What posesses a pilot...

[Timsup2nothin]

...to fly a planeload of people into the ground, apparently without even leaving some sort of manifesto to be found and read in the glare of publicity after the fact?

I frankly don't get it.

 

[Tee Kay]

I'm guessing he didn't want to leave evidence.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I'm guessing he didn't want to leave evidence.

Of what? And why not? Clearly anything he is gonna be convicted of will be posthumous.

 

[Berzerker]

imagine the horror of watching your pilot trying to get back thru the door as the plane is descending

my god

I'd find the biggest dudes on the plane and line em up as human battering rams

course the dude would have just put the plane into a nosedive if he was trying to crash

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I think in the current atmosphere of air safety cockpit doors are going to hold up against human battering rams.

 

[warpus]

Imagine if there were terrorists on the plane with a device capable of breaking through that door.

Having said that, I feel just horrible for the families of the victims..

 

[Berzerker]

I think in the current atmosphere of air safety cockpit doors are going to hold up against human battering rams.

I doubt it, they didn't test those doors with people about to die trying to bust thru

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I doubt it, they didn't test those doors with people about to die trying to bust thru

I think the thing you would have going for you is that they didn't design the door to stand up to a sustained effort to get through it under the (valid) assumption that a terrorist would be stopped sooner rather than later. I'm thinking there should have been a way to pry it open if they were to work at it for a while myself, and no matter where you are there are always levers available, but just throwing a body against a steel door is a no win prospect, no matter how driven the body might be.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Maybe the one pilot had a heart attack or lost consciousness somehow?

 

[sophie]

I think the thing you would have going for you is that they didn't design the door to stand up to a sustained effort to get through it under the (valid) assumption that a terrorist would be stopped sooner rather than later. I'm thinking there should have been a way to pry it open if they were to work at it for a while myself, and no matter where you are there are always levers available, but just throwing a body against a steel door is a no win prospect, no matter how driven the body might be.

What's awhile? How long did they have? 5, 10 minutes?

Absolutely horrifying.

 

[Tigranes]

Thank you for this thread. Finally.

He can simply be a psychopath. When great Timur was dying he supposedly said: "I wish mankind could have just one neck, so I could cut it off before I die. My lowest slave will continue to live while I the conqueror of the world will be dead"

Something along those lines.

 

[Tigranes]

Multiple European airlines announced they are changing their cockpit rules to mandate that two crew members be in the cockpit at all times.

What a world we are living in. 9/11 prompts cockpit doors that can be locked from inside for 5 minutes. This tragedy creates new rules. Where is a guaranty that this will not play some part in a future tragedy. I am officially glass empty today, very cruel story, guys...

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Maybe the one pilot had a heart attack or lost consciousness somehow?

What's awhile? How long did they have? 5, 10 minutes?

Absolutely horrifying.

Unsubstantiated rumor says that he set the auto pilot to descend to a hundred feet so the 'lost consciousness and slumped on the control yoke' is off the table. The controlled and consistent rate of descent sort of did that in the first place, but the (again this is unsubstantiated) recorded data confirms it.

And yeah, the descent apparently took eight minutes before the plane flew into the ground...with presumably everyone on board at some point realizing the pilot was locked out of the cockpit. Unbelievably bad.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Multiple European airlines announced they are changing their cockpit rules to mandate that two crew members be in the cockpit at all times.

What a world we are living in. 9/11 prompts cockpit doors that can be locked from inside for 5 minutes. This tragedy creates new rules. Where is a guaranty that this will not play some part in a future tragedy. I am officially glass empty today, very cruel story, guys...

So some flight crew member sits in for the pilot and has to get banged over the head. There's really no accounting for crazy, so when crazy comes along it gets away with pretty much whatever no matter what precautions you try to take. This one is just seemingly so pointlessly crazy...

 

[Kaitzilla]

Unsubstantiated rumor says that he set the auto pilot to descend to a hundred feet so the 'lost consciousness and slumped on the control yoke' is off the table. The controlled and consistent rate of descent sort of did that in the first place, but the (again this is unsubstantiated) recorded data confirms it.

And yeah, the descent apparently took eight minutes before the plane flew into the ground...with presumably everyone on board at some point realizing the pilot was locked out of the cockpit. Unbelievably bad.

Oh.

That's horrifying then.
All those people murdered on purpose.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Oh.

That's horrifying then.
All those people murdered on purpose.

The part that I am having so much trouble with is that it seems to be to no purpose. I mean, I can deal with a bad purpose. I don't like it, but I can get by it. A misguided purpose. Like if they found some rambling crazy 'no one ever listened to me so I had to get attention' note left behind I wouldn't like it or think it justified anything but at least I could get some sort of grip on it. Political grandstanding. Revenge. Whatever.

But just 'some guy, a seemingly successful pilot no less, just decided to die and take a whole planeload of people along without even commenting on why'...I cant get a hold of it. Again, unsubstantiated rumor, but word is he didn't even say anything to the voice recorder.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Mental illness can manifest itself in strange ways. If it is confirmed that some sort of mental issues caused this, I hope it only spurs increased awareness and help for mental illness in general, rather than fear or hatred, so these sort of things can be prevented.

Still, this does baffle me. Some of the most normal people can turn out to have some really, really deeply repressed issues - assuming this pilot did have psychological issues, he may've just hid them really, really well.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

My picture of 'mental issues' needs to evolve apparently. I have no concept of a mental issue that has someone spending what they know are the last eight minutes of their life sitting in front of an open mic and not saying anything. I expect some sort of...for lack of a better term...crazy talk, or something. That takes 'hiding the mental issues' to a level I just can't handle.

 

[cybrxkhan]

My picture of 'mental issues' needs to evolve apparently. I have no concept of a mental issue that has someone spending what they know are the last eight minutes of their life sitting in front of an open mic and not saying anything. I expect some sort of...for lack of a better term...crazy talk, or something. That takes 'hiding the mental issues' to a level I just can't handle.

Yeah the popular conception of a mentally ill person is someone who goes running around with a knife screaming their head off, but that's just one possible way mental illness can manifest. Imagine how many different types of physical illness - some more obvious than others, but just because a person seems physically alright doesn't mean they couldn't be weeks away from death due to a chronic illness, right? Something similar here, I guess. And, of course, severity of the illness can vary greatly. Someone with a bit of high cholesterol can still function normally for the most part, while someone with terminal stage cancer probably can't. As a personal example, I have a bit of mild depression, but I can and do still function normally for the most part (relatively). Someone who's constantly thinking of suicide or killing other people, on the other hand, probably not.

In short, mental illness covers a broad range of possible issues with varying symptoms and levels of severity, in contrast to the relative simplistic treatment of it we see in fiction and the media. Personally, I think it is quite an issue - this perception of mental illness - because it means a lot of people who are mentally ill don't realize they need help, because they think they're normal, they're not one of those crazy asylum serial killer loons. And sometimes, they might actually have really serious issues that don't manfest in obvious ways, and that's obviously a problem. Maybe if more folks knew about these sort of things we can prevent more tragedies like this.

Anyways, of course, it's hard for us to judge what exactly was this guy's issues given we don't have direct access to the evidence. News says he seemed normal and well-adjusted, but, well, the news says that sort of thing a lot.

 

[Kozmos]

I saw people calling him a monster and whatnot. I don't think he was conscious in the sense we take it to be, he was flying on autopilot, a dissociation, derealization, depersonalization. It was all a dream to him. He decided to awake. It's the semantic apocalypse. Death of meaning.