A Conversation for Ask h2g2

What news story has caught your attention today.

Post 16881

Icy North

Absolutely. That's stuff for the manager's half-time team talk, not the press conference.

This was the best 6 Nations for years, especially for England.


What news story has caught your attention today.

Post 16882

Maria


A Spanish man who has lost his wife, daughter and granddaughter in the recent plane crash in the Alps, has thanked heartfeltly to the french people in the area for their solidarity and generosity, to all the professionals involved, specially to the public prosecutor of Marseille for his kindness with the relatives, for his way of informng them first in the most sensitive way.

French people and authorities are doing the best in these hard moments.

RIP smiley - rose


What news story has caught your attention today.

Post 16883

Maria

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/27/depression-germanwings-tragedy-pilot-andreas-lubitz-mental-health?CMP=fb_gu


"Pilot Andreas Lubitz might have suffered from depression, but that doesn’t explain what he did. We are at risk of further demonising those with mental health problems"

It´s not because of his depression, it is because he was a callous, selfish person.


What news story has caught your attention today.

Post 16884

Icy North

It's an interesting argument as to how evil he was compared to how ill he was, and whether there can be any justification.

It's also interesting how details emerged of how he had suffered depression before, during his training, but had been cured.

Lots of things to learn from this one.


What news story has caught your attention today.

Post 16885

You can call me TC

A listener on the radio here had an interesting theory.

They had heard that he started to learn to fly (gliders) when he was 14. He was 28 when he crashed. Counting on your fingers, you will notice that this crucial time of his life, when he decided to start flying, coincided with the 9-11 crashes, which must have made a huge impression on pubescent boys of a certain disposition, and could well have planted a seed of an idea that became an obsession.

He was probably, as Maria says, selfish, in that he just wanted to see what happened, like those 10-12-year-old boys who push tree
trunks on to railway tracks "to see what happens".

If so, it was certainly a daft idea, to say the least.


What news story has caught your attention today.

Post 16886

Icy North

I'm not convinced, as it appears he simply nose dived into the nearest mountain - he didn't attempt to aim at a specific target as the 9/11 guys did.

I'm no mental health expert, but it would seem on the face of it a quick and convenient way to end it all.


What news story has caught your attention today.

Post 16887

swl

Pure speculation, but the mountains he hit were in the same area he learned to fly in gliders, reportedly.


What news story has caught your attention today.

Post 16888

Yelbakk

He had no control over where this accident/suicide/incident would happen. Nor if it would happen at all. The events as they played out depended on the captain leaving the cockpit. This could have happened anywhere, or not at all.

Interesting is the time factor here. Apparently the rapid-descent command was given immediately after the captain closed the door. Not a moment of hesitation, of consideration, of thinking it all through. The plan must have been in is head fully formed, and possibly for a long time. Then, when the opportunity arises, he sets everything in motion in no time.

The reports say you can hear him breathing normally, no panting, no increased breath rate... as if he had trained for it - but of course, that is most definitely speculation!

Also, if I understand things correctly, the override switch to keep the door locked even if the right code has been entered on the outside has to be toggled again and again every time the code is punched in. (There may be waiting period, however.) That means that the co-pilot needs to have been fully aware to the end; he can't have blacked out or something.

Y.


What news story has caught your attention today.

Post 16889

hammondorgan

If the guy was depressed and suicidal he could have killed himself and not involved anyone else, as unfortunately many people do every day. The abuse of his position and contempt for the lives of these poor passengers, to whom it was his responsibility to get to their destination safely, suggest a sadistic psychopathic personality totally manipulating his position of power to wantonly kill others, total evil.


What news story has caught your attention today.

Post 16890

Yelbakk

hammondorgan, I tend to agree. When news came out of the chain of events as we seem to understand them today, one thought jumped into my mind at once: narcissist personality.


What news story has caught your attention today.

Post 16891

Peanut

'If the guy was depressed and suicidal he could have killed himself and not involved anyone else, as unfortunately many people do every day'


I don't think though if he had been suicidal that he would have been applying that rationale.


What news story has caught your attention today.

Post 16892

ITIWBS

Punishing the larger world is often very much a part of the rationale for suicide, if only by means of forcing the innocent to clean up the mess aftetward.


What news story has caught your attention today.

Post 16893

swl

Of all sites, I didn't expect this one to be the most judgmental about the mentally ill.


What news story has caught your attention today.

Post 16894

Baron Grim

Right!?


Depression is a chemical imbalance. When your mind is under the effects of such imbalances rationale isn't reliable. Really bad ideas, horrible ideas can become obsessions. And all you want is for it all to stop.

Some folks can cope with it, some folks sadly can't and school shootings occur, or a plain hits a mountain.

And one thing that really doesn't help is stigmatizing depression. We want people to get help when they need it, not to be worried about losing their job or that people will treat them as pariahs.


It's bad enough as it is. I know. I've dealt with major depression for 37 years without ever seeking treatment.

Some folks can cope. Some folks can't.




Here's some good reading on the subject.

Part 1. http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2011/10/adventures-in-depression.html

Part 2. http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/05/depression-part-two.html


What news story has caught your attention today.

Post 16895

ITIWBS

http://video.pbs.org/video/2365450010/


What news story has caught your attention today.

Post 16896

ITIWBS

http://video.pbs.org/video/2365450010/

...just punch the 'confirm' button on that link...smiley - zen


What news story has caught your attention today.

Post 16897

quotes

Having retrieved the flight recorder, we are able to piece together what happened in this air disaster. I wonder how many fatal coach-trip disasters are caused by suicidal drivers? We will never know, because we can't look back over their final moments; plus the roads are so dangerous anyway, it would be hard to differentiate between 'accidental' and deliberate crashes.
My point is that we might do well to be concerned about the mental health of not just pilots, but also coach drivers, and to a lesser extent (because they're relatively safe modes of transport) ferry captains, and train drivers.


What news story has caught your attention today.

Post 16898

Lusus

The accident a while back in Glasgow involving a refuse collecting vehicle also demonstrates how dangerous all heavy vehicles on the roads can be, and that its not just mental health that needs to be checked but physical health too.


What news story has caught your attention today.

Post 16899

Baron Grim

Here's a good article about why it's impractical to test every pilot for mental illness.


http://www.wired.com/2015/03/no-way-screen-every-pilot-mental-illness/

I'd like to add the simple fact that it's simply impossible. Pilots are people! People are, well, people!... We all have different quirks and some of those quirks qualify as mental illness. And those with mental illness, or even a suspicion of mentall illness are not likely to answer a mental status questionnaire honestly. We don't have a machine we can hook someone up to that could objectively determine someone's mental state. We never will.

Stigmatizing depression is the worst thing we can do.


What news story has caught your attention today.

Post 16900

Dr Anthea - ah who needs to learn things... just google it!

mental health is in a constant flux and balance is something we all strive to maintain it is impossiable to screen for mental health because you may be 'healthy' one day and then not the next as all people are to a greater or lesser extent. Mental ill health isnt like a broken arm you don't just treat it for a few weeks and it goes away the pressures we all face in everyday life can have a profound effect on people and mental ill health should not be stigmatised. This is a man who for one reason or another decided to kill hundreds of people dont villanise everyone with a diagnosed (or undiagnosed or self diagnosed) mental health condition because of the actions of one man


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