Preliminary Findings of Germanwings Crash Point to Murder/Suicide

As the stunned world tries to absorb the preliminary findings of authorities, the horrific reality of a deranged co-pilot killing 149 innocent souls and himself on purpose is hard to stomach. While there were many possibilities floating around until last night, the New York Times first broke the story leaked by an investigator in the case that cockpit recordings picked up the sound of one of the pilots desperately trying to gain access to the cockpit right up until the impact, while the pilot in the cockpit said nothing with no sound coming from him except steady breathing. The incident starts with the pilot gently knocking on the door and asking for entry, a request that was not answered. He then begins to beat loudly on the door. Then, in the minutes before impact, it sounds as if the door is being battered and the pilot is screaming to be let in. French authorities also confirmed the heartbreaking fact that the voice recorder picked up the screams of the panicked passengers right before impact.

The co-pilot, identified as German native 28 year old Andreas Lubitz, had been flying since 2008 and had no apparent health, mental or personal issues that would have warned of his plans to kill himself and a plane load of passengers including mothers and daughters, infants, and a group of school children on a holiday.

The line between suicide and homicide is a grey one in the aviation industry. It is reported that no less than 24 pilots have committed suicide in their private planes in the past 20 years in the United States, but none while piloting a commercial airliner. However, two instances of pilots committing murder/suicde while piloting a commercial plane do come to mind: in 1997 a pilot crashed a plane intentionally killing himself and 100 others; in 1999 an Egyptian plane from the US to Cairo was crashed by the pilot who whispered “I rely on God” – since he had locked the lead pilot out of the cockpit and taken over the flight, this was ruled suicide by the US, but Egypt never accepted the findings and 217 people were killed in that crash.

There are several other “mysterious” crashes that remain unsolved, the most famous one being Flight 370 from Malaysia that disappeared after veering off course and is assumed lost in the south Indian Ocean. It is possible that some of these could be pilot suicide.

In the United States, if one of the pilots leaves the cockpit, it is protocol for another flight member such as a steward/stewardess to stay in the cockpit until the pilot returns so that no pilot is ever left alone in the cockpit. It is also very easy for pilots to received mental health support and even to take anti-depressant drugs without being stigmatized. Other countries to not have these protocols in place.

France has officially asked the FBI to help in this investigation. They will be looking for a reason for the actions of this pilot. Was it depression? Problems in his personal life? Religious radicalization? We just won’t know for awhle. In the meantime, we mourn the loss of 149 innocent men, women and children at the hands of a callous and cowardly pilot who apparently wanted to die, but did not want to do it alone.

28 year old German co-pilot Andreas Lubitz