Peter wrote:
There was something brief on the news here that the co-pilot’s father was saying his son was not responsible, etc.
That was a totally helpless and pathetic action. While some celebrations for the victims took place on the second anniversary of the tragedy, the father gave a press conference in Berlin. Accompanied by his lawyer and some “aviation expert” (of whom I had not heard before) he stated that the whole investigation was flawed and that his son could not have been responsible for the crash. A helpless attempt of a parent to clear the memory of his child. Understandable to a degree, but met with total disbelief and disgust by anyone else.
Simply put, from a medical/ethical perspective the European approach to pilot medicals is the better one, from an absolute safety perspective the FAA one is probably superior.
As a doctor I have big problems with non-medical personell recieving confidental diagnoses or other patient-related information. Especially the employer (in this case the airline) should never know about what doctors you went to and what they found out. As an airline passenger I would probably be more worried about my own safety rather than the pilots personal rights…
As a doctor I have big problems with non-medical personell recieving confidental diagnoses or other patient-related information
I don’t think that is the main issue. The main issue, AIUI, is that the personal doctor records were not available to the AME and, more importantly and obviously highly controversially, the AME had no right to ask to see them. I recall reading here that both Germany and Sweden have such a law. We did however discuss this here recently (something to do with the UK CAA not accepting German medicals, post Germanwings – no idea if that is currently the case) and IIRC what_next posted another explanation.
But… I have for many years held both FAA Class 1 and CAA Class 1 medicals, so I know how it works, and I don’t think either system would have prevented the Germanwings suicide because neither routinely involves the AME routinely obtaining copies of one’s medical records.
In the UK, I was told recently by an AME, the CAA medical department (which alone can do the initial Class 1) requires (and actually obtains, whereas previously they merely required you to sign an authorisation form) those records on the initial medical, but thereafter they are not routinely obtained.
And if you did have such a system where the records routinely pass to the AME (e.g. on every update) then the pilot will simply go to another country (etc) for treatment, get medicines on Ebay (last time I looked I found almost everything is available from sellers in Germany 
and elsewhere), etc.
There are simply too many ways to conceal stuff. And if you don’t go and see anybody for treatment then nobody will find out unless the issue is really evident on the AME medical.
Were there not stories that this guy was regarded as a “bit strange” by his colleagues? The problem is that there is no way to action that sort of thing. And a lot of people are a bit strange anyway
I don’t think a US medical would have prevented this. Pilots know the rules and there is not much that can be done regarding someone who lies or omits information on their medical.
Peter wrote:
Were there not stories that this guy was regarded as a “bit strange” by his colleagues?
In my whole career I have not met a pilot who was not “a bit strange” in one way or another 
That seems to be a prerequisite for this job.
Peter wrote:
And if you did have such a system where the records routinely pass to the AME (e.g. on every update) then the pilot will simply go to another country (etc) for treatment, get medicines on Ebay (last time I looked I found almost everything is available from sellers in Germany and elsewhere), etc.
Believe me, we’re even having big problem every day passing medical information on regular patients from one doctor to another (or one hospital to another) with the full consent of the patient. It is mainly due to horribly incompatible IT systems, misinterpreted confidentiality laws and the failure of everyone responsible (e.g. health ministries, doctor associations and so forth) to set up a nationwide, reliable and safe medical IT system for sharing patient information. The biggest failure is of course that this is not even attempted.
Even if you were to try to set up a system were the private doctors had to share their information on the patient with the AME, this could be very very easily circumvented: As a patient you simply don’t tell the doctor that you’re a pilot. Easy as that. In Germany you can choose freely which doctor to go to and switch any time, which makes it even easier. Unless the pilot license were directly linked to your health insurance card, a doctor would never find out about his patient with – for example – Depression being a pilot if the patient didn’t share that information.
NCYankee wrote:
I don’t think a US medical would have prevented this. Pilots know the rules and there is not much that can be done regarding someone who lies or omits information on their medical.
NCYankee wrote:
don’t think a US medical would have prevented this. Pilots know the rules and there is not much that can be done regarding someone who lies or omits information on their medical.
Nor does the US medical at any point routinely access pilot’s non-aeronautical medical history, for which there is no US government-held record anyway, and which may be scattered between many medical facilities all over the world. Does anybody think the medical history of a Russian or Mexican national pilot is ever going to be automatically accessible in English to an FAA AME?
The FAA medical exam is done on the basis of the pilot’s statements on his application about his medical history and any subsequent requests for data to the pilot from the AME, which in turn allow the pilot to make his case. Preventing every possible in flight medical problem, no matter how infrequently it has occurred in the real world, is not a reasonable objective of an airline pilot medical. That’s obviously why they have two pilots and the FAA rule about having two crew members in the cockpit.
I may well never be convinced this was an ‘erweiterter Selbstmord’, or ‘extended suicide’ as the German word puts it so mildly.
The english word is much better: murder-suicide.
So, let’s be clear: There are so many ways to put yourself into the netherworld without killing anyone else, that I find it very hard to believe this is comparable i.e. to people driving consciously into the opposite traffic lane.
For whatever reason, this guy actively wanted to kill a lot of people, punish the world for something, and he did it while evading punishment through his own demise.
Just as a guy blowing his C4 belt up in a shopping mall. This was planned mass murder. Nothing else.
Peter wrote:
What is the message in the video?
An aviation expert, Tim van Beveren, told in the press conference that authorities had failed to pursue several other possibilities in their investigation, including technical errors and hazardous weather conditions. Tim van Beveren noticed, that media and authorities pushed the investigation by concluding two days after the crash that the first officer, Lubitz, was responsible. I give here only a few points from the press conference to read. I would like to conclude that I am not convinced of the correctness, since the investigation results are not known to me. Also I am a private pilot, not an aviation expert. I mean, however, that there are many unexplained questions and the case does not really seem to be clarified:
The expert stated, the investigation was not carried out according to the usual standards.
The investigation was carried out by engineers only. Human factor experts were excluded from the investigation.
The psychologist working for the German Accident Commission BFU was not allowed to participate in the investigation of the French BEA.
A simultaneous operation of the AP in Active DES mode and Open DES mode is impossible. The FDR did record both modes the same time.
In the area , CAT was detected by several other pilots at the time of the accident . In consequence many of them descended to lower Flight levels.
G-Loads are missing in the report.
There were no investigations of technical failures of the keypad.
There were issues with the ARC of D-AIPX.
The First Officer was not because of a depression in the hospital. The only Hospital stay was at the age of four years for Tonsillectomy.
The prosecutor`s office noted that the pilot was not suffering from depression and did not suffer from medication or drug abuse.
Lubitz had sought medical help because of problems with his eyes.
Van Beveren said he was unable to present an alternative theory for the crash, but urged authorities to review the case again and give the copilot`s family access to documents previously unavailable to them.
what_next wrote:
Accompanied by his lawyer and some “aviation expert” (of whom I had not heard before) he stated that the whole investigation was flawed and that his son could not have been responsible for the crash.
Neither the father nor the expert considered that the pilot was innocent.
I did not now him either. Not knowing someone does not mean he is not an expert.
… since the investigation results are not known to me.
https://www.bea.aero/uploads/tx_elydbrapports/BEA2015-0125.en-LR.pdf
(replace the “en” in the link with “fr” or “de” if you prefer a different language)
Not knowing someone does not mean he is not an expert.
Of course not.
