Obama Is Like Lubitz The Germanwings Suicidal Pilot

Striking Analogy
Political Plaza ^ | April 6, 2915 | Retired UAL Capt. 
Posted on 4/6/2015, 4:33:58 PM by yoe
Striking Analogy

From a former Navy fighter pilot and a retired UAL Captain ........

We are all flying on the Germanwings plane, with a twisted pilot at the controls. Will we just wait, and assume the "Crash Position"?
The 'real' pilot was locked out of the cockpit.
That set of circumstances finally revealed the full horror of the crash of Germanwings flight 9525. Co-pilot Andreas Lubitz waited for the pilot to leave the cockpit, then locked the door to prevent his re-entry. Then Lubitz, for reasons unknown and perhaps unknowable, deliberately steered the jet into a harrowing 8-minute plunge ending in an explosive 434 mph impact with a rocky mountainside. 150 men, women and children met an immediate, unthinkably violent death.
Lubitz, in his single-minded madness, couldn't be stopped because anyone who could change the jet's disastrous course was locked out.
It's hard to imagine the growing feelings of fear and helplessness that the passengers felt as the unforgiving landscape rushed up to meet them.
Hard ... but not impossible.
Because America is in trouble. We feel the descent in the pits of our stomachs. We hear the shake and rattle of structures stressed beyond their limits. We don't know where we're going anymore, but do know it isn't good. And above all, we feel helpless because Barack Obama has locked us out.
He locked the American people out of his decision to seize the national healthcare system. Locked us out when we wanted to know why the IRS was attacking conservatives. He locked us out of having a say in his decision to tear up our immigration laws, and to give over a trillion dollars in benefits to those who broke those laws.
Obama locked out those who advised against premature troop withdrawals. Locked out the intelligence agencies who issued warnings about the growing threat of ISIS. He locked out anyone who could have interfered with his release of five Taliban terror chiefs in return for one U.S. military deserter.
And, of course, Barack Obama has now locked out Congress, the American people, and our allies as he strikes a secret deal with Iran to determine the timeline (not prevention) of their acquisition of nuclear weapons.
Was Andreas Lubitz depressed, insane, or abysmally evil when he decided to lock that cockpit door and listen to no voices other than those in his head? Did he somehow believe himself to be doing the right thing?
The voice recordings from the doomed aircraft reveal that as the jet began its rapid descent, the passengers were quiet. There was probably some nervous laughter, confusion, a bit of comforting chatter with seatmates, followed by a brief period in which anxiety had not yet metastasized into terror.
It was only near the end of the 8-minute plunge that everyone finally understood what was really happening. Only near the end when they began to scream.
Like those passengers, a growing number of Americans feel a helpless dread as they come to the inescapable conclusion that our nation's decline is an act of choice rather than of chance. The choice of one man who is in full control of our 8-year plunge.
Lubitz was a nutcase. But now we are on a 'plane' piloted by a narcissistic megalomaniac who has locked everyone out of his cockpit.

No Matter How Well Screened, Pilots Are The Weak Point In The System. Can It Be Changed?

Germanwings flight 9525

A human response to a human tragedy

Mar 30th 2015, 13:24 BY M.R.

• 

IT HAS been less than a week since the catastrophic loss of Germanwings Flight 9525 and its precious cargo of 144 passengers and six crew. In that short time investigators have pointed the finger of blame squarely at Andreas Lubitz, the 27-year-old first officer who appears to have locked his captain out of the flight deck and deliberately crashed the plane into the French Alps. Though incomprehensible, his gruesome deed is not without precedentfor commercial pilots. Fear of falling victim to such asymmetric evil will, inevitably, plague the minds of the 9m passengers who take to the skies each day. It will take time to soothe their concerns. But one Germanwings pilot has already started the healing process, unburdening his heart with emotional, pre-flight speeches to passengers. Britta Englisch, who flew with the airline the day after the crash, posted her experience on Facebook (translated from German):

Yesterday morning at 8:40am, I got onto a Germanwings flight from Hamburg to Cologne with mixed feelings. But then the captain not only welcomed each passenger separately, he also made a short speech before take-off. Not from the cockpit, he was standing in the cabin.

He spoke about how the accident touched him and the whole crew. About how queasy the crew feels, but that everybody from the crew is voluntarily here. And about his family, and that the crew have a family, and that he is going to do everything to be with his family again tonight. It was completely silent. And then everybody applauded. I want to thank this pilot. He understood what everybody was thinking. And he managed to give me, at least, a good feeling for this flight.

The pilot, Frank Woiton, also volunteered to operate the Barcelona to Düsseldorf route the day after it ended in disaster. Speaking to Germany’s Bild newspaper about that flight, he recounted hugging passengers as they boarded the hushed jet, assuring them he intends to sit with his family for dinner that evening, safe and sound. “People should see that in the cockpit there is also another human being,” Mr Woiton, who has previously flown with Mr Lubitz, told the newspaper. This is gut-wrenching stuff. That any commercial pilot should feel obliged to reassure his passengers that he is not homicidally depressed is a wretched state of affairs. Yet such overt humanisation is exactly what is needed in the aftermath of a human-instigated tragedy.

Management at Germanwings and its parent company Lufthansa have echoed the approach deftly. When other crew members refused to work the day after the crash, Thomas Winkelmann, Germanwings’ boss, did not try to discredit their unease. Instead, he publicly defended their decision, speaking of a close-knit “Germanwings family” that has been overcome by “mourning and shock”. Lufthansa’s crisis management centre issued regular, reliable updates through multiple channels, while swiftly extending psychological support and financial relief to the relatives of the dead. There is not much more an airline can do following a catastrophic event; it can, however, do much less, as illustrated by Malaysia Airlines’ confused, contradictory and altogether insensitive handling of the Flight 370 disappearance. (To that airline’s credit, its subsequent handling of the shooting down of Flight 17 suggested that lessons had been learned.)

One of the cruellest aspects of this tragedy is the impossibility of preventing recurrences. Technical faults, once diagnosed, can be fixed. Operational shortcomings can be ironed out, if never perfected. But when a person in a position of trust decides to betray that privilege, no amount of forethought or red tape can negate the threat they pose. If it could, then the “position of trust” would have been nominal only. The hasty decision by EASA, Europe’s aviation regulator, to require that at least two crew members remain in the cockpit at all times should now reduce the risk of pilot murder-suicide. But it is no silver bullet. When the first officer of EgyptAir Flight 990 decided to crash his plane into the Atlantic Ocean in October 1999, killing 217, his captain fought valiantly to save those aboard, ultimately failing to over-power the co-pilot.

Efforts by the industry to tighten psychological evaluations, though valid, will be equally imperfect. Only the most intrusive of tests have any chance of diagnosing mental illness, and they can in turn drive a wedge between employee and company. Pilots who fear losing their jobs over mild depression will go out of their way to hide it from the airline, perhaps allowing the problem to snowball into something more severe.

 Several days after the 9/11 attacks on America, your correspondent anxiously boarded a flight from New York to London, shuffling down an air bridge lined with heavily-armed, eagle-eyed police. At the time, the airline industry was evincing a message of defiance and ultra-reinforced security. In the aftermath of Flight 9525, a more nuanced, personal message is called for. Mr Woiton has encapsulated it perfectly.

Germanwings DNA Numbers Are Growing While World Desperation For An Explanation Grows

World | Wed Apr 1, 2015 2:48pm EDT

Related: WORLD, FRANCE

Report of plane passenger video overshadows exec visit to crash site

BERLIN/LE VERNET, FRANCE

(Reuters) - A video of the final seconds aboard the Germanwings plane that crashed in France last week has been discovered, reports said on Wednesday, just hours before executives visiting the crash site dodged questions about the mental health of the pilot.

The video was found on a mobile phone belonging to one of the passengers killed on the plane which investigators say German pilot Andreas Lubitz deliberately flew into a mountain in the French Alps, Bild newspaper reported.

The scenes seen on the video were chaotic and very wobbly, said Bild, adding screams and shouts of "My God" could be heard, indicating the passengers knew what was happening.

Prosecutor Brice Robin, who is handling the case in France, said the phones collected from the crash had yet to be analyzed and were being kept on site. France's BEA investigation authority could not immediately be reached for comment.

On the video, which Bild described as being "indisputably authentic", a banging of metal could be heard at least three times, possibly the sound of the pilot who had been locked out of the cockpit by Lubitz trying to break through the door.

Near the end there was a heavy shake and the cabin tilted sharply to one side. After further screams the video ended, said the paper.

The footage appeared to have been taken from near the back of the plane but no individuals could be identified, said Bild.

French magazine Paris Match also ran a story on the video and printed an account of a conversation between the two pilots, according to a "special investigator".

When the captain left the cockpit to go to the toilet, he told Lubitz that he was in control. "I hope so", Lubitz replied, according to the magazine.

RELATED COVERAGE

• › Germany says must study crash before considering air safety changes
• › Lufthansa CEO ignores barrage of questions on pilot's depression
• › South Korea becomes latest to impose cockpit 'rule of two' after Germanwings crash
• › SLIDESHOW Report of plane passenger video overshadows exec visit to crash site

Later the captain implored Lubitz to let him in.

Lufthansa said on Tuesday that Lubitz had told officials at the airline's training school in 2009 that he had gone through a period of severe depression, raising questions about the screening process for pilots.

Prosecutors have said he suffered from "suicidal tendencies" before obtaining his pilot's license.

CEO QUESTIONED

Lufthansa is facing legal action from relatives of the victims.

Chief Executive Carsten Spohr, visiting the crash site on Wednesday, declined to answer a barrage of questions about what the airline knew of Lubitz' mental health.

Lubitz, who was allowed to restart training after passing all the medical and suitability checks again, had a note on his flight license indicating some sort of illness, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.

But under German doctor-patient confidentiality laws, Lufthansa as an employer may not seek information about employees' medical conditions.

Spohr said in a prepared statement that it was still not clear what drove Lubitz' actions.

The head of the French police forensic team said earlier this week it would take two to four months to identify the victims, and that there was no certainty all of them would be identified because of the high speed at which the plane crashed.

A first step could be just days away though, said Brice Robin, the Marseille prosecutor in charge of the case.

"We haven't yet isolated all 150 DNA sets but we hope to by the end of the week," he told Reuters.

"Then they need to be compared with those of members of the families of the victims, which will take a certain time."

One Act Of Evil Kills 149!

Depression didn't make the Germanwings copilot kill 149 people

• ANNE SKOMOROWSKY, SLATE

• MAR. 29, 2015, 9:43 PM
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Reuters/Albert GeaA Germanwings plane.

See Also

The Germanwings co-pilot reportedly received psychiatric treatment for a 'serious depressive episode' several years ago

Germanwings' parent company is toughening up its cockpit rules after crash

Veteran pilot on crash coverage: 'I have cringed at the utter misrepresentation of aviation facts'

Because Germanwings pilot Andreas Lubitz killed himself when he purposefully drove a plane carrying 149 other people into a mountain in the Alps, there has been an assumption that he suffered from "depression: — an assumption strengthened by the discovery of antidepressants in his home and reports that he had been treated in psychiatry and neurology clinics.

Many patients and other interested parties are rightly concerned that Lubitz's murderous behavior will further stigmatize the mentally ill.

It is certainly true that stigma may lead those in need to avoid treatment. When I was a psychiatrist at an HIV clinic, I was baffled by the shame associated with a visit to see me. Patients at the clinic had advanced AIDS, often contracted through IV drug use or sex work, and many had unprotected sex despite their high viral loads.

Some were on parole. Many had lost custody of their children. Many lived in notorious single-room occupancy housing and used cocaine daily. But these issues, somehow, were less embarrassing than the suggestion that they be evaluated by a psychiatrist.

For my clinic patients, it was shameful to be mentally ill. But to engage in antisocial behavior as a way of life? Not so bad.

I think my patients were on to something. Bad behavior — even suicidal behavior — is not the same as depression. It is a truism in psychiatry that depression is under-diagnosed. But as a psychiatrist confronted daily with "problem" patients in the general hospital where I work, I find that depression is also over-diagnosed. Even doctors invoke "depression" to explain anything a reasonable adult wouldn't do.

For instance: act completely blasé, then lock the pilot out of the cockpit, and deliberately crash a plane full of people.

I don't know what that is, but it's not depression.

In the hospital where I practice, a small but regular population of patients are young men who sustained gunshot wounds during or in proximity to gang-related activities. Now paralyzed, they are admitted for pressure ulcers or urinary tract infections. These men were accustomed to getting their needs met through intimidation and even murder.

Now they are dependent on nurses and aides for intimate care, and it hasn't made them any nicer. They terrorize staff members by throwing urinals and food and sexually harassing them. When I am asked to evaluate for "depression," I see hopelessness, entitlement, and rage.

And it's not just antisocial behavior that is explained away by calling it "depression." I'm often asked to see patients with poorly managed chronic diseases; for example, diabetics who neglect to do fingersticks to draw blood and test their blood sugar. Recently I did a consultation for a patient who is on dialysis and ignores the low-salt "renal diet" prescribed by her doctor. Her insistence on eating chips led her nephrologist to wonder if she were depressed; after all, wouldn't a mentally healthy person give up junk food to save her own life?

We all know the answer to that.

On a daily basis in the hospital, I see sad, lonely, elderly widows. Many live in walk-up apartments but can no longer walk, and neither can their friends. Their children live in another country. When I ask what they enjoy doing, they say they enjoy knitting or dancing or visiting their grandchildren. But nudged a little, they admit that they haven't been able to do any of those things for years. They spend their whole lives watching television. Are they depressed? Or "depressed"?

"Depression" seems to signify social ills for which we have no solution, from violent, homicidal behavior, to health illiteracy, to our culture's neglect of the elderly. Constructing societal deficits as a medical problem does everyone a disservice — because treatment specific for depression won't work for people who don't really have depression. People who need social support can be expected to benefit most from programs that provide social support — not from psychiatrists.

The patient with bona fide depression will benefit from treatment with antidepressants or proven psychotherapies. For the lonely great-grandmothers, the junk-food addicts, and the violent paraplegics, there has to be another form of intervention. We must turn from the inappropriate use of the disease model of emotional distress and understand that individuals' psychological pain arises within social systems as well as within their own brains.

REUTERS/Foto-Team-MuellerAndreas Lubitz runs the Airportrace half marathon in Hamburg in this September 13, 2009 file photo.

Was Andreas Lubitz depressed? We don't know; a torn-up doctor's note and bottles of pills don't tell us much. Most people who commit suicide suffer from a mental illness, most commonly depression. But calling his actions suicidal is misleading.

Lubitz did not die quietly at home. He maliciously engineered a spectacular plane crash and killed 150 people. Suicidal thoughts can be a hallmark of depression, but mass murder is another beast entirely.

Using the word "depression" to describe inexplicable or violent behavior sends two false signals: First, that society has no obligations with regard to our happiness — because misery is a medical problem — and second, that a depressed person is in danger of committing abhorrent acts.

Depressed people need help. "Depressed" people do, too — but not the same kind.

Read more: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2015/03/germanwings_co_pilot_mental_illness_suicide_is_linked_to_depression_but.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_top#ixzz3Vv4sLbco

Germanwings Pilot Calms Fears Of Flyers. Remarkable Story. 99.99% Of All Pilots Are Great Guys And Gals.

Germanwings captain hailed over speech to nervous passengers

Date

March 31, 2015

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Su-Lin Tan

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A Germanwings captain has been praised for calming the fears of passengers Photo: AP

• 'Pain is almost unbearable': Australian family
• Lubitz treated for suicidal tendencies
• Co-pilot told captain 'You can go now'
• 78 strands of DNA found at site

The captain of a Germanwings flight has been praised for attempting to calm passengers' fears before taking off less than 24 hours after Flight 4U9525 crashed into the French Alps. 

Frank Woiton gave an inspirational speech to passengers while standing in the passenger cabin just before take off. The plane was travelling from Hamburg to Cologne in Germany. 

A passenger on the flight, Britta Englisch, said on Facebook he told everyone he had the same "sinking feeling" as the crew and passengers but assured he would get them to their destination safely. 

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Addressing a nervous cabin, Captain Woiton said he and his crew were overwhelmed by the tragedy which unfolded the day before and said they were all there voluntarily to get on with their jobs. 

He said he, like his crew, had a family he would like to see again.

His thoughtful address broke the tension on the plane and passengers applauded. 

"I would like to thank the captain. He understood what everyone thought. And he managed to give me a good feeling about the flight after that speech," Ms Englisch said.

Social media also erupted after Ms Englisch's post went viral. It has been shared more than 20,000 times and received more than 300,000 "likes".

Another Facebook user posted a response on Ms Englisch's site saying the same captain made a similar address on a flight from Cologne to Hamburg that morning. 

"He comforted my mixed feelings which I had before the flight with his speech. Thank you for that!" Silke Westphal said.

Two Germanwings crew members, Maria Anna and Adriana Gaik also responded. 

"Thank you that you have found these words for our colleagues! Such statements and words give to us crew empowerment ... We commemorate our colleagues," Ms Gaik said. 

Germanwings flight 4U9525 which was travelling from Barcelona to Dusseldorf crashed into the French Alps on March 24, about 100 kilometres north-west of Nice. 

The the co-pilot of the plane, Andreas Lubitz, 27, had apparently set the plane off course crashing it into the mountains killing all 150 people on board.

On Monday, the office of the Dusseldorf public prosecutor said Lubitz had been treated for "suicidal tendencies" before receiving his pilot's licence. 

Prosecutors have questioned many of Lubitz's friends and colleagues but have not found a suicide note or a clear motive behind the crash.

Captain Woiton has also flown with Lubitz in recent weeks. 

"He seemed completely normal," he said in an interview with WDR television.

Captain Woiton said Lubitz told him he was happy to finally fly for the group, and that he wanted to pilot long-haul routes and become a captain on a Boeing 747 or the Airbus A380, the two biggest commercial aircrafts.