Medical/mental condition detection seems to have failed due to him or may have been overlooked in this case. I put little faith in psychological evaluations and physical/mental health monitoring systems in general when there is a great need for the person to stay on the job. Even the governments PRP program that I (Critical Position with launch codes and targeting access) was enrolled in was filled with exceptions designed to keep people who required long expensive training and evaluation on the job.

 

Are we left then with the necessity to accept a certain level of casualties, because we can't reliably detect and prevent the proximate causes of this behavior? Does this also imply for example that the we should forget about passenger screening as well because some level of casualties is acceptable?

 

Are we left then with the necessity to accept a certain level of casualties, because we can't reliably detect and prevent the proximate causes of this behavior? Does this also imply for example that the we should forget about passenger screening as well because some level of casualties is acceptable?

That's a false dichotomy.

To answer the first question -- yes. As long as we can't reliably detect and prevent the proximate causes of this behavior we will have a certain level of casualties as a result.

The question of passenger screening is not one of whether we should forget it because we choose to accept a certain level of casualties, but whether passenger screening actually has a significant impact on passenger safety or whether the funds spent on that could be spent on something else that would be even more effective. The jury's out on that one, in part because of the nature of rare event statistics coupled with the difficulty of quantifying what might have happened otherwise.

 

That's a false dichotomy.

To answer the first question -- yes. As long as we can't reliably detect and prevent the proximate causes of this behavior we will have a certain level of casualties as a result.

The question of passenger screening is not one of whether we should forget it because we choose to accept a certain level of casualties, but whether passenger screening actually has a significant impact on passenger safety or whether the funds spent on that could be spent on something else that would be even more effective. The jury's out on that one, in part because of the nature of rare event statistics coupled with the difficulty of quantifying what might have happened otherwise.

I'm not sure I completely agree with your view. I think the two situations are related in the sense that we would consider people who intend to kill themselves and a plane full of people to be mentally incapacitated. In the case of passengers, we rely on their need to bring things onto the plane, or profiling to detect their intent. For the flight crew they don't need anything except themselves. To focus on the passengers, while excluding the flight crew appears to be short sighted.

 

I'm not sure I completely agree with your view. I think the two situations are related in the sense that we would consider people who intend to kill themselves and a plane full of people to be mentally incapacitated. In the case of passengers, we rely on their need to bring things onto the plane, or profiling to detect their intent. For the flight crew they don't need anything except themselves. To focus on the passengers, while excluding the flight crew appears to be short sighted.

Who says that the flight crew is, or should be, excluded from scrutiny? It has merely been said that no matter how much you try to identify people that are a threat you will never be able to do so flawlessly. Why is it that when someone says that X can never be made 100% effective, some people insist that they are saying that X should be completely abandoned altogether?

 

This causes spooky thoughts here at 5 AM.

Poison gas bottles in the cabin of each space shuttle so the crew can be killed quickly if they mutiny or start screaming while being fried during re-entry.

"Critical Position with Launch Codes" people strapping a remote controlled 19A11 to their head when reporting for work.

Soon to be applied to journalists and dissidents.

Ahhhh! George Orwell gone mad!

If I ever again wake up at 4:30 AM and think I need to correct a drawing on AAC, I should immediately go back to sleep.

 

Who says that the flight crew is, or should be, excluded from scrutiny? It has merely been said that no matter how much you try to identify people that are a threat you will never be able to do so flawlessly. Why is it that when someone says that X can never be made 100% effective, some people insist that they are saying that X should be completely abandoned altogether?

No I'm not saying that. Doing something that creates the illusion of doing something is what should be abandoned in favor of something more effective. It's called security theater, and it creates the illusion of security without actually increasing security in a meaningful way.

 

No I'm not saying that. Doing something that creates the illusion of doing something is what should be abandoned in favor of something more effective. It's called security theater, and it creates the illusion of security without actually increasing security in a meaningful way.

It is security theater but the first layer of physical security is usually equivalent to an easily seen trip-wire for dummies. The mindless droid implementation of passenger screening is where the problem is.

 

No I'm not saying that. Doing something that creates the illusion of doing something is what should be abandoned in favor of something more effective. It's called security theater, and it creates the illusion of security without actually increasing security in a meaningful way.

Well, then you are probably in favor of getting rid of most (not all) security screening at airports and elsewhere because it is overwhelmingly security theatre. That has been demonstrated repeatedly. Hell, I've taken knives onto airplanes and out of more than a dozen flights it's been detected exactly once. I remember watching a soldier (possibly a marine) with an M-16 have to pass the rifle and ammunition around the metal detector but then still have to go through themselves. But the best, I think, are the vehicle inspections that you have to go through to get into many places. What a joke. Particularly for commercial vehicles. In will come a dump truck or a cement mixer that is going to go park next to the most vulnerable places and they will require that the driver get out while they search the cab and they will open the engine compartment and search it and use their mirror on wheels to search underneath but they never climb up and look in the cargo bay or in the mixer. When I asked them why they ignore the big box or the big grenade shaped thing just asking for a load of ANFO, their reason was that the contents of that are listed on the manifest. Well, gee, perhaps we just need to add the item, "Terrorist personnel or materials: NONE" to the manifest and look at how much simpler everything will be!

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32173632

Data from the second 'black box' flight recorder belonging to the Germanwings plane that crashed in the Alps suggests that the co-pilot deliberately accelerated its descent, French investigators say.

They say Andreas Lubitz modified the automatic pilot system several times to increase the speed of descent.