The Germanwings crash – as any plane crash – brings with it huge grief to the families of victims. I also cannot begin to imagine what Lubitz’s family must be going through. But there was probably a discrete collective sigh of relief at Airbus headquarters when evidence kept pointing to “suicide”. If it was a technical fault, it could cost countless billions.
From early on, all fingers pointed at the co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, and the evidence kept mounting. There was first the voice recorder with his breathing and the pilot shouting to get back in; the torn up sick notes; the depression; the ex-girl friend’s intimations; Lubitz’s alleged online suicide and cockpit door searchers; a diuretic drugs search; medication and now the data from the second black box.
The French BEA crash investigation office were quoted saying, “during the descent, the pilot changed the automatic pilot settings to increase the aircraft’s speed,” – all “confirming” the murderous intentions of the co-pilot.
But an aviation expert, Matt Andersson, (president of Indigo Aerospace) warned against jumping to conclusions (Metro UK report). He said it was possible the plane was ‘hacked’ before hitting the mountain, and “…it could be from any number of causes, including external electronic hacking into the aircraft’s control and navigation systems through malware or electromagnetic interception.”
But the “Loner” narrative is the media’s (and governments) DEFAULT position.
Lubitz may be culpable in this case, but one has to be ever wary of the mainstream media’s usual “lone wolf” narrative. We should be cautious when the “loner narrative” (or brother narrative) is so quickly produced or universally adopted.
A few past orchestrated loner narratives include: Harvey Lee Oswald (JFK), Martin Bryant (Port Arthur), Sirhan Sirhan (RFK), James Earl Ray (MLK), James Eagan Holmes (Aurora) and Adam Lanza (Sandy Hook). More recently the lone wolf has also morphed into “rogue brothers” (e.g. Kouachi and Tsarnaev brothers). The big one was of course – Osama Bin Laden. This 9/11 “lone leader” was confirmed and named on television, around midday, by people like Paul Bremer, Jerome Hauer and others – even before the tower dust had settled.
The 9/11 “lone leader” narrative – that Osama Bin Laden orchestrated the terrible attacks in 2001 – is more comforting for the populous to believe, even if the evidence contradicts the narrative.
So it is our duty to be questioning and investigate all options.
I have read reports that certain planes can be taken over remotely from a ground base to combat terrorism. But a pilot instructor friend, disagrees, “Can you imagine the carnage if the bad guys took over an installation that could remotely control aircraft. They could crash hundreds of aircraft killing thousands.”
With regard to Germanwings, there are still some anomalies to this tragedy that need answers:
1. Will investigators be to explain the two impacts / noises?
What was the first noise? Was this the wing crashing a mountain top? (Investigators think they heard the plane’s right wing scrape a mountaintop.) But why were two “impacts” 15 to 30 seconds apart? Was the second noise an echo, or the avalanche of debris? There are several witnesses with similar stories, this is one:
Schoolgirl Lucille Polizzi (18) described the moment she was was standing outside with her father when they heard a strange noise, which she thought was an “earthquake or avalanche.”
“We were outside and then suddenly we heard this big noise. I thought it was an earthquake. We have earthquakes fairly frequently here, just small ones… My father thought it was a fighter jet but we couldn’t see any. The noise lasted probably seven or eight seconds. Then it stopped. There was nothing for maybe 15 to 30 seconds. Then a second noise. The same as the first noise and it lasted about the same time.”
2. Will we see a diagram – mapping out the point of impact and debris from the plane? It seemed to be extremely widespread.
3. Will investigators look into who Lubitz spoke to before the flight?
4. Was there a Spanish investigation team on-board? (And Pentagon contractor, Yvonne Selkea, will probably just remain a conspiracy).
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.)
I doubt any new evidence will ever change the Lubitz ‘verdict’. The “Loner script” for the Germanwings Flight 9525 has solidified, and is strangely comforting for passengers, other pilots, governments and the airline industry.
But in the push to make travel even safer, airlines are now taking up the call for a “second person” always in the flight-deck (which probably won’t do more than provide a warm fuzzy feeling for the passengers). What if a rogue flight attendant were to poison the pilot’s coffee (or a passenger)? Maybe we should introduce the ‘two flight attendant coffee-making’ rule too.
PS: Taking flight used to be far more hazardous. One week after the Wright brothers’ first flight (1908), Orville Wright took first lieutenant Thomas Etholen Selfridge for a flight. They crashed and Selfridge was killed.