How about this Nut Ball

Yeah, thats really f'd up. Really sad and there is no explanation. It sounds like the descent happened over 8 mins which would be incredibly scary to sit there not knowing what is going on. I guess they don't have the 'two in the cockpit' rule in Europe..
 
Excellent!
Something else to worry about when you're taking your flight!
Maybe I should ask for a little chit chat with the pilot before trusting my familys life.

How does that saying go?

"One out of four people are mentally unbalanced.
If 3 of your friends seem okay.
It's probably You"
 
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Something is going to have to change-when I started flying (many years ago) psychological testing took a long time with background checks that extended even to my birthplace in England. While I admit this was for the military I realize that commercial operations have obviously not screened as rigorously as they should as witnessed by the number of alleged Pilot induced crashes over the last few years. This may get the public to at least consider pilotless aircraft-something that wouldn't have been tolerated a few years ago-or maybe some kind of failsafe monitor system with a ground control over-ride system where the pilot could be locked out of flying if certain parameters were breached. Rethink definitely needed-aircraft have been made safer-pilots-not so much!!
 
It's interesting and haven't paid too close attention to the news this morning but in North America (or maybe just the US) if there are only two in the cockpit and one leaves, a flight attendant must go in during the absence? Heard that in passing on the news last night....not sure of it's validity or not?
 
Pippen said:
It's interesting and haven't paid too close attention to the news this morning but in North America (or maybe just the US) if there are only two in the cockpit and one leaves, a flight attendant must go in during the absence? Heard that in passing on the news last night....not sure of it's validity or not?
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Apparently not-Air Canada just changed its policy-effective-immediately to never less than 2 in the cockpit at all times
 
spring fever said:
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Apparently not-Air Canada just changed its policy-effective-immediately to never less than 2 in the cockpit at all times
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Ya.....just reading this article and it appears as though it was only in the US. http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/german...-plane-into-descent-prosecutor-says-1.3010045

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, it has been standard operating procedure for airlines in the United States to require a flight attendant to be present in the cockpit when one of the pilots briefly leaves. Spohr said airlines in Europe do not have that requirement.
Click to expand...

I have flown quite a bit for work/personal travel and certainly don't recall seeing a flight attendant going into the cockpit on Canadian flights/airlines. Given this terrible incident.....I am glad it's changing.
 
I am not entirely sure of what the US rules are for a pilot leaving the cockpit, but airlines have gone from having 3-4 or more (front end crew) flying in the cockpit. It used to be 2-3 pilots, and engineer and a navigator. Now all that work load is done by the 2 pilots flying the aircraft.

If you really want to see how busy pilots are, just get on a small commuter plane like Coastal Mountain Air and from your seat you can watch how busy the pilots are during the landings and take offs. From looking at checklists, adjusting power settings and radios to monitoring the other pilot and outside surroundings to be safe. There hands are very busy while they are listening to the radios and being switched from controllers to controllers.

Maybe its time for airlines to rethink how they conduct business and put the redundancy back in the cockpit or maybe the insurance companies might force them into it.
 
This has happened before. Just not sure how many times. On an Asian airline, possibly Japan airlines as I recall, as the details were presented on an episode of "Mayday" and seemed hauntingly similar to this Germanwing crash.

When I heard the initial details of this recent Germanwings AB 320 going down in the Alps I thought to myself ....oh no not another sabotage? I just couldn't believe it to be true, that it would happened again but as it has turned out the similarity I noticed looks to be proven now.

The details on the Mayday reenactment were that the pilot had left the cockpit to apparently go for a washroom break as I recall but then he turned off some responding equipment or indicating alarms while he was away at the rear of the plane. He then he made his way back to the cockpit and then invited the co-pilot to leave to take a break etc. Once the co-pilot left the cockpit the pilot locked the door, turned off some additional inicating equipment and flew the plane straight down into a 600 mph dive into a swamp. Apparently the pilot was an experienced fighter pilot in his past - they said that steep dive would be very hard to do and hold for any pilot. The wreckage was apparently found up to 20' below the mud in the swamp.

The pilot was apparently found to be having depression prior to flight and had just lost a million bucks on stock investments

As SF said, I also feel there should be some sort of software/hardware "lock" built into aircraft such that the aircraft won't allow itself to crash when it detects a drastic manual maneuver of sabotage . Also if the pilot in the Germanwings incident had been able to access the cockpit with the code ( or accessed some sort of an emergency control override outside of the cockpit) that may have saved the situation.
 
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Whether it was a suicide I don't know.....

But it seems when people do themselves in these days...there are lots out there that decide to take some people with them....
 
Hard to believe someone could do that, but it's hard to come up with an alternate scenario. The flight deck door lock override has to be manually denied from a conscious person within the cockpit.
Airliner computers do pretty much all the flying, but the pilot has to input all the data and baby sit.
 
had a retired West Jet pilot in the office today and he said there's been at least three cases the same as this. He said many crashes are probably for the same reason but never proven.

It's strange that Canada and Europe never had that rule of two people in the cockpit at the same time but hopefully they will learn from this incident. Either way, what is a 100 pound flight attendant going to do to fight a pilot that wants to kill everyone.... There should be three people in there at all times.

If your committing suicide, why the hell would you take out everyone else? That's the worst part....

Also, if the cockpit doors lock out when you go in, what happens in a terrorist attack? You just need to get the pilots out of there and than its all yours? Seems like there should be a way to get back in there. Especially if you are the damn pilot of the plane.
 
Other Germanwings captains that Lubitz flew with recently must be thanking their lucky stars they had strong bladders...
 
eroyd said:
Hard to believe someone could do that, but it's hard to come up with an alternate scenario. The flight deck door lock override has to be manually denied from a conscious person within the cockpit.
Airliner computers do pretty much all the flying, but the pilot has to input all the data and baby sit.
Click to expand...

Apparently he hit the deny switch everytime the pilot punched in the code to get back into the cockpit. Originally designed to repel terrorists but....
 
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