Alone at controls, co-pilot sought to 'destroy' the plane

[beechguy]

"Captain tried to smash into cockpit with axe"

How is it that the captain gained access to an axe aft of the flightdeck, where even the sharpest objects allowed are plastic knives?

Overland or overwater survival equipment, not normally accessible to the passengers.

[Diddl]

All we have ( as usual) is speculation.

All we have ( as usual) is TVF members solving the case in seconds .

Same same .................some things never change .

It's called 'discussion', and it harms nobody.

I call it a lynch mob! And yes it does harm, it harms the reputation and family of a man that could be innocent.

[paully]

And of course the guy did massive damage to Lufthansa and Germanwings - no insurances cover business risks.

Yes, around £20 million in compensation payouts alone, reportedly.

[EyesWideOpen]

Like that amazing QANTAS Captain who at one stage lost all 4 engines but still got them safely down.

You mean that Amazing British Airways captain that lost 4 engines!

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x18ugux_mayday-s04e02-falling-from-the-sky-all-engines-failed_shortfilms

British Airways flight 9 , and the saving of it by the brilliant crew, represents the absolute

pinacle of airmanship, and what happened to the Germanwings flight represents the bottom of it... :-(

Guess flight 9 is why I am always happy to hear the sound of a British captain coming

over the intercom prior to take off.....

Edited March 28, 2015 by EyesWideOpen

[Dannyboy666]

May we Never Utter his Filthy Name again on this Forum, He wanted to be Remembered , Let us not grant his wish... No German Bashing intended. Thx Jing.

Edited March 28, 2015 by Dannyboy666

[Jingthing]

May we Never Utter his Filthy Name again on this Forum, He wanted to be Remembered , Let us not grant his wish...

Yeah, but be careful to prevent a wave of Germano-phobia!

[kiwikeith]

Guess you're one of those who believe that mental diseases are not curable.

Clearly not cured in the case of this pilot..........

To operate a high tech aircraft and be responsible for 150 human lives, I would expect the flight deck would comprise four crew, an engineer, a navigator, chief pilot and co pilot but obviously the flying public has been short changed and the aircraft industry has been exposed for what they are, an ever growing rabble of cost savers where money and profits over rule safety and commonsense, Screw you all !

Exactly! I said this to my friend last night, I know Air New Zealand in the old days had 2 pilots a flight engineer and navigator and that most or all of their pilots had been through the Air Force and were highly skilled and accounted for.

I agree with you entirely the cheap skate profit driven CEO,s are causing havoc, the sick thing about this is that these Boof heads have no conscience and I am now of the opinion that most of these corporate mongrels are indeed psychopaths- they have hard wired brains that know no remorse or feelings and they are running this world and it is in a state now of utter chaos .

If we look closely at these horrible people they are nothing but greedy murderers.

[NeverSure]

To operate a high tech aircraft and be responsible for 150 human lives, I would expect the flight deck would comprise four crew, an engineer, a navigator, chief pilot and co pilot but obviously the flying public has been short changed and the aircraft industry has been exposed for what they are, an ever growing rabble of cost savers where money and profits over rule safety and commonsense, Screw you all !

Exactly! I said this to my friend last night, I know Air New Zealand in the old days had 2 pilots a flight engineer and navigator and that most or all of their pilots had been through the Air Force and were highly skilled and accounted for.

I agree with you entirely the cheap skate profit driven CEO,s are causing havoc, the sick thing about this is that these Boof heads have no conscience and I am now of the opinion that most of these corporate mongrels are indeed psychopaths- they have hard wired brains that know no remorse or feelings and they are running this world and it is in a state now of utter chaos .

If we look closely at these horrible people they are nothing but greedy murderers.

You really should calm down. The equipment in a modern aircraft isn't like "the old days" and four people would be redundant. In fact you'd have 2x the chance of someone going postal.

Maybe you haven't flown by pilotage and dead reckoning where there is neither the modern equipment on board nor the modern equipment on the ground, nor would there be satellite assist if needed. Today one guy could do it if he had to, but two is better especially if one has a medical problem inflight.

Blaming everything on "CEO's" when in fact regulatory agencies the world over make the rules is a bit over the top.

[beechguy]

Guess you're one of those who believe that mental diseases are not curable.

Clearly not cured in the case of this pilot..........

To operate a high tech aircraft and be responsible for 150 human lives, I would expect the flight deck would comprise four crew, an engineer, a navigator, chief pilot and co pilot but obviously the flying public has been short changed and the aircraft industry has been exposed for what they are, an ever growing rabble of cost savers where money and profits over rule safety and commonsense, Screw you all !

Exactly! I said this to my friend last night, I know Air New Zealand in the old days had 2 pilots a flight engineer and navigator and that most or all of their pilots had been through the Air Force and were highly skilled and accounted for.

I agree with you entirely the cheap skate profit driven CEO,s are causing havoc, the sick thing about this is that these Boof heads have no conscience and I am now of the opinion that most of these corporate mongrels are indeed psychopaths- they have hard wired brains that know no remorse or feelings and they are running this world and it is in a state now of utter chaos .

If we look closely at these horrible people they are nothing but greedy murderers.

And like I asked Crusty, when was the last time you were in a cockpit of an aircraft? The fact is, you don't have clue, apparently you never heard of GPS, VOR, ILS, etc for getting a plane from Point A, to Point B. It's all at the push of buttons these days. But, that's why they have professionals that set policy for aviation operations, not a bunch of nervous nellies.

I will agree, that generally I think the military produces better trained pilots, but the day of them producing enough are long gone, probably never to return. If you're afraid to fly now, it's not going to change, perhaps plan on traveling by rail or ship. But, don't forget, they crash or sink too.

Edited March 28, 2015 by beechguy

[kiwikeith]

Clearly not cured in the case of this pilot..........

To operate a high tech aircraft and be responsible for 150 human lives, I would expect the flight deck would comprise four crew, an engineer, a navigator, chief pilot and co pilot but obviously the flying public has been short changed and the aircraft industry has been exposed for what they are, an ever growing rabble of cost savers where money and profits over rule safety and commonsense, Screw you all !

Exactly! I said this to my friend last night, I know Air New Zealand in the old days had 2 pilots a flight engineer and navigator and that most or all of their pilots had been through the Air Force and were highly skilled and accounted for.

I agree with you entirely the cheap skate profit driven CEO,s are causing havoc, the sick thing about this is that these Boof heads have no conscience and I am now of the opinion that most of these corporate mongrels are indeed psychopaths- they have hard wired brains that know no remorse or feelings and they are running this world and it is in a state now of utter chaos .

If we look closely at these horrible people they are nothing but greedy murderers.

And like I asked Crusty, when was the last time you were in a cockpit of an aircraft? The fact is, you don't have clue, apparently you never heard of GPS, VOR, ILS, etc for getting a plane from Point A, to Point B. It's all at the push of buttons these days. But, that's why they have professionals that set policy for aviation operations, not a bunch of nervous nellies.

I will agree, that generally I think the military produces better trained pilots, but the day of them producing enough are long gone, probably never to return. If you're afraid to fly now, it's not going to change, perhaps plan on traveling by rail or ship. But, don't forget, they crash or sink too.

You cant return to the old days and technology has improved where one person can fly an airliner we even have the technology to fly airliners from the control tower but it has been withheld in fear of hacking.

However there is a need for more in the cockpit so three would be a good number, there is no technology to prevent a nutter from downing a plane but highly trained crew (3 of them) would be better than the high Tech boofs who believe that 2 is sufficient.

As for maniac CEO,s they are a reality they rule this world and airline admin , advertising media , politician and insurance companies are full of them.

These are the people that smudge the truth in order of profits in fact CNN is now regarded as the voice of congress.

This is a blatant blunder by Lufthansa who knew years back of his condition, on record his med files according to BILD.

This man should have been taken off the employment list years ago.

He is a nutter who slipped through a screen that was inadequate, the airline industry is suspect. Have you heard the details of the black box in the Java sea or the black box from the Ukraine disaster?

NO! Cover ups are unfortunately a part of the horrible greedy corporate mongrels who are running this world into the ground.

This is clearly an airline blunder a blunder by stupid privacy laws and greedy admin/ airline officials not only in Germany but world wide the industry needs a big kick up the butt and some heads and thinking need to roll.

Cheap skate poorly trained nutcase pilots need to go!

Personally I could not give a dam if I had to pay a hundred or 2 or 3 per flight to put some quality in numbers in the cockpit.

[phrodan]

I blame the overreaction to 9/11. As sure as night follows day some pilot was going to suss out that the door was "impregnable," and would pull this stunt - and that looks to be twice now with MH370 suspected of going the same way.

The biggest bare faced lie told after 9/11 was it wouldn't be allowed to affect our way of life - and immediately every single air passenger was treated as a suspected terrorist. Grandmothers frisked, and don't dare carry a bottle of water through a screening point.

We have allowed ourselves to be cowed by morons - and the morons are not the terrorists - they are the half-wits that have made a career out of treating each and every one of us like witless sheep.

And you know that's the truth.

Edited March 28, 2015 by phrodan

[micmichd]

http://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2015/03/26/lv-intv-pleitgen-lufthansa-germanwings-ceo.cnn

According to a CNN interview of Lufthansa CEO, the co-pilot simply didn't want the captain to return home.

Imagine a game of 2, both want success in their life.

One (the captain) is no. 1, the other one (the co-pilot) wants to take his place.

The co-pilot passed all kinds of tests, he's perfectly fit for his job (even according to FAA standards), and now he thinks it's his turn. Good idea to kill the captain who is in his way.

The co-pilot's got key qualifications to be no. 1, eg.a killer instinct. What does he care about the cheap charlies in his back, the self-loading freight, these low-lifes are not his world.

He wants success, success, success. Money, money, money.

He simply forgets that you need a life to call yourself successful.

Guess airlines should do something about motivation management before they hand over their SLF to their crew, maybe a little ethics.

And if that's too expensive, then please tell their breed to do their killings on the ground.

CEOs beware.

Just a thought on a Sunday morning.

Edited March 28, 2015 by micmichd

[MikeOboe57]

http://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2015/03/26/lv-intv-pleitgen-lufthansa-germanwings-ceo.cnn

According to a CNN interview of Lufthansa CEO, the co-pilot simply didn't want the captain to return home.

Imagine a game of 2, both want success in their life.

One (the captain) is no. 1, the other one (the co-pilot) wants to take his place.

The co-pilot passed all kinds of tests, he's perfectly fit for his job (even according to FAA standards), and now he thinks it's his turn. Good idea to kill the captain who is in his way.

The co-pilot's got key qualifications to be no. 1, eg.a killer instinct. What does he care about the cheap charlies in his back, the self-loading freight, these low-lifes are not his world.

He wants success, success, success. Money, money, money.

He simply forgets that you need a life to call yourself successful.

Guess airlines should do something about motivation management before they hand over their SLF to their crew, maybe a little ethics.

And if that's too expensive, then please tell their breed to do their killings on the ground.

CEOs beware.

Just a thought on a Sunday morning.

There is some misunderstanding on your part. Lubitz did not want the captain to return to the cockpit. Even assuming the most twisted mind this rookie with 100 hrs on type knew that he was a long way away from getting on the left seat - and dying with the captain would get him no closer to it.

The true reason was that he knew that his flying career was over after he had been medically grounded, torn up the certificate and went to work instead of informing his employer. He realized the full extent of his transgression when the captain initiated the landing briefing for their destination Duesseldorf. So he may have decided to go out with a bang and not with a whimper. The SLF ("self loading freight") in the rear did not play any part in his decision.

I knew of an ATC student who was taken off the training because of "mental issues" (using this in the broadest sense) and the very same psychologist that initially had declared him fit for the job was again tasked with assessing his suitability and she was hell bent on getting him back into the training. Result was that after some treatment he was readmitted, despite massive objections from the training staff.

[beechguy]

Clearly not cured in the case of this pilot..........

To operate a high tech aircraft and be responsible for 150 human lives, I would expect the flight deck would comprise four crew, an engineer, a navigator, chief pilot and co pilot but obviously the flying public has been short changed and the aircraft industry has been exposed for what they are, an ever growing rabble of cost savers where money and profits over rule safety and commonsense, Screw you all !

Exactly! I said this to my friend last night, I know Air New Zealand in the old days had 2 pilots a flight engineer and navigator and that most or all of their pilots had been through the Air Force and were highly skilled and accounted for.

I agree with you entirely the cheap skate profit driven CEO,s are causing havoc, the sick thing about this is that these Boof heads have no conscience and I am now of the opinion that most of these corporate mongrels are indeed psychopaths- they have hard wired brains that know no remorse or feelings and they are running this world and it is in a state now of utter chaos .

If we look closely at these horrible people they are nothing but greedy murderers.

And like I asked Crusty, when was the last time you were in a cockpit of an aircraft? The fact is, you don't have clue, apparently you never heard of GPS, VOR, ILS, etc for getting a plane from Point A, to Point B. It's all at the push of buttons these days. But, that's why they have professionals that set policy for aviation operations, not a bunch of nervous nellies.

I will agree, that generally I think the military produces better trained pilots, but the day of them producing enough are long gone, probably never to return. If you're afraid to fly now, it's not going to change, perhaps plan on traveling by rail or ship. But, don't forget, they crash or sink too.

You cant return to the old days and technology has improved where one person can fly an airliner we even have the technology to fly airliners from the control tower but it has been withheld in fear of hacking.

However there is a need for more in the cockpit so three would be a good number, there is no technology to prevent a nutter from downing a plane but highly trained crew (3 of them) would be better than the high Tech boofs who believe that 2 is sufficient.

As for maniac CEO,s they are a reality they rule this world and airline admin , advertising media , politician and insurance companies are full of them.

These are the people that smudge the truth in order of profits in fact CNN is now regarded as the voice of congress.

This is a blatant blunder by Lufthansa who knew years back of his condition, on record his med files according to BILD.

This man should have been taken off the employment list years ago.

He is a nutter who slipped through a screen that was inadequate, the airline industry is suspect. Have you heard the details of the black box in the Java sea or the black box from the Ukraine disaster?

NO! Cover ups are unfortunately a part of the horrible greedy corporate mongrels who are running this world into the ground.

This is clearly an airline blunder a blunder by stupid privacy laws and greedy admin/ airline officials not only in Germany but world wide the industry needs a big kick up the butt and some heads and thinking need to roll.

Cheap skate poorly trained nutcase pilots need to go!

Personally I could not give a dam if I had to pay a hundred or 2 or 3 per flight to put some quality in numbers in the cockpit.

I'm curious, what poor service, have you received from a poor quality pilot? If you haven't crashed, how would you know? The fact is, you know very little if anything about the airline business, and what goes on in a modern day cockpit. If I were you, I would plan on staying home.

In this instance, it was just one nut that got into the wrong place, at the wrong time. Most of us would never think of doing such a thing, just as most of us would never think of hijacking aircraft and flying them into buildings. It may be the new reality, aviation and the world needs to deal with.

Edited March 29, 2015 by beechguy

[Bernard Flint]

I blame the overreaction to 9/11. As sure as night follows day some pilot was going to suss out that the door was "impregnable," and would pull this stunt - and that looks to be twice now with MH370 suspected of going the same way.

The biggest bare faced lie told after 9/11 was it wouldn't be allowed to affect our way of life - and immediately every single air passenger was treated as a suspected terrorist. Grandmothers frisked, and don't dare carry a bottle of water through a screening point.

We have allowed ourselves to be cowed by morons - and the morons are not the terrorists - they are the half-wits that have made a career out of treating each and every one of us like witless sheep.

And you know that's the truth.

What a load of utter crap. Air safety is important for me, and most others

[Mosha]

Like that amazing QANTAS Captain who at one stage lost all 4 engines but still got them safely down.

You mean that Amazing British Airways captain that lost 4 engines!

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x18ugux_mayday-s04e02-falling-from-the-sky-all-engines-failed_shortfilms

British Airways flight 9 , and the saving of it by the brilliant crew, represents the absolute

pinacle of airmanship, and what happened to the Germanwings flight represents the bottom of it... :-(

Guess flight 9 is why I am always happy to hear the sound of a British captain coming

over the intercom prior to take off.....

Not to mention what has to be the best ever cabin announcement of all time. "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress"

Interesting point Eric Moody was in the toilet as the problems started.

[StefanBBK]

Can anybody snap? I think yes. This not only goes for pilots, but as well for anybody else entrusted with many human lives. Be it a bus driver, a train driver etc. The best and most thorough psychological exam can only ensure that it is not likely. The possibility however remains.

Perhaps the door locks should have a possibility to be overridden from headquarters via satellite and planes should have an emergency communication line outside the cockpit?

Anyway tragic accident, prayers to the families of the victims.

[MaxYakov]

The Captain has the ultimate responsibility for the aircraft.

I bet in the future Captains will think twice about leaving the flight deck and galavanting around the cabin, even when the airline policy does not require two people on the flight deck at all times. It is more important that two pilots certified on type be on the flight deck at all times to handle an emergency that would require the expertise of two sets of hands, eyes and brains. Apparently, such an emergency occurred in this case - human failure instead of aircraft failure. This also applies to First Officers.

The AF 447 incident is another example of a case where the Captain was not present on the flight deck and took too long to get there to deal with an equipment failure that was not correctly handled by the junior pilots.

Edited March 29, 2015 by MaxYakov

[cloudhopper]

Mental illness can be cured, as can heart disease. But a history of either should be enough to disqualify someone for this job out of an abundance of caution when the stakes are high. The US FAA threatened to (but in the end did not) revoke my 2nd class medical required for a commercial pilots license when they discovered I had a malignant skin cancer removed 25 years earlier.

The blame for this accident rests entirely with the system IMO. No one asks to be mentally ill.

[neverdie]

All we have ( as usual) is speculation.

All we have ( as usual) is TVF members solving the case in seconds .

Same same .................some things never change .

How would you prefer the discussion went.

"Plane crashed eh?"

"That's a shame, do you know why?"

"Nope!"

"Oh"

"Biscuits?"

55555

Some people.

[manarak]

Guess you're one of those who believe that mental diseases are not curable.

Clearly not cured in the case of this pilot..........

To operate a high tech aircraft and be responsible for 150 human lives, I would expect the flight deck would comprise four crew, an engineer, a navigator, chief pilot and co pilot but obviously the flying public has been short changed and the aircraft industry has been exposed for what they are, an ever growing rabble of cost savers where money and profits over rule safety and commonsense, Screw you all !

Exactly! I said this to my friend last night, I know Air New Zealand in the old days had 2 pilots a flight engineer and navigator and that most or all of their pilots had been through the Air Force and were highly skilled and accounted for.

Hey, I guess most automobile accidents could be avoided if like in the old days every automobile had to be preceded by a man waving a red flag to warn everyone!

[micmichd]

MikeOboe57:

Yes, you're right in ponting out that nobody stated the words "back home".

I would like to learn about the communication between the co-pilot and the control tower. I thought the control tower should keep up permanent contract with the cockpit, is that right?

If so, how come nobody noticed that something had changed inside the cockpit?

Don't they have psychologically trained supervisors in control towers?

The question of "mental issues" is another thing. There are quite a few warnings that psychiatric diagnosis in ICD-10 and DSM-5 tend to label non-conformity as insane, and social/organizational issues as individual issues.

I would be curious to learn what the reason is that this guy should have been banned from aircraft, but understanding privacy rules I better don't ask.

Edited March 29, 2015 by micmichd

[micmichd]

Mental illness can be cured, as can heart disease. But a history of either should be enough to disqualify someone for this job out of an abundance of caution when the stakes are high. The US FAA threatened to (but in the end did not) revoke my 2nd class medical required for a commercial pilots license when they discovered I had a malignant skin cancer removed 25 years earlier.

The blame for this accident rests entirely with the system IMO. No one asks to be mentally ill.

What happens if they find out that a diagnosis "mentally ill" was false?

Would you still be a risk for aircraft?

Edited March 29, 2015 by micmichd

[cloudhopper]

Mental illness can be cured, as can heart disease. But a history of either should be enough to disqualify someone for this job out of an abundance of caution when the stakes are high. The US FAA threatened to (but in the end did not) revoke my 2nd class medical required for a commercial pilots license when they discovered I had a malignant skin cancer removed 25 years earlier.

The blame for this accident rests entirely with the system IMO. No one asks to be mentally ill.

What happens if they find out that a diagnosis "mentally ill" was false?

Would you still be a risk for aircraft?

If someone was properly found to have been treated for an illness that had never existed then that would imply medical malpractice, not being unfit for duty. That does not appear to be the case here AFAIK.

[flyingdoc]

Too ghastly to imagine in cold blood!

[Scott]

Assessing the seriousness of a mental condition is difficult. Depression can be chronic or it can be acute. It can also be situational (such as a death, break up etc.). There are a number of assessments that can be given to at least point to conditions that may need watching. I haven't worked in the field in the past many years, but the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) was one. It's far from perfect, but it does provide enough information to set alarm bells ringing.

I have a feeling that this suicide was not planned -- at least not carefully planned. It was opportunistic. Had the pilot or someone been in the cockpit, this probably would not have happened. He may have gone home and jumped off his balcony instead.

[Commerce]

The Captain has the ultimate responsibility for the aircraft.

I bet in the future Captains will think twice about leaving the flight deck

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x18tmi6_mayday-s02e01-blow-out-ripped-from-the-cockpit_shortfilms

[MikeOboe57]

MikeOboe57:

Yes, you're right in ponting out that nobody stated the words "back home".

I would like to learn about the communication between the co-pilot and the control tower. I thought the control tower should keep up permanent contract with the cockpit, is that right?

If so, how come nobody noticed that something had changed inside the cockpit?

Don't they have psychologically trained supervisors in control towers?

The question of "mental issues" is another thing. There are quite a few warnings that psychiatric diagnosis in ICD-10 and DSM-5 tend to label non-conformity as insane, and social/organizational issues as individual issues.

I would be curious to learn what the reason is that this guy should have been banned from aircraft, but understanding privacy rules I better don't ask.

Control towers are responsible for their aerodrome and the vicinity, which can be the traffic circuit(s) or, if they allow instrument approaches and departures, a shoebox shaped "controlled"airspace surrounding them and linking to higher "controlled" airspaces. The Germanwings flight was controlled by a radar-equipped Area Control Center. Communication is as a rule kept to the required minimum to avoid clogging of the frequency, the requirement for ATC and pilots is "constant listening watch", so they can respond immediately to radio calls.

If Lubitz hadn´t descended from the "cleared" flight level, the next contact with ATC would have been the authorization to switch to the frequency of the next ATC sector on their route. There is neither obligation nor capability to constantly check for "unusual behaviour" or any incidents on board. Air traffic controllers are no psychologists. and ATC frequencies are not suitable for "talking someone out of it", except in Hollywood movies.

The information published until now indicates that ATC reacted according to regulation and initiated the emergency phase "DETRESFA" within minutes of the disappearance of the Germanwings flight from their radar and going silent on the radio. Compare this to KL ATC who waited more than 4 hours before they took this action after MH370 disappeared from their radar and went silent.

[luk AJ]

Mental illness can be cured, as can heart disease. But a history of either should be enough to disqualify someone for this job out of an abundance of caution when the stakes are high. The US FAA threatened to (but in the end did not) revoke my 2nd class medical required for a commercial pilots license when they discovered I had a malignant skin cancer removed 25 years earlier.

The blame for this accident rests entirely with the system IMO. No one asks to be mentally ill.

i think you are wrong in both cases, I am not an expert in mental illness but I have a lot of experience with heart desease and after several operations, nobody came up with a cure...

[kiwikeith]

Clearly not cured in the case of this pilot..........

To operate a high tech aircraft and be responsible for 150 human lives, I would expect the flight deck would comprise four crew, an engineer, a navigator, chief pilot and co pilot but obviously the flying public has been short changed and the aircraft industry has been exposed for what they are, an ever growing rabble of cost savers where money and profits over rule safety and commonsense, Screw you all !

Exactly! I said this to my friend last night, I know Air New Zealand in the old days had 2 pilots a flight engineer and navigator and that most or all of their pilots had been through the Air Force and were highly skilled and accounted for.

I agree with you entirely the cheap skate profit driven CEO,s are causing havoc, the sick thing about this is that these Boof heads have no conscience and I am now of the opinion that most of these corporate mongrels are indeed psychopaths- they have hard wired brains that know no remorse or feelings and they are running this world and it is in a state now of utter chaos .

If we look closely at these horrible people they are nothing but greedy murderers.

And like I asked Crusty, when was the last time you were in a cockpit of an aircraft? The fact is, you don't have clue, apparently you never heard of GPS, VOR, ILS, etc for getting a plane from Point A, to Point B. It's all at the push of buttons these days. But, that's why they have professionals that set policy for aviation operations, not a bunch of nervous nellies.

I will agree, that generally I think the military produces better trained pilots, but the day of them producing enough are long gone, probably never to return. If you're afraid to fly now, it's not going to change, perhaps plan on traveling by rail or ship. But, don't forget, they crash or sink too.

You cant return to the old days and technology has improved where one person can fly an airliner we even have the technology to fly airliners from the control tower but it has been withheld in fear of hacking.

However there is a need for more in the cockpit so three would be a good number, there is no technology to prevent a nutter from downing a plane but highly trained crew (3 of them) would be better than the high Tech boofs who believe that 2 is sufficient.

As for maniac CEO,s they are a reality they rule this world and airline admin , advertising media , politician and insurance companies are full of them.

These are the people that smudge the truth in order of profits in fact CNN is now regarded as the voice of congress.

This is a blatant blunder by Lufthansa who knew years back of his condition, on record his med files according to BILD.

This man should have been taken off the employment list years ago.

He is a nutter who slipped through a screen that was inadequate, the airline industry is suspect. Have you heard the details of the black box in the Java sea or the black box from the Ukraine disaster?

NO! Cover ups are unfortunately a part of the horrible greedy corporate mongrels who are running this world into the ground.

This is clearly an airline blunder a blunder by stupid privacy laws and greedy admin/ airline officials not only in Germany but world wide the industry needs a big kick up the butt and some heads and thinking need to roll.

Cheap skate poorly trained nutcase pilots need to go!

Personally I could not give a dam if I had to pay a hundred or 2 or 3 per flight to put some quality in numbers in the cockpit.

I'm curious, what poor service, have you received from a poor quality pilot? If you haven't crashed, how would you know? The fact is, you know very little if anything about the airline business, and what goes on in a modern day cockpit. If I were you, I would plan on staying home.

In this instance, it was just one nut that got into the wrong place, at the wrong time. Most of us would never think of doing such a thing, just as most of us would never think of hijacking aircraft and flying them into buildings. It may be the new reality, aviation and the world needs to deal with.

So captain sparrow you are an expert, I would suggest you know nothing of the airline cover ups that have gone on and one fraudulent cover up is one to many.

The industry is at fault here and even one of the leading aviation experts was today on TV saying the airline industry needs a shake up to prevent this from happening but you defend mad pilots and the industry captain Jack.