Comments on: This is unbearable

By: MarloweChris

MarloweChris — Sun, 29 Mar 2015 07:12:00 +0000

Taken in isolation, yes, but we have much more than that.

Will an unconscious person rotate a knob anti-clockwise 38 times to set the altitude from 38,000 feet to zero?

Each click is a thousand feet, the autopilot reverted to 100 because presumably, for obvious reasons, the manufacturer didn’t think anyone would want to set 0 feet.

That the altitude in the mode control panel was set to 100 feet is also independently confirmed by the telemetry from FR24, I posted the link a few replies above.

Then you have the rejection of the access code. The switch is on the captain’s side of the pedestal. It requires leaning over.

And also, there is a warning chime any time the cabin altitude exceeds 14,000 feet, which is where hypoxia starts to become a threat. This would be quite clearly distinguishable on the recording.

By: Daphne Caruana Galizia

Daphne Caruana Galizia — Sun, 29 Mar 2015 06:44:00 +0000

I don’t think you would know more than the specialists who actually assessed the evidence, and who spoke conclusively and without doubt.

This happened in a few seconds after the pilot left the cockpit. The entire thing took nine minutes.

By: Daphne Caruana Galizia

Daphne Caruana Galizia — Sun, 29 Mar 2015 06:34:00 +0000

Oh come on – he fell unconscious coincidentally a split second after his captain left the cockpit? The whole thing happened in just nine minutes from the captain leaving the cockpit to the crash.

By: Daphne Caruana Galizia

Daphne Caruana Galizia — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 09:18:00 +0000

It’s the French prosecutor (Marseilles) who gave the details to the press, not Lufthansa. So yes, we can be sure that those are the facts. He’s a state prosecutor, not a rep for an airline.

By: me

me — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 08:10:00 +0000

In reply to Daphne Caruana Galizia. He was receiving psychiatric counselling until the day before the crash.

By: me

me — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 08:09:00 +0000

Unlikely. It has since been reported that the man may have only recently been dumped by his girlfriend, and was receiving psychiatric care until the day before the deliberate crash.

By: Tabatha_White

Tabatha_White — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 05:38:00 +0000

I doubt there is any explanation or possible hypothesis that could make sense of the horror and devastation wreaked.

In the absence of new information, it is not an impossible hypothesis.

Statistics can only be based on what has previously occurred. It is possible that this tragedy contains new elements not previously taken into account, or copied.

By: pete ross

pete ross — Thu, 26 Mar 2015 21:38:00 +0000

In reply to C Falzon.

As soon as I saw the flight’s time-altitude reconstruction, my suspicions immediately fell on a suicidal pilot.

The Malaysia plane disaster could have had a similar fate but that plane’s actual flight route is unknown and cannot be traced and reconstructed.

It will remain a mystery and unfortunately the victims’ families may never see closure.

By: Daphne Caruana Galizia

Daphne Caruana Galizia — Thu, 26 Mar 2015 20:41:00 +0000

In reply to C Falzon. Yes, but that's exactly what happened, whether you can picture it or not.

By: C Falzon

C Falzon — Thu, 26 Mar 2015 18:48:00 +0000

“So the immediate and largely unspoken suspicions were correct – that this was a case of pilot suicide.”
I don’t actually see the supposed evidence that this was the case.

The sum total of evidence, at least in as much as what was released to the public, is that the co-pilot was silent after the pilot left the cockpit, that he did not open the door and that he put the plane into a controlled descent, not even a dive or anything of the sort.

If he wanted to crash the plane why put it in a precisely controlled descent on autopilot that would last several minutes rather than just pointing the plane at the ground, shutting off the engines or putting the plane into an uncontrolled spin or something of the sort?

I cannot quite picture the co-pilot calmly dialling in the rate of descent on the autopilot, pressing the button to activate it and then just sitting there calmly waiting for the plane to hit the ground.