.

I know, I'm just saying that it's so quickly decided to be murder/suicide. Yes the evidence is mounting but only the investigators know what has been discovered by police. For the rest of us we can only speculate as to why. I'd prefer to wait a bit more to find out why he did it.

I had to have about 3 times that just to get an interview here in the states.

I admit i too was surprised by the hours he had, but i had assumed this was relative to the demand in Europe for pilots. I wonder if their pay is crap too, otherwise... i could live in Germany :03:

After 4 and a half years in the FO seat, i was barely scraping in $300 a week, looking at another 5-7 years to upgrade to captain after over 15 years in the industry as a whole, i decided to stop wasting my time playing airplane pilot. i had financial goals in my mind which that career path was just unable to support at the time.

I have often wondered what a true shortage would do to pay scales.

on another note... I would wonder what was found on his computer, im sure it will be made public soon enough. My money is still on emails and messages to a failed love interest OR rejection of some form from his social group - a social group which he considered to be very important in defining himself.

but if this is the case, whoever he had a spat with - if any - has sure remained quiet about it

True that nothing is known for certain until the investigation has been concluded, but it certainly doesnt look good.

Some info on the cockpit door lock from Royal Jordanian's A320 Operating Manual:

I read somewhere that Germanwings has the door lock timer set to 5 minutes (unconfirmed). If so, the co-pilot must have flicked the switch at least twice during the descend.

Yes, I have read too that he had so few hours due to the shortage of pilots. This makes my blood boil - so countries that should know better compromise the safety of the public in an industry or profession because they are experiencing a shortage in skilled personnel and believe the answer lies in the lowering of standards of training in order to fill these positions.

What next: if it takes 8 years to qualify to become a Dr would Germany drop this to 4 years if there was a shortage of Dr's? This type of thinking is criminal and completely absurd.

This madness (pun intended) does not even stop there. Apparently this guy took extended time off of training to go under one and a half years of psychiatric treatment.

"Lufthansa Chief Executive Carsten Spohr told a news conference on Thursday that Lubitz had taken a break during his training six years ago, but did not explain why and said he had passed all tests to be fit to fly."

It would really surprise me if the families who have lost loved ones through this do not sue the pants off of Lufthansa.

Ask yourself this one simple question as a passenger about to board. You become aware that the pilot spent a few years undergoing psychiatric treatment and he is 28 years old with 600 odd flying hours. Would you still board?

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f2...ps6hv6d4et.png

http://ewn.co.za/2015/03/27/Germanwi...essive-episode

At Lufthansa they start with a yearly salary of 54.000€. With additional allowances this can get up to 73.000€
Some senior captains makes in excess of 250.000€ per year. But that's pretty extreme and I don''t know what the other airlines pay.
http://www.huffingtonpost.de/2014/02...n_4872272.html

The problem is the demand for aircraft. Just kick up FR24 and see how many aircraft are in the air. It's the primary way for people to get anywhere further than a few hundred miles away. For business, for cargo, it's all done by aircraft because we want things, no, we need things right now.
You can't fly aircraft without trained pilots, but if you don't have enough trained pilots, what do you do? Reduce the number of aircraft, which will increase the price of tickets and drive customers to other companies (thanks capitalism) or reduce the amount of training needed in order to get more pilots.

Money talks, more than lives, more than health. :salute:

latest scuttlebutt indicates significant evidence has been found suggesting he was a Muslim convert.

Dare I ask for a source?

Latest from BBC.

Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32087203

Seems to center on 'Politically Incorrect' news:

http://www.pi-news.net/

(Note the link to the 'German Defence League' on their site)

According to this site anyway:
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015...Speed=noscript

Make of that what you will. :03:

And everyone was assured both pilots were in the cockpit unconscience when the plane crashed too.


http://speisa.com/modules/articles/i...-to-islam.html


Like I said its scuttlebutt to the best of my knowledge nothing so far has been confirmed. Which makes me wonder how bbc.com can be so sure? Like Obe-wan said: "make of that what you will." :)

Good Lord this PI article really lunges for the bottom of the barrel

Sounds familiar around here.

File under BS.

Because they are more or less honest reporters who are reporting on exactly what the chief prosecutor said.


Whereas the ideologue over at PI can't help but cram his own religious biases into an article where they don't belong, and in fact is only writing about this in order to batter you over the head with politics. Note the difference in language between the two pieces.

There are certain professions where simple "economics of return" do not and should not even come into consideration.

In South Africa we experienced a huge shortage of medical doctors due to many of them leaving the country once it became a democratic state in the fullest sense. The same can be said for construction engineers, air traffic controllers, etc.

These professions, and many others, are directly linked to the immediate safety of the public. South Africa, faced with these immediate shortages and with now a huge demand of these services did not lessen the time required to become a co-pilot or pilot; lessen the time required to become a medical Dr; lessen the requirements that were needed from a construction engineer to ensure the safety of a high rise building in its construction - or a air traffic controller at anyone of its international airports juggling increasing and demanding air traffic.

What it did do to its credit (and there very few credits sadly), was to maintain the standards required and sought rather to import the needed skills required.

If I am flying on an airplane with my family or even not, I would not want or expect a cheaper ticket at the direct cost to my safety. If I held that view then I do not want to buy a car with an airbag, enhanced breaking system, safety features etc - rather let me save my pennies and buy that old banger from the second hand car lot with the bald tires to get me from A to B - and put mine and my loved ones safety into the hands of the gods.