On Tuesday the headlines were filled with the news that a Germanwings plane carrying 150 people had crashed into the Alps, killing all on board. Immediately the question was raised: why did this plane suddenly descend so rapidly after reaching its cruising altitude? Commentators suggested that it could only have been a catastrophic failure to cause this kind of descent, with no mayday call being made at any point. But by Thursday morning we knew the stomach turning answer: this was allegedly a deliberate action by the co-pilot.
According to prosecutor Brice Robin, the black box revealed that the captain had left the cockpit once the flight had reached it cruising altitude of 38,000 feet. Then came the spine chilling moments when the Captain realised that the co-pilot, 27 year old Andreas Lubitz, had locked him out of the cockpit. In silence, as the captain banged on the door, the co-pilot pushed a button that caused the aircraft to lose altitude – why he did this no-one knows, but it can only be assumed that he intended to destroy the aircraft. The last sounds to be heard from the transcription were the “normal breathing” of Lubitz and the screams of passengers before the plane crashed.
Debris from Germanwings Flight 9525 including the recovered black box
We will not know the full story until the second black box, which carries flight data is recovered, but the evidence so far strongly suggests that this crash was a deliberate action. The scary thing is, this is not the first time this has happened.
There are some cases where pilots have hijacked a plane, without the intention of crashing it. For example, in February 2014 an Ethiopian Airlines co-pilot hijacked his plane bound for Rome by locking the Captain out of the cockpit, before flying the plane to Switzerland to seek asylum.
There have also been cases where pilots have caused deliberate harm. In December 1997 a flight from Indonesia to Singapore crashed, killing more than 100 people. The pilot, who was suffering from a multitude of work related difficulties, was suspected of switching off the flight recorders and intentionally causing the plane to dive.
In October 1999 an EgyptAir flight from New York made a rapid descent, ultimately killing 217 people. Evidence of what caused the crash remains inconclusive, but it was suggested that it was the actions of the relief first officer.
And in November 2013, 33 people were killed after a flight from Mozambique crashed in Namibia. The evidence again suggests that it was the captain who was responsible for the crash, after the co-pilot had left the cockpit.
There is also evidence to suggest that the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was the result of deliberate action by the pilot. The circumstances of the flight, which vanished on March 8th 2014 after departure from Kuala Lumpur, has been subject to intense speculation. One in ten Americans believe it was related to aliens or time travel; whilst others have proposed it was made invisible by the 20 members of a firm believed to be developing an invisibility cloak who were on-board. Someone even pointed out that MH370 was the 404th Boeing 777 off the assembly line – the same internet code “404 error” which means “web page not found”.
But why do all these bizarre conspiracies exist? Maybe it’s because people do not want to accept that the most likely reason for this disappearance was a hijacking by one of the pilots. The evidence is strong for this case, and three out of four experts at a recent meeting of the Transportation Research Board believe that this was the case.
The key suspect is Captain Shah, due to a number of personal issues affecting him at the time. The day before the flight, his wife and three children moved out of his house and it is claimed by a friend that he was seeing another woman, a relationship that was also in trouble. Add to this a two minute phone call he received before the flight from an unidentified woman and the fact that he had no personal or professional plans after the flight, and the case for him hijacking the plane grows.
Of course this is not enough in itself to accuse him of such an action, but the events of that night lend themselves heavily to this conclusion. Firstly the plane was deliberately turned in the opposite direction from its flight path to Beijing, with no communication from the cockpit and no mayday call. This could have been explained by a fire knocking out the electronics and the pilot looking for an emergency landing slot. But this does not explain why the plane continued past this point and then made another turn over Penang Island; something that suggests the pilot had no intention of landing and something that would not happen if the plane had been on autopilot.
The sad fact is that we may never know what actually happened to MH370. Even if the plane is found, the black box is unlikely to help. Firstly, it is only able to hold around two hours of data – at the last known location of the plane, it is believed it had been flying on autopilot for at least two hours. Secondly, it has now been reported that the black box on-board contained batteries that had expired in December 2012.
So, the overriding question remains: can we trust our pilots? The short answer is yes. These events represent five fatal occurrences due to pilot hijacking over twenty years. With millions of flights taking off every year, the chances of being in one of these situations is infinitesimally small, with the vast majority of pilots recognising the safe transportation of passengers as their most important responsibility.
Nevertheless, this makes it no less important to make sure these few occasions do not occur at all. Questions need to be raised about the risk of terrorists entering cockpits compared to pilots hijacking their own planes. Past events do show that the terrorist threat from outside the cockpit is likely to be higher, but there are still ways that they could gain access to the cockpit with the current system, as it is estimated that on a typical flight, the cockpit door is opened every 20 minutes. The doors do not completely eliminate the possibility of a hijack from the cabin but do make it very easy for a pilot to hijack his own plane.
A simple solution that has been proposed, but is currently only used by a small number of airlines, is the “rule of two”. In this case, if a pilot leaves the cockpit for any reason, another crew member must replace them. Germanwings carry no such policy at this time of publication. More attention also needs to be paid to issues surrounding pilot stress, with mental health being taken as seriously as physical health for air crew.
A more drastic solution suggested to counter these situations is for control of the aircraft to be overridden from the ground when a hijacking is suspected. This technology already exists in the form of the Boeing Honeywell ‘Uninterruptible’ Autopilot System. This could be activated by either pilots, by on-board sensors, or even remotely via a radio or satellite link by government agencies. Of course, there are issues with such a technology, such as when to make the decision to take control, alongside security concerns over terrorists hacking the system, but it could be the final protection measure in these desperate situations.
Sadly, it is too late for the Germanwings passengers and those of past hijacked planes, but as is often said in aviation “modernisation happens due to some sort of accident”. We can only hope that this tragic event is the straw that breaks the camels back in terms of dealing with the issues of pilot trust.
Holly Edwards
Images: Marius Palmen/EPA, BBC, Andrew Heneen