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From the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32030270):

The latest developments, if true, are shocking. A deliberate act on the part of the First Officer.

They are which I believe will lead to a change in the law when either the senior Pilot or First Officer leave the cockpit, a member of cabin crew will need to enter the cockpit as a 'minder' whilst the other person is away. They will make this public to restore any lost confidence. I've heard some airlines already do this?

Many airlines do indeed have a 'rule of two' for the cockpit.

Easyjet have just announced that they are introducing this rule, as from tomorrow.

This was a German plane in the French Alps making its way from Spain to Germany.

Unless I'm missing something glaringly obvious, which quite frankly wouldn't be the first time, what possible relevance has "The White House" to this particular tragedy?

Plane into office blocks/plane into mountain.

Both deliberate....there's a commonslity I think

A what?

I do hope that judicial investigations aren't getting ahead of the technical investigations by the relevant air accident boards. Just two days after the crash, we are being definitively told the cause. Not by the air accident investigators but by the criminal investigators.

It may be cut and dried as to the cause, but not the why and how.

I suspect the CVR (Cockpit Voice Recorder) evidence must be pretty clear for the amount of detail that has been released already to have been made so. It would not be done lightly, whoever by.

It's not the first time for pilot suicide (as I believe the first Malaysian 777 loss will prove to be), but ironically the closed and locked cockpit door policy since 9/11 has actually made it easier for someone determined to destroy so many lives in this way to do so.

For me, the fact that a human in a position of trust could do this makes it even more shocking than if it had been some kind of mechanical or operational incident.

Once the BEA had listened to the CVR, they had to call the prosecutors. The recording had only one only one obvious interpretation - a deliberate act -  and a criminal investigation would have to be started on less than that. What the prosecutor said - as opposed to what was reported - was just that factual basis, with no speculation.

I can see why the prosecutor gave as much detail as he did. They need to change the status of the 2nd officer from victim to suspect, and to gain prompt German cooperation both official and from the public. For that they need to give a convincing reason.

Hmmm. Not sure. There's no one left alive to refute the claim that the pax knew nothing about what was happening until right at the end when screaming was heard. Likely reported this way to alleviate the relatives suffering, but it could quite possibly be the case that pax worked out quite quickly why the pilot was banging on the door & getting anxious....and they spent the last 20 minutes screaming their heads off. I hope not, of course, but....


Indeed - I saw comment in the press yesterday that said more deaths caused by suicides by pilots since the closed-door policy than killed by terrorists crashing planes. How true, I don't know, but there was a fairly long list of pilot suicides, so deaths are over 1,000 buy this method. I guess they probably exclude the deaths in the towers/outside the aircraft....but still, it's more of a problem now than before.

Hopefully commonality and a simple typo rather than a general statement about the existence of a commonslity!!

The White House will always have an interest in these things - via the Pentagon they gather a vast amount of intelligence worldwide, so I think it is a right that they have fairly quietly dissociated this from an act of extremist terrorism which would be deeply destabilising to the airline industry - remember how many airlines went bust after 9/11 and the subsequent knock on effects to Boeing/Airbus sales figures?

Perhaps I could have made it clearer I was really addressing bignosemac's previous point about whether the prosecutors had been premature and prejudicial in their announcement. That just said cries from outside were only heard "at the last moment, before the impact".  Anything else is "journalism".

Was it naive to describe everything they heard, and say what the most likely interpretation was? If so, it's a case of the news media accusing these officials of not doing enough news management to offset their own irresponsible behaviour. (A bit like the affair of Dave's plans for the election after the one we have not had yet?) I think they probably got it about right, and the media should be politely asked to leave the buck on their own desks.

That's the way I read your post (And BNMs). My point was that this statement wasn't backed up like the rest was, and as I say, just as easily could be a sop to the relatives' mourning, rather than actual fact. As they all died, I guess it was probably the right thing to say - whether true or not.

Beginning to look like the tragic results of the irrational actions of someone suffering from clinical depression.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32087203 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32087203)

This is a tragedy and a disaster, and quite possibly the worst case of homicide by a single person in modern times.

No air incident ever happens because of one cause alone. There may be people registered with this forum who suffer clinical depression (what is non-clinical depression?), most of whom would not wish to harm themselves, let alone take anyone else with them.

If it does indeed turn out that the co-pilot deliberately flew the aircraft into a mountain, and the early published evidence points that way, then this looks like more than depression and more towards an acute psychotic episode, triggered by what? we don't know. But contributing to that are the other facts - a co-pilot was left alone in a locked flight deck, despite having only 600 hours flying time, and the pilot could not regain entry. That last factor is a direct result of the reaction to the 9/11 murders, and it will be a matter for statisticians to decide whether the measures introduced then have saved more lives than they have lost. Additionally, commercial pilots are examined for ability every 6 months, and for medical soundness every year, and constantly monitored without their knowledge in between. Flight crew are trained to monitor each other and report doubts, and in bigger airlines (BA included) do not fly together routinely. A crew with vast experience may never have met each other before gathering in the briefing room before a flight, meaning they are less inclined to cover for each others' shortcomings if they have any. Commercial pilots are probably the most monitored and regulated profession in the world.

The first check before any flight - A380 from Heathrow to Dubai or Piper Cherokee from Filton (in the olden days) to Kemble - is given the acronym "I'M SAFE". Am I affected in any way by Illness, Medication, Stress, Alcohol, or Fatigue, and have I Eaten enough for the journey? A  crew member hell-bent on self-destruction, and for whatever reason mindless as to the fate of the other occupants of the aircraft, is hardly likely to declare himself unfit to fly. Just as I did not on at least one occasion when I was not sufficiently rested to take the controls, but managed alright, as we have all done in a car at times. The system whereby an airline pilot is tested to the limits annually, but there is no mechanism to make sure that he does not hand in medical certificates unless he wants to, is likely to come under the spotlight, but only briefly.

We have heard that the pilot concerned took time out of his jet flying training to deal with mental health issues, but returned to complete his course. I am sure that would have been after the most rigorous examination and evaluation, but nothing can filter out every problem. I was diagnosed with cancer 13 years ago, luckily a good one. The doctor showed me X-rays, CT scans, blood tests, biopsy results, the lot - all showed this awful life-threatening illness gaining ground. I had surgery, chemotherapy then radiotherapy, then more X-rays, CT scans, and blood tests. They showed it had gone, and subsequent tests confirmed it hadn't returned. If only you could do that process in a mind. In the meantime, I would hope that a diagnosis of depression at some time in a person's life would not debar them from any particular career.

The illness should not be the deciding factor. The management of that illness and the effect on the person's ability to perform their function should be the yardstick. The higher the risk involved, the greater the scrutiny, but let us not write off people who have suffered depression from what could be a huge swathe of professions.

FTR, I do not suffer depression, so far as I am aware. I see a lot of people who either do, or claim to do so, or have been told they do when they don't, or have been told that they don't when they do. I can't easily tell them apart, so leave it to the experts. They either know best, or can be sued.

An Airbus takes off or lands every 2  seconds somewhere in the world. Whilst it does, 3000 Boeing 737s are in the air. "Suicide by plane" is not a singular incident - there are at least 12 in the last 2 decades, including possibly MH370 - it's just that none have been major airliners in Europe.

The agony being felt by relatives cannot be imagined. I am due to go on holiday soon with my wife, our three children, and all of our grandchildren. I do not spend time thinking about the possible consequences, but three generations of at least one family died in that crash.

His girlfriend had recently departed his flat it was reported.

Hmm, indeed. That scenario really doesn't bear thinking about.  :o

Simply for the record: that final descent from cruising height to impact took some eight minutes, rather than 20 - and it sadly seems rather likely that at least some passengers would have noticed such an unusually rapid descent being made, only moments after reaching cruising altitude.  :-X

Used the term clinical as the person in question has been reported to have received a diagnosis & treatment from a doctor for his condition.

That makes sense.

A video news update, from the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35797130):

This sounds a very good idea, but raises issues. Would a doctor necessarily know that he is treating a pilot? Also, would a sick pilot possibly refrain from seeking medical attention if he thought that so doing may cost him his livelihood? Hard cases make for bad law.  This needs careful thought and consultation within the aviation community. The issue of locked doors that resisted every attempt by desperate people, trying to get through, also needs further thought.

All pilots to be registered with airline doctor as well as their own personal physician. Both doctors talk to each other, thus the airline doctor can liaise with the airline. That would work.

But would that top a pilot talking to their own doctor?

Depends if he wants any treatment?

In this case, he did, several times. The latest just two weeks before