
Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane' - wldlyinaccurate
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32063587
======
mg1982
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?

~~~
koyote
As there have been quite a few incidences of a pilot intentionally crashing a
plane, It would be interesting to see if the ratio of mass-murdering pilots to
pilots is larger than mass-murderers vs the adult population.

~~~
ArturSoler
This would have to be adjusted to the fact that most people is not usually in
a position to easily kill this many people, while pilots are in a mostly daily
basis.

~~~
RobertoG
You could check against bus drivers for instance.

------
verytrivial
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?

~~~
mjburgess
Or to put it in a more general way: is security theatre now costing lives?

~~~
mrec
To be fair, reinforced cockpit doors is pretty much the one measure that's NOT
dismissed as security theatre.

~~~
VLM
I can't imagine a more false statement, as the business model before 9/11 was
do nothing and cooperate and everyone will be safe, and the business model
after 9/11 is every person on the plane must rush the hijackers or thousands
will be killed. So the reinforced door is a response to a problem that no
longer exists.

Ideally you'd have a door that is strong enough to be "people proof" for long
enough for the entire passenger compartment to rush a dude, but not strong
enough to survive the entire passenger compartment trying to get in and save
the plane in this situation. Something that can survive a couple kicks but
isn't a bank vault door. Pretty much a typical apartment door would be about
right.

~~~
ptaipale
> _So the reinforced door is a response to a problem that no longer exists._

I very much disagree. Previously, an attacker could get to the cockpit by
surprise and by suddenly overwhelming cabin crew. That is now much. much more
difficult.

~~~
nullrouted
How? The door is still locked, just not heavily reenforced. Passengers are
going to notice someone trying to kick the door down and you can believe that
person will be taken care of quickly.

~~~
ptaipale
Safety procedures in airplanes are generally not based on "passengers are
going to notice and react". If you have a specific role for some passengers,
like subduing disruptive individuals or opening and operating an emergency
exit, the passengers are informed and qualified for the job. For instance, if
you sit on an exit row, you need to be physically agile enough, and the crew
instructs you to learn how to operate the door.

------
lolo_
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 :(

~~~
brc
The Egyptair flight had the crashing pilot saying prayers to Allah all the way
down, captured on the voice recorder. The engines were shut off and the other
officer was fighting the stick all the way down. There is zero doubt as to
what happened, only a political cover up by Egypt air authorities after they
realised what had happened.

~~~
lolo_
Yes this is what I said - 'but the evidence is totally overwhelming that it
was'. But it is worth highlighting, particularly in the Egyptair case!

------
herge
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.

~~~
vixen99
The co-pilot was breathing normally for ten minutes while the door was being
hammered repeatedly. Interpreting this as 'deliberate' inaction is hardly
'stray speculation'.

~~~
johnchristopher
Isn't that a little bit off he didn't mutter any words after seizing the
opportunity of his co-worker's unplanned leaving of the cockpit ?

~~~
pdabbadabba
Do we know that he didn't? My impression from investigations like this in the
past is that facts tend to be released along with the conclusions that they
support, presumably to keep public speculation from getting way out ahead of
the actual investigation.

I would not be surprised to learn in the coming days that he did say things.
But I don't think we'll find out until the investigators have a solid grasp of
what this means for the investigation.

~~~
johnchristopher
Fair point. But if he did I suppose it would clarify the situation and we
would know it.

------
celticninja
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
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.

~~~
TillE
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
"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.

~~~
pdabbadabba
> 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.

That makes it _physically_ easy, but the psychological demands of that
situation are clearly very different from turning a knob. I think there's good
reason to think that there are people who would do the former, but not the
latter. If the pilot is inclined to crash the plane due to overwhelming
depression, for example, I doubt that this pilot is likely to also kill a
flight attendant with his bare hands.

------
danepowell
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.

~~~
quonn
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
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
Apparently the other crew (flight attendants) knows that code, too. I think
it’s unlikely everyone would forget it.

------
followers
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
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.

------
znt
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.

~~~
jordigh
I am not a pilot, but my father was and I have a brother who is. When my dad
flew, up until the early '00s and past the WTC attacks, there were only yearly
medical exams. No psych exams. Like many other pilots, my brother is an
alcoholic, and this has given him trouble with some airlines, so he has taken
jobs in the Arab world and east Asia (we're Mexican, from Mexico). As far as I
know, the airlines have never offered him direct help for his alcoholism.

Btw, my brother knew some details about the accident before they were public
news, I assume there must be some pilot grapevine where more details about the
accident must be shared. Like I imagine most other pilots must be, he's very
shaken by the incident. It's a matter of professional pride amongst the pilot
community, I assume.

My father would sometimes be called as an expert witness for blackbox
analysis. As a child, I remember him falling into deep depression whenever he
had to do that, and he was always given a couple weeks' vacation time whenever
that happened.

~~~
caf
There's actually a forum called the Professional Pilots Rumour Network:
[http://www.pprune.org/](http://www.pprune.org/)

~~~
jordigh
Thanks, I didn't know this. There's some fascinating speculation from two days
ago about what happened in this thread:

[http://www.pprune.org/rumours-
news/558654-airbus-a320-crashe...](http://www.pprune.org/rumours-
news/558654-airbus-a320-crashed-southern-france.html)

------
r721
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....](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1440-1819.2005.01364.x/abstract;jsessionid=9F5B2ADA229BB387091FBC959F7ACDA8.f01t04)

------
neumann
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
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.

------
ghostprotocl
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.

------
Dorian-Marie

        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
2025, Q2: Airbus remote execution vulnerability discovered. (Did you just
assume 100% reliable HW+SW, _on Hacker News_? That's some serious
handwaving...)

~~~
Kurtz79
You can hardly compare an embedded software running on an Airplane to an
Internet facing web server.

~~~
Piskvorrr
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...](http://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/16696-FACT-CHECK-SCADA-
Systems-Are-Online-Now.html)

(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_...](https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/pubs/koopman14_toyota_ua_slides.pdf)
)

------
breitling
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?

~~~
dubbel
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.

------
breitling
> 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
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.

------
quonn
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).

~~~
damon_c
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.

------
Htsthbjig
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.

------
BerislavLopac
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
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).

------
prawn
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.

~~~
ceejayoz
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.

------
maaarghk
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?

~~~
uptown
The NY Times article has a good description of the cockpit door override
procedures.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/27/world/europe/germanwings-c...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/27/world/europe/germanwings-
crash.html)

In the best-case scenario, if someone in the cockpit wants to keep people out,
it sounds like the security mechanisms provide a way to do for for at least
five and a half minutes.

~~~
BuildTheRobots
Thanks for the link -though I'm baffled why NYT seems to think when I double
click I want the page to change zoom levels rather than highlighting the word
I'm interested in o_0

edit: oh, they just make it impossible to select text at all... nice.

------
u04f061
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
That would make more sense if religion was linked to the attack.

------
gadders
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!

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

~~~
Piskvorrr
If I may venture a guess, "as of last week."

~~~
corin_
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
Horrible logic.

~~~
tobltobs
why?

------
q2
We need self driving planes too. Google and Musk, please do the favor. Thanks.

~~~
zk00006
Experts are in fact skeptical against fully self-driving planes due to safety
reasons.

~~~
q2
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
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
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.

------
skc
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.

------
whizzkid
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
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
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.

------
lsadam0
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
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
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?

~~~
mikeash
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.

------
brianmcconnell
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.

------
zk00006
Honest question. Is this act of terrorism? If not why?

~~~
fishnchips
1) No. 2) Because it does not attempt to advance any political agenda.

~~~
zk00006
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
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.

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

------
lucio
Does the A320 have some terrain-avoidance system?

~~~
erglkjahlkh
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.

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

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

------
tobltobs
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?

