What happened in the Airbus A320, the Germanwings Flight 9525 from Barcelona to Duesseldorf?
The latest news is reporting that German co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, aged 28, “hijacked” the Airbus and deliberately killed 150 people. Prosecutor Brice Robin said,”The co-pilot is alone at the controls,” and “He voluntarily refused to open the door of the cockpit to the pilot and voluntarily began the descent of the plane.” The information from the black box confirms that he was breathing normally, suggesting he was conscious.
It is always so much easier to blame the “lone mad person”, but how and why would Mr Lubitz do such a thing?
Maybe he did crash the plane deliberately. He allegedly received psychiatric treatment for a “serious depressive episode” six years ago, and had to stop training because he was suffering depression and ‘burn-out’ (2008). Speaking outside the flat on the outskirts of Dusseldorf, police said they had found something that would now be taken for tests, adding it may be a ‘clue’ as to what happened to the doomed jet. Is this something medication? And there are suggestions that he was in a relationship break up.
But Klaus Radke, the head of the local flight club where Lubitz received his first flying licence, said “He was a completely normal guy.” (Note: Normal is a cycle on a washing machine)
I recall the strange suicide of English film director, Tony Scott (Top Gun, True Romance) – at the time 68, with his career in Hollywood still flying. He was in a great marriage and was apparently looking forward to shooting his next film, but then, leaps without hesitation from the Vincent Thomas Bridge in Los Angeles. His famous brother (Ridley), who would have been privy to the suicide notes, later reveals that Tony had inoperable brain cancer and killed himself – to spare his family. An autopsy allegedly did not pick up indications of cancer, but did find “therapeutic” levels of Mirtazipine (Remeron, an anti-depressant) and zopiclone (Lunesta), a “sleep-aid”, in his system.
And Lubitz? We await keenly to hear what the something is, that the Dusseldorf police have found.
UPDATE:
“Documents with medical contents were confiscated that point towards an existing illness and corresponding treatment by doctors,” said the prosecutors’ office in Dusseldorf, where the pilot lived and where the flight from Barcelona was heading, reports Reuters.
“The fact there are sick notes saying he was unable to work, among other things, that were found torn up, which were recent and even from the day of the crime, support the assumption based on the preliminary examination that the deceased hid his illness from his employer and his professional colleagues,” they said.
The prosecutors said in a statement that the documents were found in searches of Lubitz’s homes in Duesseldorf and in the town of Montabaur in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate.
The Uniklinik hospital in Dusseldorf confirmed that it had treated Lubitz in recent weeks but said it was not for depression.”
A “Slow” Descent
But – why would someone intent on suicide and killing 149 people do this slowly – at a steady 3,000 feet per minute descent – for 8 to 9 minutes. That must have been excruciating. This murder/suicide conclusion might feel more convincing if Lubitz had plunged the plane into a deathly dive, and called out to the Captain banging on the door “Dies ist das Ende.” But all that is heard, is steady (conscious) breathing. Even when he must have heard an axe hacking at the door, Lubitz doesn’t steepen his dive. Even though he would have known that an upgrade to cockpit doors after 911 (to stop terrorism) would prevent the pilot from coming back into the cockpit, one would think that Lubitz would have instinctively steepened his dive.
The A320 is designed to allow emergency entry into the cockpit if a pilot inside is unresponsive, but a pilot (or terrorist) inside can deny entry. (video)
Other alleged pilot murder/suicides – Crash Descents.
The Germanwings crash is quite different to an incident in 1999 which many have been attributed to murder/suicide. Thirty minutes after takeoff from New York, the fully loaded Boeing 767 on route to Cairo, dropped from 36,000 feet to 19,000 feet in half a minute – an enormously fast dive that probably made the aircraft break up in several large pieces. At 19,000 feet the Boeing disappeared from radar and all 217 passengers and crew died. It is alleged the pilot , Gamal al-Batouti, had muttered an Arabic “I rely on God.”
The 1997 Silk Air crash is another case of likely (but disputed) pilot murder/suicide. The twinjet, piloted by Singaporean Tsu Way Ming, fell from 35,000 feet into an Indonesian river in one minute – a dive so fast that it reached supersonic speed before breaking up, killing 104.
But Lubitz allegedly just cruised slowly down over nine minutes – despite an alleged axe hacking at the door.
I cannot imagine what Lubritz’s parents must have gone through when they were quietly separated from the other grieving families in France – only to be told that their son was presumed a mass murderer.
Lubitz running a Lufthansa marathon
Was Lubitz on medication?
I wrote yesterday before the medical information, that all options should be investigated. This was one:
Hypnosis
Having watched several episodes of Derren Brown, I am always stunned at how easy it is to hypnotise someone to do something egregious. Brown proves that it is possible to mind control someone into assassination – demonstrating Sirhan Sirhan could have easily been “controlled” to assassinate U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. In the episode below, Brown trains a regular guy to “assassinate” actor Stephen Fry (without him ever knowing or remembering what he did). Watch from 42:15 and at 45 minutes.
How easy would it have been to instruct the “subject” into a trance and a mission with the words “going to the bathroom… take-over”. Lubitz seems to have been acting in a “detached” way, and a pilot with a history of “stress” would possibly be a good candidate for hypnosis.
Also his breathing (not panting) – for up to 9 minutes – was calm and always the same. Odd.
Other theories
On the voice recorder, an impact is heard before the main impact. No further reports on this.
Rapid decompression, pilot error, (traditional) terrorism, technical error and other theories have been discounted. And I’m sure there would have been an easier way to target Yvonne Selke (a Booz Allen Hamilton employee) IF she was a target.
So in any murder investigation or crime, what could have been the motive?
Maybe Lubitz was effected by the pilot strike? I haven’t heard anywhere that the pilots of Lufthansa (the largest airline in Europe) were expected to go on strike last December (2014) after the failure of the retirement benefits negotiations. I don’t know if this included Germanwings, but there were allegedly eight pilot strikes since April 2014. Or maybe someone wants pilots to be under greater supervision.
Maybe it was just a mad loner – again.
We await for more information.
I am quoting from Lawrence Dunegan, MD’s report of what he heard Dr Richard Day say at a medical dinner speech in 1969:
“Buildings and bridges would be made so that they would
collapse after a while, there would be more accidents involving
aeroplanes and railroads and automobiles. All of this to contribute to the feeling of insecurity, that nothing was safe.”
@mary,
So the o ring that could not handle temeparature differance, part of the exploded space shuttle, with 7 people in it, was just placed to “contribute to the feeling of insecurity, that nothing is safe”?
You brought it up.
@mary,
Yes, I brought the shuttle up, but I did not invent or cause it.
I do not like premature statements in an investigation that is still at hand, and in this case, just began, what if its premature or even wrong.
Should I be in command of this aircrash investigation, I would not yet provide this information, because a CVR allone is just not good enough.
I understand the urge for news, but also understand that it takes time to ivestigate an aircrash, and therefore I usually await the result.
Me knowing nothing yet, douse not mean me going speculating.
All things are possible in Mission Impossible 😊
Dalia,
An Airbus A320 is equiped with a so called “fly by wire” system which will prevent the pilot from making a steep dive. Therefor, it’s simply not possible.
There goes your theory…
a fly by wire system that could have flown the aircraft to an airport and landed safely … so they could plead with the co-pilot on radio apparently, but not activate the fly by wire?
Hot dog! more about this please, Fair.
Remote controlled aircraft, can over ride the manual controls in the case of a hijacking, a hijacking is still a hijacking even if done by the co-pilot, so why no remote control?
“The Boeing 777 along with other Boeing models, can in fact be flown remotely through the use of independent embedded software and satellite communication. Once this advanced system is engaged, it can disallow any pilot or potential hijacker from controlling a plane, as the rooted setup uses digital signals that communicate with air traffic control, satellite links, as well as other government entities for the remainder of a flight’s journey.
This technology is known as the Boeing Honeywell ‘Uninterruptible’ Autopilot System. “
it seems the flight data recorder would determine if any such autopilot mechanism was turned on or not..
according to this website, it was initially thought the memory card that records such things, was too damaged to tell.. no it seems, its actually missing..
https://willyloman.wordpress.com/2015/03/28/germanwings-a320-crash-hollande-says-fdr-memory-card-missing/#comment-100493
the soup thickens.
Yet another marvelous article, Fair Dinkum, at willyloman, albeit with the occasional coarse language.
@mary,
Dutch building codes regarding the structural integraty, perscribe a period of at least 50 years.
Ed Asner is wrong with his “These buildings are meant to last”, also he is wrong with “these buildings are designed by computers”, for the drawings of Frankel Steel, B7, were handmade, ik can notice this in a split second, I know the differance.
Furthermore I am not aware of, or never recieved any orders to make my buildings collapse, or collapse sooner.
Wow,
The pilot was hypnotised.
Makes sence, because it explains why none of the many mass murderers regarding 911 ever speak, they are hypnotised.
Dr. Karl is hypnotised, Bush is innocent for he was also hypnotised, now we have Hypnotising evidence, sounds better then Explosive evidence.
So, the mass murderers were hypnotised and therefore no murderers, the murderer is the hypnohippie, the hypno bad guy.
Other hypotheses would be that people like Dalia are hypnotised to accuse people of being hypnotised.
The movie “scanners” is not a documentary, it is just a movie.
Hypnotic evidence.
Glad to announce that brainwaves were found in the WTC dust.
Our team of specialists have……..in the dust.
Further funding is needed……….money.
Lubitz’s girlfriend Maria (pseudonym) said: “When I heard about the crash, there was just a tape playing in my head of what he said: ‘One day I will do something that will change the system and everyone will then know my name and remember me’.”
Surely when a girl hears her lover say such a thing, she asks “What do you mean, dear?” Apparently not Maria.
I confess my ignorance about the Germanwings crash, but it’s an insult to readers when the Sydney Morning Herald quotes Maria, as above, expecting us all to say Yep, that must be it — the human desire for fame after death!
Dalia, thank you for trying to not let the MSM get away with everything. Today’s front-page headline in the Age is “There was a deliberate desire to crash this plane.” I consider that irresponsible. The Age cannot know such a thing at this point.
I think we need a plausibility meter for all these stories. Anybody have any examples of a person doing something like that (killing 150 folks and himself) to achieve fame?
If there’s a human instinct to want fame, evolutionary biology says it would be a desire for fame here and now, not after death. You’d want to reap something from it. Fame has uses, such as getting you good deals. I’d like some fame right now, both for my ego and to get deals. Anticipation of posthumous fame just does not do it for me.
Note: in 1981, John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan in order to (supposedly) impress a movie star, Jodie Foster. Hinckley told Newsweek: “The line dividing life and art can be invisible. After seeing enough hypnotizing movies and reading enough magical books, a fantasy life develops which can either be harmless or quite dangerous.”
Well, maybe. But isn’t the great likelihood that Vice President Bush arranged this shooting of Reagan? Hasn’t anyone read Shakespeare? You don’t need the Jodie Foster bit.
Anyone know of a good hypnotist who can break a spell? El-kebab needs servicing.
so they get this narrative about a suicidal pilot from the flight data recorder.. then we learn, that the data recorder is damaged.. then we learn, its missing.. then we learn, it may never be found..
http://www.sott.net/article/294482-Germanwings-crash-Not-the-full-story
Fair Dinkum, That is a fabulous roundup of interpretations of the Germanwings episode. Thank you.
[…] 5. Will the investigators release the list of Lubitz’s medications and compare this with other suicides. (I made reference to Tony Scott’s suicide and his medication in a previous post.) […]