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Plane Crashes: To Know or Not To Know
On Thursday morning, we woke up to the horrific news that the German Wings co-pilot deliberately crashed the Airbus plane into the French Alps, instantly killing all those on board. I have so much trouble wrapping my head around this sickening development to an already tragic story. The most chilling detail came from the prosecutor who’s now investigating: “Death was instant. You only hear screams in final seconds.”
Imagining the terror experienced by the passengers and crew in the moments before impact is the stuff of nightmares. Seeing tiny fragments of a once huge airliner — and thinking about the actual disintegration of so many innocent human beings — is something that literally makes me nauseous. Family and friends who are grieving, are now probably also angry and confused. The company has to be wondering what signs they might have missed in this co-pilot.
Just over a year ago, Malaysian Airlines flight 370 disappeared somewhere between Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Beijing, China. It is presumed that everyone on board died, although what exactly happened is still a mystery to this day.
It made me start to ponder which is better: Knowing, or not knowing, what caused a plane crash?
I asked the question on Twitter. Some said they would want to know:
https://twitter.com/rwgranny/status/581069358446727170
Others said they didn’t want to know:
https://twitter.com/gilla5490/status/581069688928518145
One person said neither:
@Cameron_Gray @codefoxed neither. Because either way its still scary
— MS DOG (@TheMalamute) March 26, 2015
So I pose this question to you, the readers of Ricochet: If you lost someone in a plane crash, would you want to know exactly what happened, or not?
Image Credit: Flickr user croustibat51. A Germanwings A320, taken in 2010.
Published in General
I want to know why the names and nationalities of the pilots haven’t been released. Their behavior was odd to say the least.
They have. The pilot was German identified as Patrick Sonderheimer. The pilot is Andreas Günter Lubitz also a German. Also the pilot was locked out the cockpit trying to get back in.
Thanks; I listened to Fox for two hours last night and never rcvd this info. Knew one pilot was locked out, but they all have access to get in so am still curious as to why this happened.
This reminds me of the Book of Questions we would pontificate over during the 80’s. “If you had a terminal disease, would you want to know the time of your death?”
I agree with KC Mulville #30; I would at least want to ability to attempt to change the outcome.
Let’s Roll.
ET: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3012053/Andreas-Lubitz-Germanwings-flight-9525-French-alps-crash-French-alps-Germanwings-plane-crash-Airbus-A320-Barcelonnette.html
Liz,
The occupants of the cockpit can keep anyone from entering. Most of the discussion on the other thread has focused on how to prevent the malicious lockout of one of the members of the flight crew.
I agree. I don’t think this is a silly or morbid question at all, but I’m not sure there’s an answer that covers all the bases.
Rational human beings would learn from the disaster, in the way that scientists are supposed to examine the evidence and proceed accordingly. In my own small way, as a hobby farmer, when something bad happens to my livestock as the result of a choice that I made, a preventable circumstance, or a technology problem, I try to investigate, and make sure it doesn’t happen again.
But there are also the irrational, and occasionally, the supernatural events, in the form of Acts of God. As in: A tree fell on my prize ram, beaning him in the noggin, and killing him instantly. What am I supposed to do? Lock the sheep up? Tear up all the trees? Tell God to stop the rain? Tell the sheep not to stand under the trees (trust me, of all possible responses, this is the least likely to work).
I’m not sure what algorithm, formula, or response, you bring to assure that such things won’t happen again.
We’ll learn more about the co-pilot in the days to come, and the solution “don’t hire psychopaths to fly your planes” will probably be bandied about.
And if he was a particular type of psychopath, then there’ll be a lot of back and forth and much of it will be very nasty.
As for me, the older I get, the solution that springs most often to my mind is something like “don’t engage in any sort of transportation in which you’re not the person in control of the vehicle.”
It’s not foolproof, but it’s a start.
If one of my daughters was on that plane, I’d want to know the cause. But the detail about “screams in the final seconds,” would be awfully painful to hear.
I hope that copilot is burning in the hot place.
I agree with your general sentiment, but I so loathe the expression “suicide” when it relates to someone’s desire to off himself, and take 150 innocent people with him. This isn’t about him. It’s about them.
He could have committed suicide countless ways, all by himself, anonymously, and ignominiously. And those who knew, and presumably, some who loved him, would have said “How sad. Poor Andreas. If only we had known what a tormented soul he was.”
He’s a psychopath. And a murderer. And I don’t care what his rationale, or his reasons, were.
Thanks again! I see lawsuits ….
It depends on who did what for what reason. If this was a Muslim then in 6 months this will be just another workplace accident. Sort of like slipping on the stairs. Any possible truth will be sacrificed to the gods of political correctness. On the other hand if it turns out to be a Christian or worse a Jew it will be proof of the evils of religion. Either way the truth will not be known by the public.
I would want to know how it happened, if for no other reason as to satisfy myself that the next time I step on a plane, the odds are extremely remote that the same will happen to me.
This tragic incident is also a great reminder that actions (like mandating locked cockpit doors) can have effects far beyond those ever envisioned by those who put the actions in place. An important, though unanswerable, question to ask is are we at a net positive for lives saved/lost as a result of mandating locked cockpit doors?
It was a dig at political correctness and the President, not a “Ha ha” joke. See comment #41 for the same point, just more words.
In the words of Sgt. Hulka:
“Lighten up, Francis”
As awful as it would be to know everything that happened, as much as it is possible, I would certainly want to know. Knowing is a way of being with them in it, of understanding what they went through. Not wanting to know would just be an attempt to protect my own feelings.
OTOH, ‘when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’
It seems to me that there are very few possibilities remaining that do not point to the culpability of the co-pilot at this point, no matter how improbable some people might find that to be.
Speaking for myself, I’m not sure I can think of any.
Update: Actually, I can think of one. I think it’s virtually impossible, and far more improbable than the commonly held theory that the co-pilot did it. But I guess we’ll see.
The question has to be answered in the “I need to know” exactly what happened and why. I spent my entire career in engineering putting systems of various sorts on aircraft, including a number of years designing, testing and installing the proverbial black boxes, e.g. the voice and data flight recorders. I am still working in the industry on other systems. It is detailed knowledge of what happened and why it happened that allows us over time to make aircraft safer. They are likely the safest complex systems in the world, but bad stuff still happens, and it is only through the knowledge gained from each tragedy that additions and changes can be made that allow the overall air transportation system to become safer.
The general flying public also needs to know, if not every detail, at least what the outlines of the multiple failures were that led to the incident, so they can see and support necessary changes to improve the overall air transportation system.
I heard on a news cast today that there have been 31,000 cases of pilot hijacking of aircraft since 1931, and at least 5 known cases in the last 10 years leading to a catastrophic loss of aircraft, and a couple of possible cases still unknown.
In the US since 9/11 there is at least a partial solution to prevent what apparently happened here, there can never be only one crew member in the cockpit at any time, if a pilot leaves, a relief pilot or flight attendant must be in the cockpit, so no one individual can lock out the others. This was not adopted in Europe. Today Canada also invoked this standard, as have several European airlines. It is likely not enough and some (bad word ) “profiling” of pilots likely will have to occur also, but we shouldn’t pass bad regulations in the immediate aftermath. A year from now will be sufficient, if the US no single occupants in cockpit is enforced.
A bit more about what is known. The voice recorder was recovered and its recordings are intact. They heard what can be heard from that. Also quite a lot of maintenance data, including the autopilot settings is data linked from the aircraft in flight in real time (This real time HUMS data is pretty much the state of the art) While not as complete or focused on safety as the flight recorder data, it shows the autopilot was set to fly the aircraft in a gradual descent to a flight altitude of 100 feet. This cannot happen accidentally, but requires positive pilot turning of a knob multiple turns, and can not happen without deliberate override of other aircraft safety systems. We know that happened, and the pilot was locked out of the cockpit, so as the prosecutor in France is saying, alternative explanations other that a deliberate flight into terrain, seem remote at this time.
Reminds me of the old Steve Wright joke: his girlfriend once asked him “Would you want to know the exact moment of your death?”
He told his girlfriend, “No. Why?”
She answered, “Oh never mind.”
And this is why people on Ricochet should not suggest that we are not able to understand the situation.
Guess I’m a little slow. Would somebody explain the joke to me?
It’s missing a verbal semantic component: her answer is sing-song, implying “you’ll find out soon”.
Thank you Dean!
Is this a discussion group populated by NTSB and the Euro equivalent? I doubt it. Investigating such an occurrence requires significant technical training and access to the data. The NTSB and other investigative entities like them are truly specialists, and can perform a job no one else can, similar to medical specialists. The only factor we can discuss intelligently here is how their conclusions are spun in the media. So much for your ad hominem accusation that I’m out of my depth, not understanding just who the wizards behind the curtain are here inside Ricochet, and that I am somehow appealing to authority merely by offering my view on who is qualified to address clearly highly technical issues. I’ve spent too much time on this already, but ad hominem attacks need rebuttal, Mr. Finishers.
Gotcha, Bryan. Peace!