Passenger plane carrying 142 passengers has crashed in the French Alps

[Pantone363]

BBC link

I'm trying to shield ds (age 11) from all the news reports as he is off on a school trip by plane on Monday.

This is such an awful, saddening update. I was so hoping for the passengers and crew that the descent was due to decompression and that they had all passed out and knew nothing about it. RIP and deepest sympathy to their families and friends.

It is very sad, and very upsetting when you were thinking that everyone who died was innocent.

Why would anyone having a heart attack lock the door in two separate ways

I think you've misunderstood. The door has three modes which can be selected by the flight crew without leaving their seats - unlock, normal and lock. In normal mode the door is locked but can be opened from the outside using a touchpad. In lock mode it cannot be opened from the outside. It seems the door was in lock mode which is certainly very suspicious but it is not impossible for someone to lock the door then be taken seriously ill. I don't know if it is possible for them to put the door into lock mode accidentally, e.g. by knocking a switch.

the BBC article says that he was alive up to the point of impact and wanted to 'destroy the plane'

Yes, that is what prosecutors are saying. They may well be right. However, if you look at the history of crash investigations you will find cases where prosecuting authorities have jumped to conclusions before the investigation is finished and which subsequently turned out to be wrong. There have even been cases of prosecutors obstructing the experts who were trying to figure out what really happened. That is why I am concerned that the prosecutors appear to be running ahead of the investigation.

They don't seem to have any evidence for the assertion that the co-pilot wanted to destroy the plane. The only evidence they have given publicly to support their position is that the co-pilot was still breathing. If that is the case he was still alive but it doesn't rule out the possibility that he had become incapacitated. They say the co-pilot "presses the buttons of the flight monitoring system to put into action the descent of the aeroplane". That statement worries me. Until they have the other black box (which records control inputs) it is pure speculation. It may, of course, be that the cockpit voice recorder reveals the co-pilot shouting out his intention to crash the plane but they certainly haven't made that public.

Note that I am not saying the prosecutors are wrong. It is quite possible they are right. I'm just concerned that they are making these announcements before the crash investigation has reached any conclusions.

Thank God he didn't try to fly it into a populated area. I just can't fathom why someone would do this.

I can't bear to think the passengers knew what was going to happen. I only hope that if they did, it was only in the final seconds and death was instant.

I hope they aren't running ahead of the investigation.

^This, very strongly.

Watching the Lufthansa press conference in German. Even Lufthansa seems to now be agreeing with the prosecution but they don't know the motive...

prh Isn't the switch covered, so you can't accidentally knock it?

Watching the press conference, couldn't believe the Lufthansa CEO didn't see the need to change the procedure that you can have someone on their own in the cockpit. Apparently in the U.S. you must cannot leave a pilot alone in the cockpit. That seems sensible.

I think they must have only known when they got fairly close to the ground.

I've had a sudden thought for the host families of the exchange children as well - obviously nothing like what the families who lost children are going through but imagine having been the last person responsible for them and waving them off to their teachers and then hearing later :(

The cockpit lock only lasts 5 minutes. So if the pilot accidentally knocked it and then passed out, those outside the door would have been able to try and get in again 5 minutes later.
Since they weren't able to, it seems the pilot probably activated the door lock twice, which is considerably less likely to be accidental.

Or the door malfunctioned and the pilot also became incapacitated in the one minute window between the captain leaving the cockpit and returning.

Or the pilot in the cockpit was conscious, but so disorientated perhaps, for some sort of medical or physiological reason that he was trying to open the door and actually locking it, and trying to fly the plane and actually making it descend.

Have been in a bit of a trance today. Two people who I knew have been in the news today, one who died in the plane crash and a mother who choked whilst sleeping.

So so sad.

I think now, when news breaks about a plane crash, we wonder if it was an accident or something else. A missing plane, a plane shot down in Ukraine, of course we will wonder.

When news broke, some things stood out - the descent not been sudden, the plane being intact before crashing, the confusion over mayday signals. I didn't jump to any conclusions but I also didn't automatically assume it was an accident either.
It looks like the passengers weren't aware until the last moment, I hope that brings some comfort to the families.

prh I thought I read that they heard the noise of him inputting the descent into the controls. It's a physical switch or a dial or something.

So sad. So many lives in tatters.

Isn't the switch covered, so you can't accidentally knock it?

You don't normally need to operate any covered switches to put an aircraft into descent. It isn't immediately dangerous. But the big question for me is how the prosecutors can claim to know that particular controls have been used. They only have the cockpit voice recorder which records sounds in the cockpit. They don't have the flight data recorder which tells them what control inputs the pilots have made. Again, I'm not saying they are wrong. It just seems a bit early to make that call.

I think the switch in question is the door lock.

I think the switch in question is the door lock

Very unlikely to be covered. You only cover switches if the pilot needs to think twice before using it. The door lock is not safety critical so would not usually be covered.

lem73

I think that inevitably, it will be like in the US one day, and cabin crew will come in when a pilot has to go to the loo.

Did you watch it in German? It could be a translation issue, because from what I heard, he said that though he didn't feel the need to change it now (because not one European airline does that), he would discuss procedures with various other entities in future. It will likely involve more training for certain cabin crew members, etc. - you can't make that decision just because a journalist asked.

Oh fcuk I am so sorry xx

So now it looks it was a suicide after all. But why did he have to kill all the people onboard, all these children. The distress of their parents who weren't there. It's very upsetting.

just seen that this looks like a deliberate act. so so awful

If the reports are true it's not a sad suicide, he was a mass murderer.

As the CEO of Lufthansa said: "If the co-pilot did do this deliberately, then there are other words I would use rather than 'suicide'."

This is just terrible. Those poor people must have realised the plane was descending over the mountains and seen the increasing distress of the Captain. They would have known for some minutes what was going on. Utterly tragic.

I think that this should result in the reinstatement of Flight Engineers who would be the third person on the flight deck. I know that I'd prefer to pay more for my flights to pay for them.