Adding to what I said below:
To this day, the motive for the pilot’s actions remain unclear, though rumors have circulated online that he was struggling with domestic problems. Mozambique has still not issued a final report on the crash. Yet what little we do know about the case does line up eerily with what little we know so far about the Germanwings crash: the perpetrator who waits until he is left alone in the cockpit, then appears to lock his colleague out; the use of autopilot to command an orderly descent down into the ground; the resulting high-speed crash that leaves the aircraft ripped to shreds, without the slightest possibility of survival.
An air of mystery surrounding the incident is not unusual in cases of what appear to be pilot suicides. Such a horrific act, in which an individual not only takes his only life but slaughters the passengers who have been put into his care, defies easy psychological classification. Suicide notes are rare, as are words of explanation on cockpit voice recorders. With the pilot dead, and the scene of the crime destroyed, all that remains is the unsolvable riddle: Why?
On the news this morning they said that the co-pilot had mental health problems. Jobs like flying a plane, or controlling a train or other thing that could get lots of people killed need to require stringent and ongoing monitoring to prevent these things. One or a few more incidents like this will probably force that, it would be better to do it sooner and better than later and more panicked.
ReplyDeleteI'm starting to question some of what is coming out. In harmony with some critics of this reporting, I look askance at terms like "mental health problems." It's weaselspeak for "he was nuts." And in this case it's coupled with "he hid it from his employers," which lets the airline off the hook immediately, usually the reason you say "well, he was nuts." Now he was "nuts" and "Devious," so who coulda known?
ReplyDeleteObviously something was deeply wrong. But we're not getting down to that now. We're going to toss the whole thing away on a "crazy" individual who "fooled" everybody, and it's so sad but who could have foreseen.....?
I suspect the mindset of someone who would do what he's said to have done is sufficiently different from those mindsets of people who would never do it, perhaps unique, that trying to figure it out is impossible and anything "figured out" an illusion. But that's only a guess.
ReplyDeleteI hope I couldn't imagine what was going through his mind if he did it intentionally.
That's pretty much where I end up.
ReplyDeleteAll the "experts" who say they know why he did what he did (granted, mostly it's just media reports, I seldom see an "expert" add his/her reputation to the speculation) are liars and fools. Any competent psychologist knows that only examination can give the trained person a clue as to the cause, and seldom is there any certainty.