Suicide By Plane

In a horrendous act, the co-pilot of a German airliner, Andreas Lubitz, intentionally flew the plane he was piloting at the time, into the French Alps, taking his own life and those of the 149 others onboard. The date was March 24, 2015, and at the time of the crash, Germanwings Flight 9525 was en route from Barcelona, Spain, to Dusseldorf, Germany. The plane took off from Barcelona around 10am local time and reached its cruising altitude of 38,000 feet at 10:27am. Shortly afterward, the captain, 34-year-old Patrick Sondenheimer, requested that the co-pilot, 27-year-old Andreas Lubitz, take over the controls while he left the cockpit, probably to use the restroom. At 10:31am the plane began a rapid descent and 10 minutes later crashed in mountainous terrain near the town of Prads-Haute-Bleone in southern France. The controlled flight into terrain left no survivors. Besides the two pilots, the doomed Airbus A320 was carrying four cabin crew members and 144 passengers from 18 different countries. Among the victims were three Americans.

During the post-crash investigation, the investigators found that when the captain left the cockpit, Lubitz locked the door and refused to let him back in. The black box they found recorded Sondenheimer desperately shouting at his co-pilot and trying to break down the door. Like most airlines, in an effort to prevent a 9/11 style attack, Lufthansa had reinforced the cockpit doors. Unfortunately, at the time of this horrible Germanwings crash, the airline was not required to have two crew members in the cockpit at all times like US airlines did. Flight data also revealed that earlier that day, Lubitz appeared to practice his suicide plan, repeatedly setting the plane’s altitude to just 100 feet when the captain was momentarily out, then quickly resetting it so that his plan went unnoticed.

In their investigation of Lubitz, the investigators found that he had a history of severe depression and, in the days before the crash, had searched online for suicide methods and information about cockpit-door security. It’s hard to know is a depressed person will commit suicide, but it seems to me that if this diagnosis was known, Lubitz should have been removed from flying duties. Nevertheless, while the German native who flew gliders as a teenager, had joined Lufthansa’s pilot-training program in 2008, but took a break in 2009, to receive treatment for psychological issues, he was allowed to return, earning his commercial pilot’s license in 2012. He began flying for Germanwings, a Lufthansa-owned budget airline, in 2013. In the months leading up to the crash, Lubitz visited multiple doctors for an undisclosed condition and had notes deeming him unfit to work, which he reportedly withheld from Lufthansa. Here again, the knowledge that he was a pilot should have caused the doctors to forward their findings to his company out of the utmost prudence. By the time all of this information came to light, it was too late.

Pilot suicides involving planes are uncommon. The New York Times reports that a US Federal Aviation Administration study found that, between 2003 and 2012, only eight out of 2,758 aviation accidents were determined to be suicides. While that is a good thing, it also indicates a need to better screen pilots on a regular basis. That may seem like an invasion of their privacy, but they are responsible for the lives of so many people every day, and they need to be held to a higher standard.