Post #400,565
3/30/15 12:47:28 PM
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Could be you win the thread
I wonder if there is a broken heart/scorned love aspect to this tragedy. There are conflicting accounts, but I've read a couple of reports to the effect that Lubitz' girlfriend had announced a couple of days earlier that she planned to move out of the apartment they shared. Add to the existing account of a "control freak" and I come up with the following mental (I do not say rational) process: "She's leaving me? She's leaving me? No fucking way! I'll make her see reason...She's still leaving? I'll show her. I'll kill myself, and then she'll feel bad. Fuck, I'll kill myself and an entire planeload of holiday-goers, and then she'll feel really bad." Few of us enjoy rejection, but certain personality types take it very badly (I remained in a stunned funk for years following the disintegration of my own domestic arrangements, although it wouldn't have occurred to me to take it out on the occasional passengers in my car), the bulk of the extreme responses taking the form of murder of the estranged other, or murder/suicide, Lubitz apparently taking it to the next level and then some. Absent a written statement of intent we can probably never know, but I suspect that the "scorned love" element you have suggested is the likeliest motive. cordially,
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Post #400,575
3/30/15 7:57:01 PM
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That and being deemed unfit to fly.
Great post!
Nice to see you Rcareaga!
Brenda ___________________________________________________________________
I feel like a melted-down owl between two slices of parent!
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Post #400,587
3/31/15 10:15:35 AM
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There are more differences between how the Europeans do it and we than I realized.
I've heard it reported that the co-pilot was "treated for depression and suicidal tendencies" *before* receiving his pilot's license. That absolutely would not happen here. Any history of any mental issues are lifetime disqualifiers for receiving even a Private Pilot license, let alone Commercial and ATP beyond that. If you so much as use a mild anti-depressant (even for off-label use) you lose your ticket permanently. No way anyone starts or finishes flight training (at any level) if they were being treated for a mental illness of any sort.
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Post #400,608
3/31/15 3:37:12 PM
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blame it on the nazis
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Post #400,612
3/31/15 5:11:25 PM
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That's a tough one
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Post #400,615
3/31/15 6:30:17 PM
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NYT sez that.. some slack is cut though, even here.
NYT. Pilots’ fears about the consequences of being honest about their mental health was one reason the Federal Aviation Administration in 2010 loosened its policy, allowing them to take certain antidepressants and still fly if the illness was mild. Before the policy changed, some pilots received mental health treatment and antidepressants from private doctors but concealed that information from airlines and regulators, said doctors familiar with the agency’s practices. But all can see (except those who always cry [Certain!] about any opinion) ... We haven't the foggiest idea how--via any cockamamie law or other pressure--to prevent Anyone from committing an unprecedented action. Maybe someday, wnen the Securitat-chip is implanted at birth.. say 2025?
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Post #400,619
4/1/15 8:17:59 AM
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Zero tolerance is superficially appealing...
...but simply means that people will actively avoid reporting whatever is being zero toleranced.
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Post #400,620
4/1/15 8:27:40 AM
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This.
We can't use science to treat disease and conditions and at the same time think that huge consequences of accepting such treatment are not important.
If people have mental issues, the solution isn't to punish them for seeking treatment. How? Dunno, exactly. But letting them fly alone on a day that a doc says they shouldn't probably isn't a good idea. :-(
Having 2 people in the cockpit at all times should help in most cases. Assuming the pilots don't have guns, of course... :-(
There's been an epidemic of zero-tolerance in the US. It needs to stop.
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #400,627
4/1/15 3:23:19 PM
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Alternates for pilots?
(Muricans love black/white Draconian answers to serious, complex questions.)
Given the cut-throat competition for one of the Well-paid slots (whatever the ratio to the often insulting pay for those who shepherd only a few dozen lives at a time) there could be some (formal) acknowledgment of your well-stated opening: If a mental quirk arises, person could be temporarily be tasked with training others or similar tasks requiring experience of flying the actual hardware in use. Presuming that, in many cases an episode does not portend a declining spiral, is somewhat treatable--even within our current tenuous grasp of all such matters--formal recognition of this alternative could help lots.
Still, even were this method applied in good faith, there remains the prospect of no successful treatment, the only-delayed instant loss of all chops and income. More incentives? guaranteed pensioning off, with qualifications to address scamming. Consider thus: the Corporate expense of such a pension is trivial compared with [One mangled planeload.] Corporate must have this explained in language an MBA could comprehend, or any bright 12 yo. And that is not even snark/some are sociopaths themselves.
The obvious determinant of any solution to [perpetual] biped unpredictability is to use the fucking-money to ameliorate the pilot's sudden-death fiscally, encouraging self-reporting sans stigma ... and for Corporate to realize it's not only the humane solution, it's also the approach that places passengers in least *jeopardy. Translate the costs into the Liabilities of every (what's the TLA for piloting-direct-into-ground, again?) although there will be those because of weather and other conditions, not mental ones.
Airlines Could do this. Will they? ... Can we Make Them?
* Evading this dilemma with Stats is the natural inclination of every Biz-major, ever with eyes on the biggest prize: more-for-Me. aka What, me worry over an event every 5 years? 10 years?
(Same argument re cat rescue: why bother? when your piddling efforts can't alter millions of routinized executions, via percentages to 10 decimal places.)
But there's still the $Ms of hardware Loss and $Bs of Cost/per-dead-body:--THE PR--and the families in ever expanding circles. What is that Worth to a Corporation ..such as those we know?
(It's easy re the futility of cat rescue: THAT ONE gets to LIVE. And we humans get endorphins for realizing the fact and acting on it).
I'd bet that Corp shareholders/(screw the self-electing BODs) would support, by stock-purchase: this rationale as humane for the afflicted pilot/humane for the saving of even ONE-more mental-caused crash. And for being refreshing amidst the Crass-majority of Corps. Let's test that theory: doing $Well by Doing Good (but not as Tom Lehrer satire.)
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Post #400,635
4/1/15 5:59:57 PM
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Well said. People do need alternatives rather than being kicked to the curb...
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