11 ms·

Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'

followers 12y ago
Is leaving for toilet the only reason for the pilot to leave the cockpit? I seen some comments on having a third person with the co-pilot if the pilot leaves, but is not another "simplistic solution" to have a toilet for pilots within the cockpit lock doors? I understand it is not as simple as "just add a toilet" but I was thinking for of future designs.
- joezydeco 12y ago
  Pilots will leave the cockpit to check on parts of the plane if necessary, like looking out the passenger window to look at the wings. On long flights pilots are also rotated in and out of rest breaks.
BerislavLopac 12y ago
I always wondered why the pilots don't wear some kind of fitbit-like bracelets or something similar that would measure (even imperfectly) their vital signs and record them as a third set of data apart from voice and flight data. There are many (although admittedly unlikely, but still) scenarios that could have happened in this case (the co-pilot might have fainted, someone else could have entered the cockpit unnoticed etc), and all we have is the sound recording telling us that he "breathed normally".
- mikeash 12y ago
  Beyond breathing, it's also known that the guy commanded a descent into the ground in a way that's basically impossible to do by accident. That pretty much rules out any sort of health problem (besides the mental kind).
Htsthbjig 12y ago
This is the other side of the coin of giving someone too much power. After 2001 the pilots were considered "good" and the rest of the crew and passengers "bad". But what happens when pilot intentions are not good? In this case the crew and passengers are impotent to save their selves. This is probably what happened in the last two missed airplanes too. The same is happening with the Government, after 2001 the people have given too much power to the Government because they considered it "good" against the "bad" guys. But as the people in Germany knows, the people in the Government could be the bad guys.
quonn 12y ago
Any ideas for future improvements to the current mechanism? A possible idea is to release the lock (allowing entry using the PIN) if the board computer determines that a crash is likely. (This is safe, because it's unlikely that there is an attacker who wants to enter the cockpit and at the same time a situation likely to result in a crash.) This clearly only helps against the problem with the locked door, but it seems comparatively easy to implement. Edit: Another idea: The autopilot should prevent a crash and the only way to disable it should be by pressing two buttons at opposite sides of the cockpit (so two persons have to cooperate).
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- damon_c 12y ago
  Self driving planes... Sorry. Honestly, I wanted to help with something constructive here but I don't think we will ever solve the problem of crazy people in the cockpit.
- Piskvorrr 12y ago
  > ENGAGE AUTOPILOT Autopilot engaged. Your autopilot has malfunctioned and has initiated a steep dive. This has knocked the other pilot unconscious. > DISENGAGE AUTOPILOT You need another person to disengage the autopilot. Autopilot remains engaged. > DISENGAGE AUTOPILOT USING YOUR FOOT The buttons are too far apart, you cannot reach both at the same time. Autopilot remains engaged. > The plane hits the ground and disintegrates. YOU HAVE DIED. Do you want your posessions identified (Y/n)? > _
andy_ppp 12y ago
If we can have self driving cars then self driving planes are starting to look essential. At least until judgement day.
- Piskvorrr 12y ago
  Without trying to be a luddite, what happens in a self-driving car crash? That is, in court, not physically. This is yet to be tested; also, what happens in a meaningful concentration of autonomous vehicles? I'd wait at least for these to be tested before declaring autonomous vehicles "essential."
pakled_engineer 12y ago
France also is protecting their airbus business by quickly labelling this suicide and not mechanical failure that caused the pilot to become unconscious.
Dorian-Marie 12y ago
2020: Airbus announces no-pilots planes 2025: All airplanes are now required to be auto-piloted 2030: It's been 5 years without a single accident
- Piskvorrr 12y ago
  2025, Q2: Airbus remote execution vulnerability discovered. (Did you just assume 100% reliable HW+SW, on Hacker News? That's some serious handwaving...)
  - touristtam 12y ago
    Full disclosure of the vulnerability revealed by the Google team zero implicate Windows update mechanism originally devised to allow flyers to play online with their premium ultimate+ Live account. (where would we be without a bit of Microsoft hate? ....)
  - Kurtz79 12y ago
    You can hardly compare an embedded software running on an Airplane to an Internet facing web server.
    - Piskvorrr 12y ago
      Why not? What is the crucial difference, from the unauthorised intrusion POV? "This should not happen, therefore it cannot happen" is not an appropriate response here. http://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/16696-FACT-CHECK-SCADA-Systems-Are-Online-Now.html http://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/16696-FACT-CHECK-SCADA... (Note that I didn't mention anything about webservers, or Internet; are you sure the in-flight entertainment systems are separated from the control network by anything else than a firewall rule? See other embedded systems, and how secure they are. Start with...IDK, Toyota's gas pedal code, see how well such safety-critical code was written: https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/pubs/koopman14_toyota_ua_slides.pdf https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/pubs/koopman14_toyota_ua_... )
  - honzzz 12y ago
bayesianhorse 12y ago
I'm postponing any judgement on the pilots and airline until the information situation has settled down over the next few weeks.
skc 12y ago
I wonder, how far are we from completely pilotless flights? Perhaps the numbers don't yet justify proper investment in this area, but we have to be getting pretty close to at least thinking about it seriously now.
gadders 12y ago
This might be of interest: Who, What, Why: How are cockpit doors locked? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-32070528 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-32070528 Apparently they need to survive a grenade blast!
znt 12y ago
Can someone with aviation experience share how often pilots receive psychological evaluation? I just asked a friend who used to be a pilot for Ryan Air and he said he had never received one.
- celticninja 12y ago
  Ryanair may not be indicative of the wider airline industry but germanwings was a budget carrier so I reckon it would be similar to Ryanair.
  - monksy 12y ago
    GermanWings is the off shoot of Lufthansa. They're cheaper .. but they aren't exactly RyanAir.
- leephillips 12y ago
  Are you aware of any evidence that there is any such thing as a "psychological evaluation" is any scientifically meaningful sense?
  - teddyuk 12y ago
    i'm sure top gun had one so it must be true
  - TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
    Actually, yes. There's the MMPI, there are standard tests for conditions like Alzheimer's, and many others. These tests have reasonable - not perfect, but useful - correlations with observable and reported behaviours. I'm not aware of any specific tests for suicidal ideation, but the FAA explicitly disqualifies pilots diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and other personality disorders are cause for concern. I don't know if carriers include other checks. IMO it would be weird if they didn't - but I'm not a carrier. My guess is that if it's aggressive suicide there will be some high-stress triggering incident in the recent past - debt, blackmail, a weird sexual history, a relationship breakup, or something of that ilk. Possibly even a very negative work review from an insane boss. If there's nothing at all, that would be very strange and unusual.
lsadam0 12y ago
Is there any good reason that auto-pilot could not be enabled to override suicidal actions of a pilot? Perhaps a system that requires input from both pilot and co-pilot to override?
- celticninja 12y ago
  What happens when a pilot has had a heart attack and there is only a co-pilot? Averting and intentional maneuver could also hamper the ability to fly the aircraft and given that these incidents, while they result in huge loss of life, are incredibly rare. As such the cost/benefit is not there. But fuck that co-pilot.
  - lsadam0 12y ago
    I think auto-pilot already can override intentional actions of the pilot. It's my understanding that auto-pilot will prevent a pilot from many actions that would result in a stall?
    - avar 12y ago
      No: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_control_modes#Alternate_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_control_modes#Alternate_...
    - mikeash 12y ago
      Technically I believe the autopilot is a higher level in the system, and the anti-stall stuff (among others) is part of the lower-level fly-by-wire system. It's sort of like with a car and the difference between anti-lock brakes (fly-by-wire), cruise control (basic autopilot functionality), and autonomous steering to reach a certain location (advanced autopilot functionality). In any case, you're right that the automation (by whatever name) can already override the pilot in many cases. But it's a really tricky problem because you can easily make things worse instead of better. For example, one reason that Air France 447 crashed was that one of the pilots was commanding the airplane as if it were in a fly-by-wire mode it was not actually in. The plane had already stalled, but he was flying it as if the computers would prevent him from stalling, rather than taking proper corrective action. A proper recovery maneuver would have saved it. This is ultimately pilot error, but automation is a strong contributing factor. For another example, Asiana 214 crashed because the pilot assumed the airplane was doing more for him than it really was, trusting the automation to keep his speed steady, which it wasn't set to do. Again, pilot error, but with automation as a contributing factor. It seems likely that automation is a net gain when done right, but it requires careful consideration.
maaarghk 12y ago
Is it the case on all modern planes that a co-pilot could lock out a pilot? Is there any proposal or precedent for a key-code override on the door lock?
- larrydag 12y ago
  I may be mistaken but I believe airline cockpits were made to be able to lock out people from entering in the event of a terrorist activity to take over the plane. This was initiated after 9/11.
  - lsadam0 12y ago
    That is true. What I'm wondering about is why the plane allows a pilot to take a fatal action. For example, why would an auto-pilot system allow a jetliner to nose dive? Maybe it does not. I'm certain these scenarios have been considered, and I'm sure the developers had very solid reasons as to why something like this doesn't exist (if it actually does not). I'm curious if the plane has enough input to determine "if we continue this course we will crash into the mountain range", and if it does, why can't it take automatic corrective action and override the pilot? There's a good chance someone commenting here has worked in this area and could provide a very insightful response.
    - Anderkent 12y ago
      > What I'm wondering about is why the plane allows a pilot to take a fatal action. For example, why would an auto-pilot system allow a jetliner to nose dive? Maybe it does not. I believe it doesn't (not an expert though), as it'll assume you've lost control of the airplane and will try to recover. However in this case the descent was at a fairly standard speed. But yeah the autopilot will not override the pilot if the airplane seems under control.
    - larrydag 12y ago
      The design of cockpit controls could be directed by a number of things such as government regulations, manufacturer features, industry standards, airline or pilot lobby groups, etc. I bet we are going to hear a lot about airplane flight controls in the coming days.
celticninja 12y ago
Germanwings did not have a policy of requiring a second person in the cockpit in situations where the captain leaves the cockpit. I imagine this is going to become fault standard in aviation from now on.
- koyote 12y ago
  I wonder how much that would have helped in this case though. Someone determined to crash a plane would not have too much of a problem incapacitating any cabin crew member (by surprise most likely) before his attempt. I believe that having a second person in the cockpit is more useful (and seemingly essential) if the Pilot/Co-Pilot loses conciousness in order for the door to still be opened.
  - Someone 12y ago
    From what I understand the door can be opened from the outside. If true, the only case where having a second person present would be one where an unrelated emergency develops that requires immediate attention at the moment the first person becomes unconscious. I think that scenario is handled by requiring both officers to be in the cockpit at the times where such emergencies are most likely to develop (take off and landing) Also, that second person would have to be able to fly the airplane. That would mean having a 3-person crew flying the plane (something that Airbus has worked hard at getting rid of for cost reasons), or having a bathroom in the cockpit (impractical, I guess) In this case I think a remote operator could have seen that something was wrong for minutes, and could have taken over control of the plane, but of course, having that ability carries its own risks.
  - TillE 12y ago
    It's not an absolute solution, but it makes such a crime both psychologically and physically much more difficult. Turning a knob is impersonal and easy, but killing someone with your hands is neither.
    - Htsthbjig 12y ago
      "Turning a knob is impersonal and easy, but killing someone with your hands is neither." Killing someone is extremely easy if the other person trust you. You get behind her and hit her with a heavy object in the head or in the nape. If the pilot is busy doing something like piloting the plane, it is very easy for a copilot to get rid of her.
herge 12y ago
First, remember the Breaking News Consumer's Handbook: Airline Edition (https://media2.wnyc.org/i/620/620/l/80/1/BNCHAE.jpg https://media2.wnyc.org/i/620/620/l/80/1/BNCHAE.jpg). Second, I'm sure that Mr. Robin is a nice guy, but there's no need to publish his stray speculations just two days after the crash.
- celticninja 12y ago
  It seems pretty far from stray speculations. It is assumed after a check of the black box. That is ultimately what we rely on for an after the fact analysis. If we can't use that what do we use? And you want to wait a year to find out what happened to your loved ones?
  - falcolas 12y ago
    > And you want to wait a year to find out what happened to your loved ones? "Your loved ones" died in an aircraft crash. They why of it matters less, and can wait for an accurate answer instead of rampant speculation. As for the year time frame, it really can take up to a year to figure out. As you say, they're working from an incomplete puzzle. Perhaps the black box does say XYZ, but is that the whole story? They added a lot more security hardware to cockpit doors of late, was it suffering a malfunction? Or perhaps the copilot was panicking trying to figure out how to work around a malfunctioning button and froze up? Or he was knocked unconscious by the sudden descent? Many of these aircraft are 15+ years old at this point, an electrical fault is certainly not out of the question. Speculation helps nobody but the press at this point. PS. To the downvoters, please remember that we're barely two days into the investigation, and we're relying on "silence" and a third party report on very preliminary findings to jump to these conclusions.
    - ceejayoz 12y ago
      The article specifically states the the recorder indicates the copilot dialed in a deliberate descent.
  - huuu 12y ago
    Well my first thought was: if the pilot was unconscious he still was breathing. So we just have to wait a little longer and must take into account the answer will never be found.
deleted 12y ago
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lolo_ 12y ago
Of course it's really early so you have to be very careful as to making judgements at this point, but if it really is pilot murder/suicide there is some (limited) precedence:- * An EgyptAir flight in 1999 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990 * A Silkair (Singapore airline) flight in 1997 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SilkAir_Flight_185 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SilkAir_Flight_185 There is debate in both flights as to whether it was murder/suicide, but the evidence is totally overwhelming that it was. Horrific but thankfully massively rare (as you might expect.) I do hope this isn't the cause here :(
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- eik3_de 12y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAM_Mozambique_Airlines_Flight_470 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAM_Mozambique_Airlines_Flight_...
  - caf 12y ago
    Also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Air_Maroc_Flight_630 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Air_Maroc_Flight_630 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_350 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_350 ...and of course deep suspicions remain about MH370.
- laurencei 12y ago
  The thing about those two flights is the pilots tried to make it look like an accident - but was ultimately determined to be intentional. In this case it would seem that no effort was made to hide the fact it was intentional.
  - lolo_ 12y ago
    I don't think we know enough at this point to be sure of that at all (and we don't even know if it's murder/suicide.) Also I don't think you are correct about the Egyptair flight - that was more of a sudden dive, whereas on the Silkair flight the perpetrator intentionally disconnected the flight data and cockpit voice recorders. Just because the governments of the countries involved didn't like the outcome of the investigations (far more so in the case of the Egyptair flight) doesn't mean it was covered up by the perpetrators, this was clearly for political/religious reasons - the failure mode suggested by the Egyptian investigators was totally unsupported by evidence.
verytrivial 12y ago
These doors very effectively mean that control of the plane would be put into the hands of the cabin crew, but magnifies the cost of a rogue operator -- I am certain the risks were evaluated and the challenge of a determined suicidal pilot was ruled outside scope. And yes, there are emergency override codes, but there are also time override-overrides from within the cabin. Even if the protocol where two members of staff are always in the cabin was broken (or absent), again, that does not stop a rogue operator from despatching with the other person. The question is (hypothetical at this stage, there are a lot of details still unknown): have these type of doors already saved more lives than the ~150 tragically lost this week?
- panarky 12y ago
  How To Lock and Unlock Airbus A320 Cockpit Door - Description and Procedures https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixEHV7c3VXs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixEHV7c3VXs
  - gadders 12y ago
    The acting in that video is first class.
    - Rooster61 12y ago
      I don't know. I think the actors could use a good... Coach. YEEEEAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH
- frevd 12y ago
  What about the much less hypothetical case that one of the pilots becomes unconscious while the other is out of the cabin. How is he supposed to get back in, ever?
  - Tomte 12y ago
    Using the override. An unconscious pilot does not override the override.
whizzkid 12y ago
Does anyone know if there are any authorization levels implemented in airplane software ? If Pilot had a root pass for the door lock, this could have ended up differently. My sincerest condolences to families of passengers..
- jackweirdy 12y ago
  Only unless pilot/co-pilot roles were the same. If it were the pilot trying to crash the plane - there’d still be a problem
  - brc 12y ago
    The issue with that is that the pilot can be tortured/blackmailed until they give up the password/code. The point with the designs now is that once they are locked, they stay locked, and no amount of killing hostages gets it opened.
- hvidgaard 12y ago
  The entire point of the door lock is to let control of the aircraft remain in the hands of the crew in the cockpit. If there was a root pass, that could be rendered useless - which is what they do not want.
mg1982 12y ago
I'm struck by how these pilots (chilling in itself that it's happened enough times to count as its own group) are described as being suicidal. While technically true, it detracts from the greater truth that they are mass-murderers. If someone shot up a mall and killed 150 people then ate a bullet, would we describe them as suicidal? I don't have a greater point I suppose, but it seems worth thinking about. Except, perhaps-- how do you go about 'screening' for inclination to mass-murder?
- Florin_Andrei 12y ago
  This responsibility is to great to leave it to humans. Automate this stuff.
  - mikeash 12y ago
    There's always going to be a human involved at some point (at least until the machines take over, but then they probably won't be flying us around). If it's all automated, then instead of a crazy pilot killing everyone on his airliner, it might be a crazy programmer killing everyone on every airborne airliner.
    - nextw33k 12y ago
      Except there are checks and balances in place before software gets installed on a plane.
      - mikeash 12y ago
        Those don't always work. There are checks and balances in place before pilots get to fly airplanes, too.
        nextw33k 12y ago
        > Those don't always work Of course not, nothing always works. You are implying that checks are worthless because they failed on this co-pilot. In the context of a pilots mental state verses malicious source code being installed on a set of flight computers, I'd have to say the computer is easier to validate. That many more people have to approve the process. With a pair of pilots the validation process is much smaller and more complex. We need to stop thinking that machines are flawed and that humans know best. The fact of life is that machines can and do perform better than humans, the only reason flight computers don't currently is that there hasn't been the investment in making them do so. Sensors fail but that is an engineering problem that can be solved.
prawn 12y ago
Is it realistic that we see human controls largely removed from passenger plane pilots? Or ground-based group overrides? I know that for the largest jets, pilots already operate within some sort of computer-decided 'envelope' (I think it's called) of reasonable decisions. I think we will see personal driving banned in some cities (CBDs at least) or routes in the coming decades as self-driving cars come to dominate our roads.
- toyg 12y ago
  There are enough instances of sensors and autopilot malfunctioning, there should always be manual-override procedures and a human operator available to take control. I don't see this changing any time soon.
- ceejayoz 12y ago
  I'd suspect the risks of a ground-control system would be substantially higher than the chance of a pilot deliberately crashing a plane every decade or so.
- pwnna 12y ago
  What if the plane flies out of that "envelop", where the computer can't make the correct judgement to control the plane?
- userbinator 12y ago
  The problem with automation is that it's completely dependent on inputs from sensors, and those do malfunction. This incident from last year involves fighting the automation due to exactly such a problem: http://www.aeroinside.com/item/4946/lufthansa-a321-near-bilbao-on-nov-5th-2014-loss-of-4000-feet-of-altitude http://www.aeroinside.com/item/4946/lufthansa-a321-near-bilb...
AndrewDucker 12y ago
At what point will pilot-lock outs have killed more people than they've saved?
- Piskvorrr 12y ago
  If I may venture a guess, "as of last week."
  - corin_ 12y ago
    There's no way of telling though. Maybe a terrorist attack would have happened a week earlier if the terrorist didn't know they couldn't get past the locked door, so they didn't try it.
    - nullrouted 12y ago
      Horrible logic.
      - tobltobs 12y ago
        why?
danepowell 12y ago
It seems clear that in this case the co-pilot's actions were voluntary, but what if a co-pilot were to have a medical emergency while (s)he's alone in the cockpit? Would the pilot be able to re-enter? This seems like a huge risk that wasn't considered when the new strengthened cockpit doors were installed.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- quonn 12y ago
  Yes. The pilot can reenter using a numerical code, unless the co-pilot actively blocks it. Even that lock will unlock again after 20 minutes.
  - frevd 12y ago
    In an emergency event you are most likely to forget secret codes. Some kind of biometric sensor would be better, although then attackers could take the authorized person hostage, so it is best to have it shared among two random crew people, simply by voice recognition.
    - arrrg 12y ago
      Apparently the other crew (flight attendants) knows that code, too. I think it’s unlikely everyone would forget it.
- caf 12y ago
  Apparently, on the A320 the pilot can use a keypad to re-enter the cockpit, but the door can be manually deadlocked from the inside.
- wolfgke 12y ago
  > It seems clear that in this case the co-pilot's actions were voluntary, but what if a co-pilot were to have a medical emergency while (s)he's alone in the cockpit? Would the pilot be able to re-enter? That's what I thought, too. Does the pilot also (always?) have a key to the cockpit door in his pocket (risk, because than a terrorist could steal it while the pilot goes to toilet) so that he could reenter the cockpit? So for me a plausible explanation is the the co-pilot had a medical emergency while alone in the cockpit. Now comes the question: Would pressing the descent button in this case perhaps even increase the chance of survival (in this case the co-pilot was doing a quick-witted decision) or not?
tobltobs 12y ago
I am astonished how many hn readers do follow this theorie, even it is much too early and too many open questions are left. Hackersheeps?
ghostprotocl 12y ago
It's still amazing how some obvious procedures aren't standard in many airlines until something horrible happens. There should be two people in the pit at all times. If the pilot goes to take a leak an attendant takes his place until he returns. It's not really a hard procedure to implement.
zk00006 12y ago
Honest question. Is this act of terrorism? If not why?
- fishnchips 12y ago
  1) No. 2) Because it does not attempt to advance any political agenda.
  - zk00006 12y ago
    So this means that his reason must be personal and important only to himself. That leaves me wondering, what personal reason can one have to do such a thing?
    - ptaipale 12y ago
      It may come down more to a "state of mind" than "personal reason". I.e. nothing very rational. I guess investigators will look at his relationships, communications with other people before the flight, and so on.
- sz4kerto 12y ago
  From Wikipedia: "Terrorism is commonly defined as violent acts (or the threat of violent acts) intended to create fear (terror), perpetrated for a religious, political, or ideological goal, and which deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants (e.g., neutral military personnel or civilians)." This guy is a mass murdered, not a terrorist (in the usual sense of the word).
- sangnoir 12y ago
  > Terrorism is commonly defined as violent acts (or the threat of violent acts) intended to create fear (terror) It depends on the motivation of the pilot i.e. Did he intend to create fear? At this point the motivations remain unclear, so it can't be termed an act of terrorism.
- roel_v 12y ago
  Depends on whether the intent was to instill fear on the population at large (fear of something).
q2 12y ago
We need self driving planes too. Google and Musk, please do the favor. Thanks.
- zk00006 12y ago
  Experts are in fact skeptical against fully self-driving planes due to safety reasons.
  - q2 12y ago
    If they are licensed to operate, why they are less secure than human driven planes? It is one more area where automation may drive human jobs away. May be self-driving planes is next stage of aviation evolution just like drones for military purposes.
    - danielbln 12y ago
      There was an incident just last November where the flight systems put a A320 into a nose dive towards the ground and the pilots had to restart the board systems in order to pull the machine up.
      - q2 12y ago
        My understanding is, the more hardware/software reliability,durability increases, the less may be the need for humans to intervene. If we look outside, technological trends and intents of organizational leaders are in the direction of more automation and lesser human dependence.
    - tim333 12y ago
      Computers are not yet capable of dealing with engine failure on take off as in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549 and probably some other system failures. Maybe in the future.
- breitling 12y ago
  Don't we already have planes that can take off, cruise, and land on their own.
breitling 12y ago
> Passengers were not aware of the impending crash "until very last moment" when screams could be heard This is nightmare fuel. I cannot imagine what they went through. No human should have to end their life this way...such a tragedy.
- gonzo 12y ago
  It's also unlikely to be true. If they can hear the pilot trying to break the cockpit door down on the CVR, then there is little doubt that most passengers on an A319 can also hear/see same. Maybe they didn't start screaming until it was obvious that they were going to crash, but they knew that the captain couldn't get back into the cockpit long before that.
lucio 12y ago
Does the A320 have some terrain-avoidance system?
- erglkjahlkh 12y ago
  It dislikes terrain alright. There's a master alarm and audible "pull up!" warning... If they ever release the complete tape the last minute or so will be very, very grim.
breitling 12y ago
How is it that each pilot doesn't have a key of their own, so as not to be locked out. No body saw this coming?
- Florin_Andrei 12y ago
  Maybe the lock was somehow jammed from inside?
- dubbel 12y ago
  There is a code pad that unlocks the door in case the pilot(s) don't answer the requests to open the door via intercom. The code does not however unlock the door immediately but activate a light and a beeping sound inside the cockpit for 30 seconds. Within this time frame the pilots can either decide to open the door immediately or to overwrite the unlocking, which locks the door for 5 minutes. This is to prevent attackers from entering even if they threaten to kill the crew member and thereby pressured them to enter the code. If the pilots don't react during the 30 seconds the door unlocks.
r721 12y ago
It's strange that pilot didn't leave a "voice suicide note" - it was very easy to do for him, but he chosen silence. The paper quoted in "suicide note" wikipedia article ([1]) says that "the note-leaving rate remained almost constant (23.4–36.2%)" [1] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1440-1819.2005.01364.x/abstract;jsessionid=9F5B2ADA229BB387091FBC959F7ACDA8.f01t04 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1440-1819.2005....
neumann 12y ago
This is all very premature, isn't it? It would be nice before someone is accused of deliberately killing 150 people for no reason to confirm that - the correct code was put in - there was no malfunction in the door release system - and the descent was deliberate I haven't read anything on possibly alternate scenarios causing the crash, yet they all seem more probable.
- Rooster61 12y ago
  You have a point, but it's pretty telling that they could hear the guy breathing and not responding to ATC, and that he took the plane into a nosedive the second the captain left the cabin. I really want to see what the data recorder says, though.
brianmcconnell 12y ago
An example of the law of unintended consequences. In the process of "terror proofing" airliners, we made them more vulnerable to a malicious/insane crewmember.
u04f061 12y ago
Let's call this a suicide attack and this co-pilot a terrorist. Secondly, find out his religion and prefix this with terrorist. Prefixing his race will also be a plus point. Once all unknowns are calculated, ask his religion/race fellows to apologize this act of terrorism.
- RivieraKid 12y ago
  That would make more sense if religion was linked to the attack.

Is leaving for toilet the only reason for the pilot to leave the cockpit? I seen some comments on having a third person with the co-pilot if the pilot leaves, but is not another "simplistic solution" to have a toilet for pilots within the cockpit lock doors? I understand it is not as simple as "just add a toilet" but I was thinking for of future designs.

joezydeco 12y ago
Pilots will leave the cockpit to check on parts of the plane if necessary, like looking out the passenger window to look at the wings. On long flights pilots are also rotated in and out of rest breaks.

BerislavLopac 12y ago

I always wondered why the pilots don't wear some kind of fitbit-like bracelets or something similar that would measure (even imperfectly) their vital signs and record them as a third set of data apart from voice and flight data. There are many (although admittedly unlikely, but still) scenarios that could have happened in this case (the co-pilot might have fainted, someone else could have entered the cockpit unnoticed etc), and all we have is the sound recording telling us that he "breathed normally".

mikeash 12y ago
Beyond breathing, it's also known that the guy commanded a descent into the ground in a way that's basically impossible to do by accident. That pretty much rules out any sort of health problem (besides the mental kind).

Htsthbjig 12y ago

This is the other side of the coin of giving someone too much power. After 2001 the pilots were considered "good" and the rest of the crew and passengers "bad". But what happens when pilot intentions are not good? In this case the crew and passengers are impotent to save their selves. This is probably what happened in the last two missed airplanes too. The same is happening with the Government, after 2001 the people have given too much power to the Government because they considered it "good" against the "bad" guys. But as the people in Germany knows, the people in the Government could be the bad guys.

quonn 12y ago

Any ideas for future improvements to the current mechanism? A possible idea is to release the lock (allowing entry using the PIN) if the board computer determines that a crash is likely. (This is safe, because it's unlikely that there is an attacker who wants to enter the cockpit and at the same time a situation likely to result in a crash.) This clearly only helps against the problem with the locked door, but it seems comparatively easy to implement. Edit: Another idea: The autopilot should prevent a crash and the only way to disable it should be by pressing two buttons at opposite sides of the cockpit (so two persons have to cooperate).

deleted 12y ago
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damon_c 12y ago
Self driving planes... Sorry. Honestly, I wanted to help with something constructive here but I don't think we will ever solve the problem of crazy people in the cockpit.
Piskvorrr 12y ago
> ENGAGE AUTOPILOT Autopilot engaged. Your autopilot has malfunctioned and has initiated a steep dive. This has knocked the other pilot unconscious. > DISENGAGE AUTOPILOT You need another person to disengage the autopilot. Autopilot remains engaged. > DISENGAGE AUTOPILOT USING YOUR FOOT The buttons are too far apart, you cannot reach both at the same time. Autopilot remains engaged. > The plane hits the ground and disintegrates. YOU HAVE DIED. Do you want your posessions identified (Y/n)? > _

andy_ppp 12y ago

If we can have self driving cars then self driving planes are starting to look essential. At least until judgement day.

Piskvorrr 12y ago
Without trying to be a luddite, what happens in a self-driving car crash? That is, in court, not physically. This is yet to be tested; also, what happens in a meaningful concentration of autonomous vehicles? I'd wait at least for these to be tested before declaring autonomous vehicles "essential."

pakled_engineer 12y ago

France also is protecting their airbus business by quickly labelling this suicide and not mechanical failure that caused the pilot to become unconscious.

Dorian-Marie 12y ago

2020: Airbus announces no-pilots planes 2025: All airplanes are now required to be auto-piloted 2030: It's been 5 years without a single accident

Piskvorrr 12y ago
2025, Q2: Airbus remote execution vulnerability discovered. (Did you just assume 100% reliable HW+SW, on Hacker News? That's some serious handwaving...)
- touristtam 12y ago
  Full disclosure of the vulnerability revealed by the Google team zero implicate Windows update mechanism originally devised to allow flyers to play online with their premium ultimate+ Live account. (where would we be without a bit of Microsoft hate? ....)
- Kurtz79 12y ago
  You can hardly compare an embedded software running on an Airplane to an Internet facing web server.
  - Piskvorrr 12y ago
    Why not? What is the crucial difference, from the unauthorised intrusion POV? "This should not happen, therefore it cannot happen" is not an appropriate response here. http://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/16696-FACT-CHECK-SCADA-Systems-Are-Online-Now.html http://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/16696-FACT-CHECK-SCADA... (Note that I didn't mention anything about webservers, or Internet; are you sure the in-flight entertainment systems are separated from the control network by anything else than a firewall rule? See other embedded systems, and how secure they are. Start with...IDK, Toyota's gas pedal code, see how well such safety-critical code was written: https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/pubs/koopman14_toyota_ua_slides.pdf https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/pubs/koopman14_toyota_ua_... )
- honzzz 12y ago

bayesianhorse 12y ago

I'm postponing any judgement on the pilots and airline until the information situation has settled down over the next few weeks.

skc 12y ago

I wonder, how far are we from completely pilotless flights? Perhaps the numbers don't yet justify proper investment in this area, but we have to be getting pretty close to at least thinking about it seriously now.

gadders 12y ago

This might be of interest: Who, What, Why: How are cockpit doors locked? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-32070528 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-32070528 Apparently they need to survive a grenade blast!

znt 12y ago

Can someone with aviation experience share how often pilots receive psychological evaluation? I just asked a friend who used to be a pilot for Ryan Air and he said he had never received one.

celticninja 12y ago
Ryanair may not be indicative of the wider airline industry but germanwings was a budget carrier so I reckon it would be similar to Ryanair.
- monksy 12y ago
  GermanWings is the off shoot of Lufthansa. They're cheaper .. but they aren't exactly RyanAir.
leephillips 12y ago
Are you aware of any evidence that there is any such thing as a "psychological evaluation" is any scientifically meaningful sense?
- teddyuk 12y ago
  i'm sure top gun had one so it must be true
- TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
  Actually, yes. There's the MMPI, there are standard tests for conditions like Alzheimer's, and many others. These tests have reasonable - not perfect, but useful - correlations with observable and reported behaviours. I'm not aware of any specific tests for suicidal ideation, but the FAA explicitly disqualifies pilots diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and other personality disorders are cause for concern. I don't know if carriers include other checks. IMO it would be weird if they didn't - but I'm not a carrier. My guess is that if it's aggressive suicide there will be some high-stress triggering incident in the recent past - debt, blackmail, a weird sexual history, a relationship breakup, or something of that ilk. Possibly even a very negative work review from an insane boss. If there's nothing at all, that would be very strange and unusual.

lsadam0 12y ago

Is there any good reason that auto-pilot could not be enabled to override suicidal actions of a pilot? Perhaps a system that requires input from both pilot and co-pilot to override?

celticninja 12y ago
What happens when a pilot has had a heart attack and there is only a co-pilot? Averting and intentional maneuver could also hamper the ability to fly the aircraft and given that these incidents, while they result in huge loss of life, are incredibly rare. As such the cost/benefit is not there. But fuck that co-pilot.
- lsadam0 12y ago
  I think auto-pilot already can override intentional actions of the pilot. It's my understanding that auto-pilot will prevent a pilot from many actions that would result in a stall?
  - avar 12y ago
    No: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_control_modes#Alternate_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_control_modes#Alternate_...
  - mikeash 12y ago
    Technically I believe the autopilot is a higher level in the system, and the anti-stall stuff (among others) is part of the lower-level fly-by-wire system. It's sort of like with a car and the difference between anti-lock brakes (fly-by-wire), cruise control (basic autopilot functionality), and autonomous steering to reach a certain location (advanced autopilot functionality). In any case, you're right that the automation (by whatever name) can already override the pilot in many cases. But it's a really tricky problem because you can easily make things worse instead of better. For example, one reason that Air France 447 crashed was that one of the pilots was commanding the airplane as if it were in a fly-by-wire mode it was not actually in. The plane had already stalled, but he was flying it as if the computers would prevent him from stalling, rather than taking proper corrective action. A proper recovery maneuver would have saved it. This is ultimately pilot error, but automation is a strong contributing factor. For another example, Asiana 214 crashed because the pilot assumed the airplane was doing more for him than it really was, trusting the automation to keep his speed steady, which it wasn't set to do. Again, pilot error, but with automation as a contributing factor. It seems likely that automation is a net gain when done right, but it requires careful consideration.

maaarghk 12y ago

Is it the case on all modern planes that a co-pilot could lock out a pilot? Is there any proposal or precedent for a key-code override on the door lock?

larrydag 12y ago
I may be mistaken but I believe airline cockpits were made to be able to lock out people from entering in the event of a terrorist activity to take over the plane. This was initiated after 9/11.
- lsadam0 12y ago
  That is true. What I'm wondering about is why the plane allows a pilot to take a fatal action. For example, why would an auto-pilot system allow a jetliner to nose dive? Maybe it does not. I'm certain these scenarios have been considered, and I'm sure the developers had very solid reasons as to why something like this doesn't exist (if it actually does not). I'm curious if the plane has enough input to determine "if we continue this course we will crash into the mountain range", and if it does, why can't it take automatic corrective action and override the pilot? There's a good chance someone commenting here has worked in this area and could provide a very insightful response.
  - Anderkent 12y ago
    > What I'm wondering about is why the plane allows a pilot to take a fatal action. For example, why would an auto-pilot system allow a jetliner to nose dive? Maybe it does not. I believe it doesn't (not an expert though), as it'll assume you've lost control of the airplane and will try to recover. However in this case the descent was at a fairly standard speed. But yeah the autopilot will not override the pilot if the airplane seems under control.
  - larrydag 12y ago
    The design of cockpit controls could be directed by a number of things such as government regulations, manufacturer features, industry standards, airline or pilot lobby groups, etc. I bet we are going to hear a lot about airplane flight controls in the coming days.

celticninja 12y ago

Germanwings did not have a policy of requiring a second person in the cockpit in situations where the captain leaves the cockpit. I imagine this is going to become fault standard in aviation from now on.

koyote 12y ago
I wonder how much that would have helped in this case though. Someone determined to crash a plane would not have too much of a problem incapacitating any cabin crew member (by surprise most likely) before his attempt. I believe that having a second person in the cockpit is more useful (and seemingly essential) if the Pilot/Co-Pilot loses conciousness in order for the door to still be opened.
- Someone 12y ago
  From what I understand the door can be opened from the outside. If true, the only case where having a second person present would be one where an unrelated emergency develops that requires immediate attention at the moment the first person becomes unconscious. I think that scenario is handled by requiring both officers to be in the cockpit at the times where such emergencies are most likely to develop (take off and landing) Also, that second person would have to be able to fly the airplane. That would mean having a 3-person crew flying the plane (something that Airbus has worked hard at getting rid of for cost reasons), or having a bathroom in the cockpit (impractical, I guess) In this case I think a remote operator could have seen that something was wrong for minutes, and could have taken over control of the plane, but of course, having that ability carries its own risks.
- TillE 12y ago
  It's not an absolute solution, but it makes such a crime both psychologically and physically much more difficult. Turning a knob is impersonal and easy, but killing someone with your hands is neither.
  - Htsthbjig 12y ago
    "Turning a knob is impersonal and easy, but killing someone with your hands is neither." Killing someone is extremely easy if the other person trust you. You get behind her and hit her with a heavy object in the head or in the nape. If the pilot is busy doing something like piloting the plane, it is very easy for a copilot to get rid of her.

herge 12y ago

First, remember the Breaking News Consumer's Handbook: Airline Edition (https://media2.wnyc.org/i/620/620/l/80/1/BNCHAE.jpg https://media2.wnyc.org/i/620/620/l/80/1/BNCHAE.jpg). Second, I'm sure that Mr. Robin is a nice guy, but there's no need to publish his stray speculations just two days after the crash.

celticninja 12y ago
It seems pretty far from stray speculations. It is assumed after a check of the black box. That is ultimately what we rely on for an after the fact analysis. If we can't use that what do we use? And you want to wait a year to find out what happened to your loved ones?
- falcolas 12y ago
  > And you want to wait a year to find out what happened to your loved ones? "Your loved ones" died in an aircraft crash. They why of it matters less, and can wait for an accurate answer instead of rampant speculation. As for the year time frame, it really can take up to a year to figure out. As you say, they're working from an incomplete puzzle. Perhaps the black box does say XYZ, but is that the whole story? They added a lot more security hardware to cockpit doors of late, was it suffering a malfunction? Or perhaps the copilot was panicking trying to figure out how to work around a malfunctioning button and froze up? Or he was knocked unconscious by the sudden descent? Many of these aircraft are 15+ years old at this point, an electrical fault is certainly not out of the question. Speculation helps nobody but the press at this point. PS. To the downvoters, please remember that we're barely two days into the investigation, and we're relying on "silence" and a third party report on very preliminary findings to jump to these conclusions.
  - ceejayoz 12y ago
    The article specifically states the the recorder indicates the copilot dialed in a deliberate descent.
- huuu 12y ago
  Well my first thought was: if the pilot was unconscious he still was breathing. So we just have to wait a little longer and must take into account the answer will never be found.

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lolo_ 12y ago

Of course it's really early so you have to be very careful as to making judgements at this point, but if it really is pilot murder/suicide there is some (limited) precedence:- * An EgyptAir flight in 1999 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990 * A Silkair (Singapore airline) flight in 1997 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SilkAir_Flight_185 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SilkAir_Flight_185 There is debate in both flights as to whether it was murder/suicide, but the evidence is totally overwhelming that it was. Horrific but thankfully massively rare (as you might expect.) I do hope this isn't the cause here :(

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eik3_de 12y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAM_Mozambique_Airlines_Flight_470 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAM_Mozambique_Airlines_Flight_...
- caf 12y ago
  Also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Air_Maroc_Flight_630 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Air_Maroc_Flight_630 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_350 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_350 ...and of course deep suspicions remain about MH370.
laurencei 12y ago
The thing about those two flights is the pilots tried to make it look like an accident - but was ultimately determined to be intentional. In this case it would seem that no effort was made to hide the fact it was intentional.
- lolo_ 12y ago
  I don't think we know enough at this point to be sure of that at all (and we don't even know if it's murder/suicide.) Also I don't think you are correct about the Egyptair flight - that was more of a sudden dive, whereas on the Silkair flight the perpetrator intentionally disconnected the flight data and cockpit voice recorders. Just because the governments of the countries involved didn't like the outcome of the investigations (far more so in the case of the Egyptair flight) doesn't mean it was covered up by the perpetrators, this was clearly for political/religious reasons - the failure mode suggested by the Egyptian investigators was totally unsupported by evidence.

verytrivial 12y ago

These doors very effectively mean that control of the plane would be put into the hands of the cabin crew, but magnifies the cost of a rogue operator -- I am certain the risks were evaluated and the challenge of a determined suicidal pilot was ruled outside scope. And yes, there are emergency override codes, but there are also time override-overrides from within the cabin. Even if the protocol where two members of staff are always in the cabin was broken (or absent), again, that does not stop a rogue operator from despatching with the other person. The question is (hypothetical at this stage, there are a lot of details still unknown): have these type of doors already saved more lives than the ~150 tragically lost this week?

panarky 12y ago
How To Lock and Unlock Airbus A320 Cockpit Door - Description and Procedures https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixEHV7c3VXs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixEHV7c3VXs
- gadders 12y ago
  The acting in that video is first class.
  - Rooster61 12y ago
    I don't know. I think the actors could use a good... Coach. YEEEEAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH
frevd 12y ago
What about the much less hypothetical case that one of the pilots becomes unconscious while the other is out of the cabin. How is he supposed to get back in, ever?
- Tomte 12y ago
  Using the override. An unconscious pilot does not override the override.

whizzkid 12y ago

Does anyone know if there are any authorization levels implemented in airplane software ? If Pilot had a root pass for the door lock, this could have ended up differently. My sincerest condolences to families of passengers..

jackweirdy 12y ago
Only unless pilot/co-pilot roles were the same. If it were the pilot trying to crash the plane - there’d still be a problem
- brc 12y ago
  The issue with that is that the pilot can be tortured/blackmailed until they give up the password/code. The point with the designs now is that once they are locked, they stay locked, and no amount of killing hostages gets it opened.
hvidgaard 12y ago
The entire point of the door lock is to let control of the aircraft remain in the hands of the crew in the cockpit. If there was a root pass, that could be rendered useless - which is what they do not want.

mg1982 12y ago

I'm struck by how these pilots (chilling in itself that it's happened enough times to count as its own group) are described as being suicidal. While technically true, it detracts from the greater truth that they are mass-murderers. If someone shot up a mall and killed 150 people then ate a bullet, would we describe them as suicidal? I don't have a greater point I suppose, but it seems worth thinking about. Except, perhaps-- how do you go about 'screening' for inclination to mass-murder?

Florin_Andrei 12y ago
This responsibility is to great to leave it to humans. Automate this stuff.
- mikeash 12y ago
  There's always going to be a human involved at some point (at least until the machines take over, but then they probably won't be flying us around). If it's all automated, then instead of a crazy pilot killing everyone on his airliner, it might be a crazy programmer killing everyone on every airborne airliner.
  - nextw33k 12y ago
    Except there are checks and balances in place before software gets installed on a plane.
    - mikeash 12y ago
      Those don't always work. There are checks and balances in place before pilots get to fly airplanes, too.
      - nextw33k 12y ago
        > Those don't always work Of course not, nothing always works. You are implying that checks are worthless because they failed on this co-pilot. In the context of a pilots mental state verses malicious source code being installed on a set of flight computers, I'd have to say the computer is easier to validate. That many more people have to approve the process. With a pair of pilots the validation process is much smaller and more complex. We need to stop thinking that machines are flawed and that humans know best. The fact of life is that machines can and do perform better than humans, the only reason flight computers don't currently is that there hasn't been the investment in making them do so. Sensors fail but that is an engineering problem that can be solved.

prawn 12y ago

Is it realistic that we see human controls largely removed from passenger plane pilots? Or ground-based group overrides? I know that for the largest jets, pilots already operate within some sort of computer-decided 'envelope' (I think it's called) of reasonable decisions. I think we will see personal driving banned in some cities (CBDs at least) or routes in the coming decades as self-driving cars come to dominate our roads.

toyg 12y ago
There are enough instances of sensors and autopilot malfunctioning, there should always be manual-override procedures and a human operator available to take control. I don't see this changing any time soon.
ceejayoz 12y ago
I'd suspect the risks of a ground-control system would be substantially higher than the chance of a pilot deliberately crashing a plane every decade or so.
pwnna 12y ago
What if the plane flies out of that "envelop", where the computer can't make the correct judgement to control the plane?
userbinator 12y ago
The problem with automation is that it's completely dependent on inputs from sensors, and those do malfunction. This incident from last year involves fighting the automation due to exactly such a problem: http://www.aeroinside.com/item/4946/lufthansa-a321-near-bilbao-on-nov-5th-2014-loss-of-4000-feet-of-altitude http://www.aeroinside.com/item/4946/lufthansa-a321-near-bilb...

AndrewDucker 12y ago

At what point will pilot-lock outs have killed more people than they've saved?

Piskvorrr 12y ago
If I may venture a guess, "as of last week."
- corin_ 12y ago
  There's no way of telling though. Maybe a terrorist attack would have happened a week earlier if the terrorist didn't know they couldn't get past the locked door, so they didn't try it.
  - nullrouted 12y ago
    Horrible logic.
    - tobltobs 12y ago
      why?

danepowell 12y ago

It seems clear that in this case the co-pilot's actions were voluntary, but what if a co-pilot were to have a medical emergency while (s)he's alone in the cockpit? Would the pilot be able to re-enter? This seems like a huge risk that wasn't considered when the new strengthened cockpit doors were installed.

deleted 12y ago
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quonn 12y ago
Yes. The pilot can reenter using a numerical code, unless the co-pilot actively blocks it. Even that lock will unlock again after 20 minutes.
- frevd 12y ago
  In an emergency event you are most likely to forget secret codes. Some kind of biometric sensor would be better, although then attackers could take the authorized person hostage, so it is best to have it shared among two random crew people, simply by voice recognition.
  - arrrg 12y ago
    Apparently the other crew (flight attendants) knows that code, too. I think it’s unlikely everyone would forget it.
caf 12y ago
Apparently, on the A320 the pilot can use a keypad to re-enter the cockpit, but the door can be manually deadlocked from the inside.
wolfgke 12y ago
> It seems clear that in this case the co-pilot's actions were voluntary, but what if a co-pilot were to have a medical emergency while (s)he's alone in the cockpit? Would the pilot be able to re-enter? That's what I thought, too. Does the pilot also (always?) have a key to the cockpit door in his pocket (risk, because than a terrorist could steal it while the pilot goes to toilet) so that he could reenter the cockpit? So for me a plausible explanation is the the co-pilot had a medical emergency while alone in the cockpit. Now comes the question: Would pressing the descent button in this case perhaps even increase the chance of survival (in this case the co-pilot was doing a quick-witted decision) or not?

tobltobs 12y ago

I am astonished how many hn readers do follow this theorie, even it is much too early and too many open questions are left. Hackersheeps?

ghostprotocl 12y ago

It's still amazing how some obvious procedures aren't standard in many airlines until something horrible happens. There should be two people in the pit at all times. If the pilot goes to take a leak an attendant takes his place until he returns. It's not really a hard procedure to implement.

zk00006 12y ago

Honest question. Is this act of terrorism? If not why?

fishnchips 12y ago
1) No. 2) Because it does not attempt to advance any political agenda.
- zk00006 12y ago
  So this means that his reason must be personal and important only to himself. That leaves me wondering, what personal reason can one have to do such a thing?
  - ptaipale 12y ago
    It may come down more to a "state of mind" than "personal reason". I.e. nothing very rational. I guess investigators will look at his relationships, communications with other people before the flight, and so on.
sz4kerto 12y ago
From Wikipedia: "Terrorism is commonly defined as violent acts (or the threat of violent acts) intended to create fear (terror), perpetrated for a religious, political, or ideological goal, and which deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants (e.g., neutral military personnel or civilians)." This guy is a mass murdered, not a terrorist (in the usual sense of the word).
sangnoir 12y ago
> Terrorism is commonly defined as violent acts (or the threat of violent acts) intended to create fear (terror) It depends on the motivation of the pilot i.e. Did he intend to create fear? At this point the motivations remain unclear, so it can't be termed an act of terrorism.
roel_v 12y ago
Depends on whether the intent was to instill fear on the population at large (fear of something).

q2 12y ago

We need self driving planes too. Google and Musk, please do the favor. Thanks.

zk00006 12y ago
Experts are in fact skeptical against fully self-driving planes due to safety reasons.
- q2 12y ago
  If they are licensed to operate, why they are less secure than human driven planes? It is one more area where automation may drive human jobs away. May be self-driving planes is next stage of aviation evolution just like drones for military purposes.
  - danielbln 12y ago
    There was an incident just last November where the flight systems put a A320 into a nose dive towards the ground and the pilots had to restart the board systems in order to pull the machine up.
    - q2 12y ago
      My understanding is, the more hardware/software reliability,durability increases, the less may be the need for humans to intervene. If we look outside, technological trends and intents of organizational leaders are in the direction of more automation and lesser human dependence.
  - tim333 12y ago
    Computers are not yet capable of dealing with engine failure on take off as in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549 and probably some other system failures. Maybe in the future.
breitling 12y ago
Don't we already have planes that can take off, cruise, and land on their own.

breitling 12y ago

> Passengers were not aware of the impending crash "until very last moment" when screams could be heard This is nightmare fuel. I cannot imagine what they went through. No human should have to end their life this way...such a tragedy.

gonzo 12y ago
It's also unlikely to be true. If they can hear the pilot trying to break the cockpit door down on the CVR, then there is little doubt that most passengers on an A319 can also hear/see same. Maybe they didn't start screaming until it was obvious that they were going to crash, but they knew that the captain couldn't get back into the cockpit long before that.

lucio 12y ago

Does the A320 have some terrain-avoidance system?

erglkjahlkh 12y ago
It dislikes terrain alright. There's a master alarm and audible "pull up!" warning... If they ever release the complete tape the last minute or so will be very, very grim.

breitling 12y ago

How is it that each pilot doesn't have a key of their own, so as not to be locked out. No body saw this coming?

Florin_Andrei 12y ago
Maybe the lock was somehow jammed from inside?
dubbel 12y ago
There is a code pad that unlocks the door in case the pilot(s) don't answer the requests to open the door via intercom. The code does not however unlock the door immediately but activate a light and a beeping sound inside the cockpit for 30 seconds. Within this time frame the pilots can either decide to open the door immediately or to overwrite the unlocking, which locks the door for 5 minutes. This is to prevent attackers from entering even if they threaten to kill the crew member and thereby pressured them to enter the code. If the pilots don't react during the 30 seconds the door unlocks.

r721 12y ago

It's strange that pilot didn't leave a "voice suicide note" - it was very easy to do for him, but he chosen silence. The paper quoted in "suicide note" wikipedia article ([1]) says that "the note-leaving rate remained almost constant (23.4–36.2%)" [1] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1440-1819.2005.01364.x/abstract;jsessionid=9F5B2ADA229BB387091FBC959F7ACDA8.f01t04 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1440-1819.2005....

neumann 12y ago

This is all very premature, isn't it? It would be nice before someone is accused of deliberately killing 150 people for no reason to confirm that - the correct code was put in - there was no malfunction in the door release system - and the descent was deliberate I haven't read anything on possibly alternate scenarios causing the crash, yet they all seem more probable.

Rooster61 12y ago
You have a point, but it's pretty telling that they could hear the guy breathing and not responding to ATC, and that he took the plane into a nosedive the second the captain left the cabin. I really want to see what the data recorder says, though.

brianmcconnell 12y ago

An example of the law of unintended consequences. In the process of "terror proofing" airliners, we made them more vulnerable to a malicious/insane crewmember.

u04f061 12y ago

Let's call this a suicide attack and this co-pilot a terrorist. Secondly, find out his religion and prefix this with terrorist. Prefixing his race will also be a plus point. Once all unknowns are calculated, ask his religion/race fellows to apologize this act of terrorism.

RivieraKid 12y ago
That would make more sense if religion was linked to the attack.