- Jan 3, 2012
- 17,354
So they let a nut job fly a plane?
Quite a high proportion of people are "nut-jobs", as you so nicely put it, many, if not most, of whom manage to lead normal lives with the right help and support.
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[News] Plane gone down in the French Alps?
- Thread starter Smeagull
- Start date
Quite a high proportion of people are "nut-jobs", as you so nicely put it, many, if not most, of whom manage to lead normal lives with the right help and support.
So they let a nut job fly a plane?
It looks like it. If so, Lufthansa are going to cop it. And the HR departments in all airlines around the world are now scrambling to check their pilots files.
If he did fly a plane with 149 people on it into a mountain (which is the consensus at the moment) then I think the use of the word nut-job is understandable. No doubt the families will be using stronger language.
I am all in favour of people getting all the help they need to live their lives, but in some professions rightly a higher standard is required. Surely you want the person flying your plane to be as robust a character as possible. I can imagine that Lufthansa were all PC and said we should give the bloke a chance - probably euro legislation says they had to. Well that worked out well didn't it. But I am getting ahead of myself, should wait for more information to emerge before judging.
- Jan 3, 2012
- 17,354
While being all for people with mental health issues being given as much chance as possible, I would also (obviously) want to maintain public safety. Would the simple expedient of never allowing one person to be alone in the cockpit have avoided this?
I had a cousin who ,took his own life a few years ago. he was a happy-go-lucky sort of person for the most part, but he had absolutely no mental health "official record", if you get my drift. Not everybody is diagnosed, so this could happen again with someone of whom the employer and the authorities are totally unaware. It might be highly unlikely, but........
And the (or rather another) scary thing is that, for this pilot, what he did at the time would have probably seemed perfectly rational and "the right thing to do".
Uncle Spielberg
Well-known member
The Police have found something of " high significance " whilst searching through the home of his parents where he lived which is being sent for tests
First and foremost, I am sorry about your cousin and I can understand why you dislike that word. I would too.
I am certain there are many undiagnosed people out there, but the problem for Lufthansa is that this co-pilot HAD been diagnosed. Letting him fly, effectively unaccompanied (as there is no 2 pilot rule), was criminal. Lufthansa could struggle to survive this.
Oh yes, a certainty I'd say.
FFS. It's amazing the amount of total idiots a human disaster like this drags out.
Uncle Spielberg
Well-known member
So they let a nut job fly a plane?
Obviously everyone that suffers from depression is a " nut job " you are correct. The trouble is, it is this attitude that prevents people seeking help as they may then be labelled a " nut job ". I wonder how many people working in the UK today are " nut jobs " ? 1 million, 5 million, 10 million ?
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Wow, just wow. There are some regular cocks on NSC but I think you've managed to surpass them all.
Referring to someone with a mental illness as a 'nut job' is merely crass, dumb and insensitive.
To follow that up with some totally uninformed conspiracy theory that it's all somehow the fault of the EU and the PC brigade, in the total absence of any evidence to back up that viewpoint, because you 'imagine' that to be the case is not only up there with the faked moon landings and Elvis is alive viewpoints, but also takes the Irony-O-Meter into the red zone.
The pilot, in your opinion, is a 'nut job' but your mental wellbeing and assessment of what happened based on your 'imagination' are apparently fine and dandy.
Staggering stuff, just staggering.
Hillian1
( . ) ( . )
Although I "get" what you are trying to say, the very fact this person flew a plane into a mountain killing 149 innocent souls makes him very much "A Nut Job" IMHO.
Well put.
Mellor 3 Ward 4
Well-known member
Completely agree with your comments about mental health, but your flippant post above on this same thread really is bang out of order too.
Uncle Spielberg
Well-known member
No more so than anyone else with severe depression except he had the ability to cause upmost destruction within his profession, it is the labelling of people who have the condition as nut jobs that will not help long term, so I agree he should have been helped far more and far earlierand the fact he was in this position suggests some very serious errors were made during the whole tragic sequence of events
If my post was made in isolation I would say fair comment, but it was in response to someone trying to make political capital out of a tragedy. I was trying to highlight the issue, in an albeit hamfisted way, that there is nothing to be gained by point scoring when something of this nature happens (but apologies all the same if I have caused offence, none was intended).
Scoffers
Well-known member
We'll need to wait for the proper investigation of course, but if it is confirmed that he indeed had a mental condition that was known to Lufthansa, then it is diffucult to fathom why he has permitted to continue to fly given the strict nature of pilot selection.
34064 Fighter Command
New member
No amount of checking, testing, technology, medical treatment or hindsight can ever counter a scenario where a SERIES of events COMBINE to cause this kind of incident. It isn't the individual factors, it is the combination of MANY factors coming into alignment that gives someone the intent, the ability, and the opportunity to choose their 'exit' strategy. What is common is that, having made a concious decision to commit suicide, they have no concern whatsoever for the consequences of their actions.
All anyone can do is to look at the risks involved, and ensure that they are 'managed'. There is always a risk that any one of us will 'flip', given the right provocation, usually one where others question our 'self worth' or 'right to exist'. Humans have an ancient 'fight or flight' reaction which would normally suggest that we should never put our trust in bus/taxi drivers, train drivers, pilots, ships captains, armed police, hospital surgeons, even the car driver who stops to let you across the road etc. Yet we put our trust and our lives in their hands without even thinking about it.
In many cases, it is giving them that trust which will enable them to do their job BETTER, because you acknowledge their ability to control your destiny, which in term reinforces their ego and sense of purpose on the planet. It is when they are exposed to sudden traumatic and unexepected circumstance that may arise away from their professional life (and over which we have no knowledge or control) that their ego can 'instantaneously' collapse and they transpose the feelings of revenge from the person who villified them to the wider populous. And then they may start to become irrational, because there is no rational reason as to why that transposition of the desire to seek revenge takes place, from the guilty party who caused the trauma, to an innocent victim who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The only way to counter this is to smile, be happy, and try and make those who meet you as happy as possible, even if you cannot do anything to change their situation, a sympathetic ear may be all that is needed. People have to be able to give their anger a release, expecting them to bottle it up or suppress it ( often by training people to act calmly in stressful situations like Pilots may have to ) is often the WORST thing to do.
All anyone can do is to look at the risks involved, and ensure that they are 'managed'. There is always a risk that any one of us will 'flip', given the right provocation, usually one where others question our 'self worth' or 'right to exist'. Humans have an ancient 'fight or flight' reaction which would normally suggest that we should never put our trust in bus/taxi drivers, train drivers, pilots, ships captains, armed police, hospital surgeons, even the car driver who stops to let you across the road etc. Yet we put our trust and our lives in their hands without even thinking about it.
In many cases, it is giving them that trust which will enable them to do their job BETTER, because you acknowledge their ability to control your destiny, which in term reinforces their ego and sense of purpose on the planet. It is when they are exposed to sudden traumatic and unexepected circumstance that may arise away from their professional life (and over which we have no knowledge or control) that their ego can 'instantaneously' collapse and they transpose the feelings of revenge from the person who villified them to the wider populous. And then they may start to become irrational, because there is no rational reason as to why that transposition of the desire to seek revenge takes place, from the guilty party who caused the trauma, to an innocent victim who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The only way to counter this is to smile, be happy, and try and make those who meet you as happy as possible, even if you cannot do anything to change their situation, a sympathetic ear may be all that is needed. People have to be able to give their anger a release, expecting them to bottle it up or suppress it ( often by training people to act calmly in stressful situations like Pilots may have to ) is often the WORST thing to do.
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father_and_son
Well-known member
I understand the comments of [MENTION=31]El Presidente[/MENTION], [MENTION=409]Herr Tubthumper[/MENTION] and others.
However, on the evidence currently available, I would challenge that this is more comparable to some "nut job" committing a massacre in a school or shopping centre than the tragic events of someone taking too many pills or throwing themselves under a train.
Suicide is often referred to as "selfish" because of the impact on those left behind (and just for the record, I see that impact in my own extended family), but this guy could have taken a single engined plane up alone (he was a member of a small flying school) and smacked that into a mountain if he wanted a way out, rather than what is in effect commit mass murder in taking 149 other people down with him.
Whilst I am usually with you guys in sympathising with the actions of the mentally ill when desperation hits, but this time (on the evidence so far), I really really can't find it in myself to have anything but contempt in exactly the same way I have for mass murders.
However, on the evidence currently available, I would challenge that this is more comparable to some "nut job" committing a massacre in a school or shopping centre than the tragic events of someone taking too many pills or throwing themselves under a train.
Suicide is often referred to as "selfish" because of the impact on those left behind (and just for the record, I see that impact in my own extended family), but this guy could have taken a single engined plane up alone (he was a member of a small flying school) and smacked that into a mountain if he wanted a way out, rather than what is in effect commit mass murder in taking 149 other people down with him.
Whilst I am usually with you guys in sympathising with the actions of the mentally ill when desperation hits, but this time (on the evidence so far), I really really can't find it in myself to have anything but contempt in exactly the same way I have for mass murders.
Scoffers
Well-known member
If this person had a desk job, I'd agree with you but if someone has a history of mental illness they shouldn't be allowed to get anywhere near the cockpit of a passenger plane. End of story.
I fully empathise with your views in relation to feeling anger and contempt towards this murder of other people.
Our comments were sparked however by the suggestion that this would have not had happened had it been for the existence of the EU and the 'PC Brigage'. There's plenty to take the EU to task over, and the same for many of the apologist activities of the Guardianista, but this isn't one of them.
Hillian1
( . ) ( . )
This.