Germanwings Flight Carrying at Least 148 Crashes in Southern France

[Caliga]

Doesn't necessarily mean he meant to do it maliciously.  Let's hope not at least.

[Liep]

Holy shit. I've suddenly developed a fear of flying.

[Tamas]

Doesn't necessarily mean he meant to do it maliciously.  Let's hope not at least.

What else could it mean?

[Caliga]

Who knows?  But if he intended to commit suicide I would have expected him to just disengage the autopilot and put the plane into a steep dive.

[Maladict]

BBC:

The co-pilot of the Germanwings plane that crashed into the French Alps on Tuesday appeared to want to "destroy the plane", French prosecutors said.

[Berkut]

Wow. Just...wow. That is terrifying.

[Caliga]

Unless they have information that hasn't been released to the public yet, I don't know how 'French prosecutors' could suspect that already.

[Berkut]

Unless they have information that hasn't been released to the public yet, I don't know how 'French prosecutors' could suspect that already.

What they had in the story shows a pretty good reason for suspicion at least.

[Monoriu]

This is the second time within 12-13 months.  Not much we can do about pilot murder suicides.  Unless all flights require 3 pilots in the cockpit. 

[Liep]

This is the second time within 12-13 months.  Not much we can do about pilot murder suicides.  Unless all flights require 3 pilots in the cockpit. 

Wasn't too long ago that they did. But they absolutely can do something about suicidal pilots, nothing that's a 100% of course, but screening your safety personal is required everywhere in aviation I would hope.

[Berkut]

I would also think a simple change would be that no person should ever be alone in the cockpit on planes above a certain size. If a pilot wants to go tinkle, a stew needs to hang in the cockpit. Not a foolproof fix, but could certainly make it a lot harder for a single person to take down the plane.

Although if a pilot decides he is going to crash the plane, I am guessing he has a pretty good shot at it if he is alone or not.

[Liep]

Some dude on CNN was saying that if a pilot leaves the cockpit, someone else from the flight crew is supposed to go in there in order to prevent situations like this.

Lufthansa guy says that only applies in the US not in Europe.

[Grey Fox]

Unless they have information that hasn't been released to the public yet, I don't know how 'French prosecutors' could suspect that already.

Yes, the information that is on the Black box.

[Malthus]

Some dude on CNN was saying that if a pilot leaves the cockpit, someone else from the flight crew is supposed to go in there in order to prevent situations like this.

Lufthansa guy says that only applies in the US not in Europe.

My guess is that there will be a bit of a re-think of that policy ...

[DGuller]

From what I read, the only way for the pilot to be unable to enter the cockpit would've been to be intentionally locked out by the co-pilot.  In that case, it's pretty obvious why the French prosecutors already reached their conclusion:  there is simply no other remotely possible explanation.