Wednesday, April 01, 2015

Flight 4U 9525

A tragedy happened on the 24th March 2015. A passenger airplane owned by Germanwings left Barcelona on its usual destination to Dusseldorf in Germany shortly after 9am. At about 9:30am the pilot leaves his seat to visit the toilet, leaving his co-pilot in control. The cockpit door auto-locks as the pilot exits and while he is off the flight deck the co-pilot inexplicably and apparently deliberately hits a control that puts the plane into descent for landing. In just over 10 minutes the plane crashes into the French alps. During those frantic minutes the pilot attempts to get into the cockpit but is unable.
There is a lot of media speculation that the co-pilot deliberately crashed the plane over a break-up with his girlfriend. The media reports of depressive episodes in the 28 year olds life. The truth is that nobody knows what happened. There was no response from the cockpit. The descent for landing was however it seems a controlled act. I feel a deep sense of shock and disbelief for the families of the 150 innocent people on board the aircraft. Who knows what state the co-pilot was in mentally. From the flight deck recorder there was nothing to suggest anything untoward was about to happen. Was it a cold, planned act? There was again some speculation about him saying something about him being remembered infamously.
Airplane disasters are thankfully not very common but we do hear about them a lot it seems. My wife and daughter are flying this Easter weekend. I will be relieved to hear from them after their flights.

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