The Top 40

Malaysian airliners go down in uncivilized places, such as the middle of oceans in the middle of the night. Or over war zones, where none but eagles dare.

But Germans? In the Alps? Yes it's very strange the reports of this one. Of course it's in the middle of nowhere near as you can get in EU. Why would a jet liner ever crash into a city? Actually it's happened in Portland, but I digress, it's like tornados and trailers. Jets and mountains love each other.

My best guess is we are simply not being told the truth. This one stinks, and the authorities are mum. We'll forget in a few news cycles.

Who was on this plane, BTW? Important people always die in plane crashes... usually because important people fly. But it adds a little juice to the story.

Perhaps it was international bankers that got crashed rather than defenestrated.

I suspect there is a reason we haven't seen the pilots names. This is usually released early. What are the odds that Detlef locked Abdul out of the cockpit and then commanded a crash into the mountains? The odds are higher it was vice versa. This aircrew is trained to Lufthansa standards, not RyanAir standards.

This "locked out of the cockpit", if it's true, fits with the unusual details that we know now. Decompression, doesn't make sense. Mechanical failure doesn't fit very well. "Locked out of the cockpit" hasn't been confirmed. If it is my money is on deliberate action for a cause.

This a/c is near the end of it's normal commercial life, if it hasn't received a life extension program. I think Airbus expected this A-320 to fly 60,000 hours and 48,000 cycles. This a/c had 58,000 hrs and 47,000 cycles.It's not clear if this a/c was treated to the extension program, being under the Lufthansa roof I imagine it was in darn good condition, whatever it's age.

It's last departure was delayed for a squawk about the nose-gear door, which in most cases would not suggest anything serious or related to possible later pressurization problems UNLESS it was recently subject to a hard landing. The most recent maintenance check was little more than a expanded walk-around and fluids check, which likely couldn't not have been fouled up enough to generate a catastrophic accident later.

What you are getting is just how impotent governments are. All the sabre rattling, threats of martial law and troops in the streets, they actually cannot function with a bit of sand in the gears.

Gandhi knew the power of passive resistance WHICH is why he outlawed it when he came to power.

And there is not an external cipher lock on the cabin door to prevent "accidental" lock outs? The barest of minimal safety precautions overlooked. What else have they failed to see?

There is indeed, a code that can be used to open the door from the outside, however, that access can be blocked from inside the cabin to prevent forced entry. In this case, it seems that the wayward first officer turned off that access method.

We will see more and more of these incidents as the combatants wage 4GW.

Fourth Generation Warfare is defined as conflicts which involve the following elements:
• Are complex and long term
• Terrorism (tactic)
• A non-national or transnational base –highly decentralized
• A direct attack on the enemy's culture
• Highly sophisticated psychological warfare, especially through media manipulation and lawfare
• All available pressures are used – political, economic, social and military
• Occurs in low intensity conflict, involving actors from all networks
• Non-combatants are tactical dilemmas
• Lack of hierarchy
• Small in size, spread out network of communication and financial support
• Use of insurgency and guerrilla tactics

Where is Capt. Dave of Flight Level 390 now that we need him?

When did the co-pilot convert to Islam?

My vote, the co-pilot lost a stewardess to the pilot and gave them both plenty of time to think about it on the way down. The Van der Leun murder rule--it's always about a woman.

He could be a closet Greek and pissed at what the Germans are doing over the EU/Greek money dust-up.

As Cicero or Groucho Marx might say. "Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar."
The crasher is reported to have suffered from depression. Who hasn't?
All airplanes should obviously be piloted only on the ground at very low speeds for safety's sake.
Oceans can be drained to permit intercontinental airplane trips, or, the planes can be moved on barges.
1000's of people die every year due to government mandated fuel economy standards [CAFE standards], which auto makers meet, in part, by light-weighting their cars. This increases the risk of injury during collisions.
Who cares among the supposedly sane government and industry vultures?

A few years ago, while flying on a passenger jet, my plane passed perilously close to another jet going the opposite direction in the same lane, so to speak. I don't know how to estimate the distance between the airplanes (and it was over in 1-Mississippi, 2-Mississippi), but I could see the heads of the passengers through the windows of the other plane). I took that as a sign to stop flying.

As my Dad would say, if the pilot and co-pilot are not ex-US military fliers and not native American born, do NOT board the aircraft. Period.

Last time I flew commercially I had 2 long guns and 2 short guns and 300+ rds of ammo and numerous blades IN THE CABIN WITH ME on a hunting/trapping/fishing excursion back from Alaska. It was Western Airlines from Anchorage to Seattle. $99 one way.

Shortly there after the gov't stepped in and declared that no person shall be equipped to protect themselves on any commercial aircraft ever and I never flew again. That was in 1980.

I used to enjoy flying very much and it pisses me to no end that these rotten assed criminals stepped in and hijacked the whole thing.

I will NEVER allow any gov't employee to have control over my life ever.

It seems plausible that the pilot died or had a catastrophic depressurization event in the cockpit. Its standard policy, from what I understand, to lock the cockpit door even when one of the pilots leaves. If the pilot was unconscious or dead...

Talk about a feature becoming a bug...

No Christopher, loss of cabin pressure is not indicated by any evidence. In fact if there had been a decompression the cockpit door would have unlocked. If the descent was in response to a loss of pressurization the drill would include starting down AND changing course. So the pilot would have had to die at they very instant between twisting one knob and twisting the knob beside the first. This a/c didn't change heading like that.

The cockpit door is locked when it is closed. A keypad on cabin side of door can be used to open door. However the pilot has a switch to either lock another lock or prevent the keypad code from opening for a limited time. This aircraft also has video camera so pilots can see who is t door before opening it.

In the US, and some or many airlines in Europe, a cabin crew member enters the cockpit if one pilot leaves cockpit so as to prevent this and other situations.

Doesn't have to be depressurization though, could have been just health problems - the pilot had bad health but kept it private, might have just passed out or died.

Sometimes a suicide killer is just a suicide killer.

When did the co-pilot convert to Islam?

During a six-month break in his flight training, apparently.

http://speisa.com/modules/articles/index.php/item.1086/the-co-pilot-of-the-germanwings-airbus-was-a-convert-to-islam.html

Occam's Razor scores again.

This co-pilot didn't just die at the controls. He actively locked the cockpit door using a switch that is almost out of arms reach and almost as far behind him as you can locate a switch. Just like MH370, ACTION was taken at precisely the right moment a plotter would take it, and the ACTION was exactly the action you would take to hijack the aircraft.

If he died at controls, the descent would not have started and remained the orderly descent of this aircraft, the door would not have been locked. The aircraft would have flown it's route as programmed in the Flight Management Computer (FMC) or maintained course and altitude on the Mode Control Panel (MCP) until the Captain returned to the cockpit or fuel exhaustion.

What strikes me as meaningful are the similarities in all three plane crashes. Not the nuts & bolts how to but the remote crash sites, the bland level of airline and passengers, almost like this was the junior varsity team, not the champs going down. And no one has stepped up, take credit.
Could be practice runs by a super-power;
Could be someone or something being carried on an obscure airline to avoid being noticed;
Could be stage setting for a huge threat: "if you don't give us whatever ... you see what we did those three planes, uh?"

There must be a lot of communications behind the scenes, some power brokers and heads of state. “If you don’t give us the deed to the ranch … you see what happened, them airplanes?”

Either that or more international bankers. The bank doesn’t come up with the vigorish we send in Louie the Hammer.

You get the feeling, a lot of these incidents we’re not tethered to the ground anymore? It is beyond real, more like a James Bond movie or Superman, the villain will unleash the mega-plague-bomb-quake, shift the Earth on its axis if we don’t pay him.

Thing is, who? And what do they want? 4GW only works if the victim sees the options.

Let's posit that an Air Force One pilot goes rogue (let's assume for some future President) in the very same manner. If the President is on board, what would be the response? What is the failsafe?

OK more information indicates that he had mental illness, a kind of mid life breakdown and his girlfriend had broken up with him. He was a recent Muslim convert as well, but how much that applies is not clear.

Apparently his apartment had lots of little crumpled and torn up notes like random bits of a manifesto

The thing about crazy is it doesn't make sense.

@Joan, the prez jettisons the escape pod, ala' "Escape from New York".

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082340/

The geniuses who designed cockpit safety have wasted no time. The new rules are that there must be two in the cockpit at all times. That'll take care of it! The mass killer suicide pilot has been made helpless!

Egypt Air 990 had two qualified pilots at the controls. One was diving for the ocean and shutting off the engines, and one pulling for a recovery.