Gotta do something about these "suicide by crashes"

[+ Charlie]

It is the rarity of the event that makes it compelling news. A commercial airline crash that is deliberately caused by the pilot is a novel occurrence. Because everyone knows that they have a possibility of dying in a traffic accident, and it happens every day, people don't think about it much, and individual motor vehicle accidents get little press unless they involve a celebrity or some unusual circumstance, such as multiple deaths of a school group. A train wreck gets more notice notice than a bus crash, even if there are fewer fatalities, simple because it happens less often.

 

It is also a matter of where it happened and to whom. Most consumers of western media have flown, and they can identify with the victims. The fact that a similar number of persons is slaughtered by a terrorist group in Nigeria is a one-time small news item in the inner pages, and probably doesn't make the lead news feed on yahoo or aol at all, because the viewers don't identify with the situation of the victims. I'll bet the Germanwings incident is not a big news deal in the Middle East.

[+ quoththeraven]

 

Your comments seem unbelievably callous.

 

Just the opposite; see Charlie's post above. Death is awful no matter how it happens, and it's worse (potentially) for the relatives, but it's not a lot different for the victims. The outpouring of sympathy for a crash in Europe while no one cares about a plane crash in Nigeria is what's callous. #EveryLifeofEqualWorth.

 

My other point is that the emotion being expended on this could be put to better use addressing other issues that result in unexpected death, as in the U.S. at least pretty much everything that can be done has been done.

 

My mother died when I was fifteen, so I learned at an early age that death is part of life. I guess that may seem callous; to me it's realism and a way to prevent future losses from being overwhelming.

[+ FreshFluff]

It may be a rare event, and pilots may not be a high-risk group for suicides. But due to the copycat phenomenon, this incident might send an at-risk pilot over the suicide threshold. Hence the change in regulations in Europe.

 

I don't blame people for being nervous.

 

QTR, I'm sorry to hear about the loss of your mother at such a young age.

[+ FreshFluff]

• U.S. commercial jet airline: 1 in 7 million
  

 

Is that out of the population as a whole, or out of the number of people who fly on commercial airlines?

[+ quoththeraven]

There haven't been copycats in the past. But yes, that's a concern whenever there's a suicide. Right now there's a big debate about the usefulness of Tumblr reblogs of tributes to trans teens who've killed themselves because they can lead to copycat suicides.

 

BVB, there's a big difference between "that's callous" and "I don't see it the same way." One is respectful of people's differences and the other is not. The way I look at it is better for my mental health. I tend to think it's better for others as well, but obviously I'm not the boss of anyone else but me. The use of logic and acceptance that this is part of the human equation is how I cope.

 

I didn't watch TV coverage of 9/11 (I was home from work ill and listened on the radio). I don't rubberneck at accidents. As weird as this may sound to you, I act the way I do because if I were exposed, it would make me feel bad enough to be a distraction. It's my way of being Zen about things instead.

[AdamSmith]

Is that out of the population as a whole, or out of the number of people who fly on commercial airlines?

 

"Dr. Arnold Barnett, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has done extensive research in the field of commercial flight safety. He found that over the fifteen years between 1975 and 1994, the death risk per flight was one in seven million. This statistic is the probability that someone who randomly selected one of the airline's flights over the 19-year study period would be killed in route. That means that any time you board a flight on a major carrier in this country, your chance of being in a fatal accident is one in seven million. It doesn't matter whether you fly once every three years or every day of the year."

 

http://anxieties.com/flying-howsafe.php#.VRr_xuHMhCJ

[bigvalboy]

 

BVB, there's a big difference between "that's callous" and "I don't see it the same way." One is respectful of people's differences and the other is not.

 

You are absolutely correct, which is why I softened my response in my second post, saying simply that I disagreed with you and Charlie.

[+ quoththeraven]

The problem here is this is a murder-suicide, except instead of killing his family like that other pilot mentioned in the Slate article I posted, he took down a plane full of strangers. It may be the case he was angry with Lufthansa, in which case this was an effective way to bring them negative publicity.

 

Courts can only try the living as criminals. So the only litigation will be in civil court. The co-pilot's estate may be named for completeness, but it's likely to be judgment proof.

[+ Charlie]

BVB, I was trying to explain the media coverage of the crash, not justify it. In a perfect moral universe, everyone would care as much about the horrific murders in an African village as in a western plane crash, but that is not how human nature works, and the news media understand that.

[+ dutchmuch]

And now it comes out that Lufthansa knew Lubitz was 'troubled'?

 

It goes the same with escorts, if they have a history of troubles, don't hire them!

[+ FreshFluff]

Andrew Lubitz's had searched online for both ways of committing suicide and information about cockpit doors.

http://nyti.ms/1CewXrW

[gallahadesquire]

It appeals to the paleo brain. And thus sells newspapers.

 

DEATH BY: YOUR ODDS

• Cardiovascular disease: 1 in 2
  
• Smoking (by/before age 35): 1 in 600
  
• Car trip, coast-to-coast: 1 in 14,000
  
• Bicycle accident: 1 in 88,000
  
• Tornado: 1 in 450,000
  
• Train, coast-to-coast: 1 in 1,000,000
  
• Lightning: 1 in 1.9 million
  
• Bee sting: 1 in 5.5 million
  
• U.S. commercial jet airline: 1 in 7 million
  

http://anxieties.com/flying-howsafe.php#.VRqoHuHMhCI

 

Anesthesia: 1 in 200,000

 

... except, of course, if you include lethal injection.

[BgMstr4u]

Thanks for the helpful replies to my questions about liability. It seems to me that what has been reported paints Lufthansa as more liable than it seemed at first. I am pretty certain that as one of the above posters wrote, pilots are not a high risk for suicide. Or not until they were. Now I imagine the protocols are being rewritten and pilots' medical files will be re-evaluated.

 

I think the reason air, train, bus and other common carrier crashes garner so much media attention is the fact that the passengers have zero control over what is happening to them. The driver of every car has control over what he or she chooses to do. Or should, which is why substance abuse, cell phone use, texting and application of makeup (is that illegal yet?) are so dangerous. But in a common carrier the passengers are totally at the mercy of the people running the flight. At least in trains, buses and cars you are on the ground with some possibility of getting away if the circumstances permit. Not in the air. That's what makes them so newsworthy, IMHO. And that is why the liability in cases like this should be sky high.

[AdamSmith]

Aggression, not just depression, led copilot to crash plane, experts say

http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-pilot-depression-20150405-story.html#page=1

[marylander1940]

maybe it was all lost in translation:

 

 

I hope is not too early for a joke, LOL