spacecadet wrote:

We just need to decide it's important enough to do it.

Risk vs reward.

Based on this event alone you can’t seriously think all airliners world wide will just adopt a system to sort op prevent this from happening again, because it won’t.

DC10Co did just an autstanding job explaining why it isn’t that simple to overcome this with, as some people suggest, a “simple” login system.

And working in the security industry (access control), you will accept that sometimes you can only make it harder to gain access, not overcome it. Will that be good enough? Will it be achieveble in the operations?

And no one is saying whe shouldn’t do anything. We should just let the people who know this industry do that for us.
Sure we can think of many ways to prevent this from happening from our point of view. Unfortually our point of view is biased because we just don’t know how the daily operation in and around an airliner is 24/7.

Revelation wrote:

catiii wrote:

T prop wrote:

That easy huh..lol. they should hijack some Reapers then.

They have. The Iranians grabbed a Sentinel.

Wiki ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%8 ... 0_incident ) says back in 2011:

A Christian Science Monitor article relates an Iranian engineer's assertion that the drone was captured by jamming both satellite and land-originated control signals to the UAV, followed up by a GPS spoofing attack that fed the UAV false GPS data to make it land in Iran at what the drone thought was its home base in Afghanistan. Stephen Trimble from Flight Global assumes UAV guidance could be targeted by 1L222 Avtobaza radar jamming and deception system supplied to Iran by Russia.[17] In an interview for Nova, U.S. retired Lt. General David Deptula also said "There was a problem with the aircraft and it landed in an area it wasn't supposed to land".[18][19]

American aeronautical engineers dispute this, pointing out that as is the case with the MQ-1 Predator, the MQ-9 Reaper, and the Tomahawk, "GPS is not the primary navigation sensor for the RQ-170... The vehicle gets its flight path orders from an inertial navigation system".[20] Inertial navigation continues to be used on military aircraft despite the advent of GPS because GPS signal jamming and spoofing are relatively simple operations.[21]

So, while it's clear a RQ-170 was downed, it's not clear how it was done, and it should be clear that neither the US or Iranian side wants you to know how it was done.

It should also be clear that some of the things being discussed here wouldn't use the same technologies as were used before 2011 and the industry awareness around hacking is not the same as it might have been in 2011.

We need to take a step back from getting too focussed on unnecessary details (although this is a.net, I know): the point was

a) "we should add remote control to prevent people stealing aircraft"
b) "that would not be 100% secure" (subtext: could actually enable *more* rather than less incidents)
a) "yeah right, no-one's ever hacked a military drone"
b) "yes they have - ergo my point is made"

It's irrelevant whether or not security has changed since then - it happened.

So if it can happen once - on a relatively rare military-spec example no less - then it's indisputable that it could happen again on commercial-spec security on tens of thousands of aircraft with hundreds of thousands of personnel requiring daily access.

Then it follows that adding this function in the name of security would actually make things less secure.

Adding smartphone-level security *without a remote control function* is another thing entirely, and that would certainly improve the security situation - although at the cost of more inconvenience and delays when things go wrong / codes are forgotten, etc.

AirCalSNA wrote:

Re "mental health issue" ... This is really too vague a concept and is actually a logical fallacy ("ex post facto") as applied here. Going through a period of crisis and acting imprudently as a result may have nothing to do with mental health but instead may reflect character flaws or simple immaturity/bad judgment. Not saying that is what happened here ... I just disagree with the idea that everything bad that happens is necessarily due to a "mental health issue."

I agree with the majority here. Without being a mental health expert, after listening to the tapes, this guy was clearly having some sort of psychotic break and/or bi-polar flip. He's openly talking about being a broken person and having a screw loose and knowing many people care for him yet still unable to simply try to land the plane and save his life.

CFM565A1 wrote:

I'm stomping on your "must do" attitude because it's not well presented. You're basically demanding for a change that requires careful calculation, safety management, risk management, implementation, etc. before it can happen. What i'm saying is that one cannot just sit and say "this MUST be done" before though is put into it.

I've demanded nothing!

I've presented an idea, explored its pros and cons, and have clarified what I was talking about several times.

From my point of view, what I see is a bunch of people in love with the status quo and their place within it, threatened by change, and afraid to explore possibilities.

Morvious wrote:

Risk vs reward.

Based on this event alone you can’t seriously think all airliners world wide will just adopt a system to sort op prevent this from happening again, because it won’t.

DC10Co did just an autstanding job explaining why it isn’t that simple to overcome this with, as some people suggest, a “simple” login system.

And working in the security industry (access control), you will accept that sometimes you can only make it harder to gain access, not overcome it. Will that be good enough? Will it be achieveble in the operations?

And no one is saying whe shouldn’t do anything. We should just let the people who know this industry do that for us.

Sure we can think of many ways to prevent this from happening from our point of view. Unfortually our point of view is biased because we just don’t know how the daily operation in and around an airliner is 24/7.

I agree with what you are writing. I'm sure there are experts in both aviation and security exploring the options at a higher level than we can/do here.

For instance we were told there is already a request to be able to remotely prevent an aircraft from starting coming from the financial community. It'd cut costs for aircraft repossession dramatically. This would fit in well with some sort of login protocol: in this case of fiscal default, you'd simply block logins and prevent engine start.

And no scheme gives absolute security. Yes, folks, right now someone might be draining your on-line bank accounts and you wouldn't know about it. Does that make you insist on withdrawing from electronic banking and doing all transactions in cash? If so, you're an oddity.

The fact is right now there really is nothing preventing an unathorized person from operating an aircraft once they gain entry to the cockpit. This case could have gone much more badly than it did. It may turn out to be the tipping point that causes the aviation community to do something better than what they now do.

According to FG, the FBI have now recovered the FDR's and sent them to the NTSB.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/artic ... 00-451092/

747megatop wrote:

Revelation wrote:

cloudboy wrote:

It is a mental health issue. And it is not just diagnosing, it is about consequences. People don't get help with mental issues because the consequences of just seeking help is too high. Yes these things happen. They also happen with other systems, with other modes of transport, with other industries that are just as deadly. I think we need to focus less on fixing one particular type of vehicle than fixing the underlying problem. If the plane is too hard, they will find something else to play with.

Are you confident that the mental health issue can be fixed?

Was it a mental health issue? Every time someone does something utterly dumbfoundedly crazy....it is deemed a "mental health issue". And even if was...to answer your question..no, it can't be fixed; there seem to be too many crazy people around doing dumbfoundedly crazy things.

It could have been drugs, but I'm personally struggling to think of any that would allow you to keep your faculties enough to fly a plane and cause such a cycling of emotions (SSRIs can very occasionally cause people to behave erratically though, and they are handed out like smarties these days). If you didn't listen to the audio, within the space of an hour he sounded: downbeat while acknowledging the problem this would cause for his family (so there was a degree of insight); excited (almost child-like) about visiting attractions, which included a whale; agitated with Andrew when talking about the risk to others; very calm when announcing he was going to perform a quick barrel roll, despite not having full control of the aircraft. This was certainly not just someone behaving foolishly. He also seemed to fly low over a residential area? It doesn't fit with how his family described his character which is compassionate towards others.

No system will be fool proof. But remember it took 9-11 to convince airlines that cockpits should be locked. And passengers no longer will permit a plane to be hijacked. Stopping a determined and authorized pilot at this point seems intractable. But two person an obvious step to wake up a large commercial plane. There are a variety of ways it can be done - we can be sure that Alaska, FAA, and NTSB are looking into it.

ps - some of us think that locking cockpits and passengers refusal to be hijacked, even to the point of death are the two keys to no more hijacking. Most of the other procedures seem mostly useless.

WPvsMW wrote:

Mods. A topic title of "Updated: AS employee steals Q400 at SeaTac and crashes" would be far more accurate. No crash at SeaTac. This thread is going to be around a long time.

Actually, it was a QX employee and the thread title should be updated accordingly.

Wasn’t a Learjet, but why let facts enter the story. It was a Citation, but I suppose on a.net all small planes are Piper Cubs or Learjets.

GF

I can't edit my previous post to add this; a psychologist has given their opinion...

"After hearing the air traffic control tapes, Dr. Bowen believes 29-year-old Horizon Airlines baggage handler Richard Russell had an underlying illness.
"What you hear is somebody who sounds very disoriented and not that calm, flat affect you often hear with individuals who are in the process of committing suicide who have committed to that action," said Dr. Bowen."

https://www.abc15.com/news/national/loc ... lane-theft

My latest blog entry was all about the troubles at AS and B6 and the enormous pressures the frontline employees are under. Here's the jist of it:

Most of you who know me, or read my posts, know that I am a capitalist through and through. My thoughts and opinions on various topics usually side with management or Wall Street. In this case though, I'm departing from the norm.

By now, you have probably heard of the story from Friday, August 10, and the theft of a Horizon Air Bombardier Q400 from a Cargo/Maintenance stand at Seattle/Tacoma Airport by a "disturbed and disgruntled" Horizon Air employee. I won't go into the story of the joyride around the skies of Puget Sound either, that's been covered. Nor will I paint the employee as disturbed, disgruntled, or suicidal. It is still FAR too early to to start guessing. What I will do in this post though, is go through the turmoil the front-line employees face at not only Alaska Air Group (AAG, the parent company of Alaska Airlines and it's regional subsidiary Horizon Air), but at other airlines as well. I'm also going to touch on the subject of suicide. It's more of an epidemic in this country than opioids, the Mexican cartels, or porn (yes, the Governor of Utah says porn is an epidemic).

As I stated above, normally I take the side of management in airline employee relations. In this case, especially against AAG (and JetBlue Airways, my friends there tell me the almost exact same horror stories), I am firmly on the side of the employees. Thanks to a management that is hyper-focused on its costs - perhaps at the expense of it's employees well-being - Alaska and Horizon employees work in a stressful environment. AAG has been battling with Delta Air Lines and it's massive new Seattle hub. Alaska Airlines, itself still integrating Virgin America, a merger which some industry watchers feel is a costly, badly-timed, and poorly-executed merger, went to the negotiating table with it's various unions in order to come up with a plan to cut costs further that would allow the merger to go through. Work rule changes were adopted, and the cost-cutting became so micromanaged that AAG's flight attendants were instructed to stop offering the popular Biscoff cookies as a snack. Passengers and Flight Attendants alike came close to a revolt, and the airline capitulated.

If you listen to AAG's earnings calls or read their SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) filings, the company's Board of Director's and Executive Management will do ANYTHING to keep the stock price from falling. That is simply all they care about, employees and services be damned, as long as Wall Street is happy and the JD Power awards keep coming in.

BUT..the JD Powers awards reflect only what the passengers opinions are, not the airlines' employees.

AAG's employees (whose unions appear to be impotent in helping their members) bear the brunt of the cost-cutting actions. Several colleagues at AAG have come forward and told me of their woes at AAG.

"We get those shiny JD Powers awards, and instead of bonuses like at Delta, we are given Positive Space passes instead. How will positive space passes feed my kids?" - Alaska Customer Service Agent, Seattle.

The positive space passes might be great for the bright eyed interns who work for nothing and are gaining experience while in school, but it does not cut it for someone trying to feed their family to pay the bills (a stark contrast to Delta Air Lines, who in 2017 awarded it's employees $1.1 Billion in profit-sharing).


Theres more, I didnt want to over load my response here, but the link to the rest of the issues is: http://fl310travel.blogspot.com/2018/08 ... allet.html

AAG is no different than any other corporation that's battling a competitive environment, higher costs (fuel and wages for AAG) and trying to please fickle analysts like Zacks, etc. Quoting a few disgruntled employees doesn't make what you've said a fact. No one is forcing them to work there.

For the records: If you want the title being changed, please use the reporting function. Moderators do not follow each single thread permanently.

WesternA318 wrote:

Thanks to a management that is hyper-focused on its costs - perhaps at the expense of it's employees well-being - Alaska and Horizon employees work in a stressful environment.

That's true of many, many more businesses than AS or B6. Management will push as hard as they can. It's up to the worker to set their own limits and make changes if they can't cope with the demands.

hiflyeras wrote:

AAG is no different than any other corporation that's battling a competitive environment, higher costs (fuel and wages for AAG) and trying to please fickle analysts like Zacks, etc.

It's not necessarily all about Wall Street. Similar things can happen if someone above you simply wants to look good, impress their bosses or future employers, earn bonuses, and move up the corporate ladder.

Capitalism's a bitch.

BobbyPSP wrote:

Wow. Thanks for your permission.

I still don't see why you want first time posters to write about aviation and not about mental health issues of the man who did this.

Revelation wrote:

cloudboy wrote:

It is a mental health issue. And it is not just diagnosing, it is about consequences. People don't get help with mental issues because the consequences of just seeking help is too high. Yes these things happen. They also happen with other systems, with other modes of transport, with other industries that are just as deadly. I think we need to focus less on fixing one particular type of vehicle than fixing the underlying problem. If the plane is too hard, they will find something else to play with.

Are you confident that the mental health issue can be fixed?

I'm confident that it can be improved, and I'm very VERY confident that we are not trying anywhere near hard enough in the United States.

I think you folks are placing way too much confidence in your "mental health issue" theory, which I think is often used as a catch-all excuse for problematic behavior that is just a part of human nature. People do dangerous and crazy stuff, both for fun and in response to difficult circumstances; it's part of the human condition. Nor do any of the "mental health issue" apologists ever explain what exactly we could be doing to "try hard enough in the United States," which is why I believe nothing ever changes even on the mental-health front when weird events like this happen. Again, I don't know what the circumstances were here and I'm not a psychologist, but I think any conclusions regarding Mr. Russell's mental health drawn only from news reports or listening to the cockpit tapes are likely to be bunk.

treetreeseven wrote:

Revelation wrote:

Are you confident that the mental health issue can be fixed?

I'm confident that it can be improved, and I'm very VERY confident that we are not trying anywhere near hard enough in the United States.

Yes, of course it can be improved, but this isn't horseshoes or hand grenades and so getting close isn't good enough.

We'd need mental health screening to be a lot more accurate and a lot more frequent for it to be an effective solution.

Therefore we have the current approaches of limiting access to the equipment.

As above, I think we should consider making those approaches more effective.

AirCalSNA wrote:

I think you folks are placing way too much confidence in your "mental health issue" theory, which I think is often used as a catch-all excuse for problematic behavior that is just a part of human nature. People do dangerous and crazy stuff, both for fun and in response to difficult circumstances; it's part of the human condition.

I think if you listened to the ATC conversations more than a bit then you'd probably be willing to stipulate that this guy had real mental health issues.

He wasn't just joy riding, he was ignoring all attempts to talk him down while admitting he had people who cared for him that he was going to disappoint.

This guy was suicidal, plain and simple, and to me that means he had a major mental health issue.

The relationship between mental health and suicide is complicated. Camus had some interesting thoughts on the subject as did the Stoics.

There is a flight (now) 10 pm pacific time, listed as as9470, a Q400 from TUC to PDX. Is this a revenue flight or is that a stored q400 ferrying to replace n449qx? The plane in question is n447qx, seems rather new to store, but what do I know?

AirCalSNA wrote:

I think you folks are placing way too much confidence in your "mental health issue" theory, which I think is often used as a catch-all excuse for problematic behavior that is just a part of human nature. People do dangerous and crazy stuff, both for fun and in response to difficult circumstances; it's part of the human condition.

This is not directed only at you, this is just an observation of various comments on the internet. One of the things that this tradgey has brought to light is that there is still a degree of denial about mental health issues; that they even exist at all or that they only exist for certain people. Maybe it would be more helpful to think of mental well/ill health as being a spectrum that we are ALL on and our place does not stay static during our whole lives.

I felt a bit disturbed when I read some other comments last night and there seems to be some issues around suicide acceptance as well. The majority of suicides are as a result of mental health issues of some description or another. The brains of suicide victims show consistent changes compared to non-suicide deaths. These changes are the sort you expect could be treated with medication or therapy (yes social and psychological factors affect biology). It's sad to think that people don't believe something could be done.

I don't think it's a shock that many of the comments that have worried me have been made by men - male suicides by far outnumber female. Maybe there needs to be some more targeted work here. How many guys know of a dedicated male suicide hotline they can ring? I only know of one, it's in the UK. https://www.thecalmzone.net/ They did a campaign recently which shocked people (they placed dressed up mannequins at the edges of a building roof, as if they were going to jump) but it least it got them talking.

So much could change in healthcare but of course it requires money. More in-depth training for family doctors, closer monitoring of antidepressants, improved access to therapy, more focus on community care and increased number of groups or therapeutic activities that people can attend. This could turn into an essay...

Bjorn Fehrm wrote an article ( https://leehamnews.com/2018/08/15/stopp ... um=twitter ) on how hard ( or not ) it is to steal an airplane.

It's got a lot of content, so I'll provide the conclusion:

Airliners are normally not locked. If they are, the ground crew doing towing has the keys. Including access to the cockpit. And they know how to get the aircraft systems on and how to start the APU.

The step which could be made harder to pass would be starting the engines. There are no reasons for a ground crew to have authority to do an engine start. The few engine ground test runs which are done in connection with engine maintenance are done by specialized personnel and in special engine test areas.

As modern engines are controlled by computers (FADECs), a code lock or other authority check could be easily implemented. A keyboard/keypad is in the cockpit, controlling the FMS. It has contact with the engine FADECs.

Other authority checks seem more difficult to implement. Service is often done on the flight control system on the ground. After service the correct function must be verified by ground personnel, making an authority check less effective.

That an airliner is so easy to steal by a non-authorized person is unacceptable. Russell was a disturbed mind with no plan to harm society. Next time a rogue pilot might have other priorities.

It will be interesting to see if other people in the industry feel the same way, and if something gets implemented.

I agree the cost/benefit tradeoffs make it difficult to justify, especially with regard to retrofitting to older designs.

Yet I wonder how the industry can look the other way now that it's so clear how easy it is to steal an aircraft and how dangerous that can be.

Owlmaniac wrote:

So much could change in healthcare but of course it requires money. More in-depth training for family doctors, closer monitoring of antidepressants, improved access to therapy, more focus on community care and increased number of groups or therapeutic activities that people can attend. This could turn into an essay...

I sympathize with where you are coming from, but with regards to aviation we have seen the worst case scenario in the recent past ( a pilot with diagnosed mental health issues decides to commit suicide by flying a plane load of passengers into the side of a mountain ) and the world decided to look the other way.

The world largely does not want to help people in need. They'd prefer to horde resources and get themselves the best possible house(s)/car(s)/vacation(s)/clothes/school(s)/etc instead. They prefer to blame the mentally ill themselves, or blame their parents, or blame the diagnosis of a mental health issue as a favor (!) granted by a doctor to a lazy shirker.

In general the public is afraid to look the issue of mental illness directly in the eyes, because they might see themselves, or they might see someone they love.

I don't see how this incident will change things much, if at all, despite the fact that anyone doing anything more than a casual listen of the ATC recordings will have to pick up on the fact that Mr. Russell was mentally ill.

Revelation wrote:

I sympathize with where you are coming from, but with regards to aviation we have seen the worst case scenario in the recent past ( a pilot with diagnosed mental health issues decides to commit suicide by flying a plane load of passengers into the side of a mountain ) and the world decided to look the other way.

The major issue I have with that incident is that the individual did receive medical care and attention and was properly diagnosed, unfortunately, those who developed the policy of getting staff help left one major loophole in the process, leaving the patient to "self medicate / notify / remove from duty", the medical professional should have had the ability to notify the employer once certain conditions / symptoms were observed to minimize the risk to the population at large.

Just to add to the post and a comment made by another poster up thread, it is amazing how Rich's medical info became available so quickly after the event.

par13del wrote:

Revelation wrote:

I sympathize with where you are coming from, but with regards to aviation we have seen the worst case scenario in the recent past ( a pilot with diagnosed mental health issues decides to commit suicide by flying a plane load of passengers into the side of a mountain ) and the world decided to look the other way.

The major issue I have with that incident is that the individual did receive medical care and attention and was properly diagnosed, unfortunately, those who developed the policy of getting staff help left one major loophole in the process, leaving the patient to "self medicate / notify / remove from duty", the medical professional should have had the ability to notify the employer once certain conditions / symptoms were observed to minimize the risk to the population at large.

Yes, and I understand in that regard, despite the debate it triggered, in the end nothing was changed with regard to medical reporting rules.

The public in general, and in this case the pilot's union in particular, seems to have a deep seated fear of a medical professional having the power to end their career, even if/when doing so would probably save their lives and the lives of many around them.

Revelation wrote:

The public in general, and in this case the pilot's union in particular, seems to have a deep seated fear of a medical professional having the power to end their career, even if/when doing so would probably save their lives and the lives of many around them.

I know it's pretty shocking but there are many mental health professionals that will not go out their way to encourage patients to report a condition, let alone report the patient on their behalf. Occasionally the medical notes are even written in a certain way so as to not cause the patient too much trouble down the line with work etc. There are two documentaries where professionals openly told their patients to adapt the truth; one patient was a doctor who heard voices (the name of the documentary!) and had episodes of delusions about the medical equipment. Personally, I don't think it's right that doctor was still working in that state and she should have been granted time off, but she did recover and her employers didn't know about it so she kept her job. Until employers are more understanding and react better to mental illness I can't see how anything will change. Doctors should monitor mental health patients more closely though, especially if other people's lives are in their hands.

The level of defeatism regarding improving mental wellness (as some are trying to call it these days, perhaps in light of this phenomenon) in this thread is quite depressing, no pun intended.

No amount of prevention will ever reduce the chance of somebody stealing an airplane to zero, just like we will never see transportation deaths fall to zero no matter how many airbags or how much automation we stick in cars, etc. This does not mean that throwing up our hands and working on fancy locks and calling it good is the appropriate answer, and frankly I'm surprised and disappointed that clearly intelligent people seem to be taking that position, particularly when the likelihood of working on the much more difficult problem of mental health is likely to yield vast side benefits beyond just reducing (but not eliminating) the likelihood that people will want to steal and crash airplanes.

AirCalSNA wrote:

Nor do any of the "mental health issue" apologists ever explain what exactly we could be doing to "try hard enough in the United States," which is why I believe nothing ever changes even on the mental-health front when weird events like this happen.

And it has nothing at all to do with opinions like this one.

I think you'll find plenty of people have plenty of ideas about how to try hard enough, which you'd know if you or anybody else expended some effort to pay any attention to what they are saying. But no, we get statements like the above with zero basis in fact.

Anyway, I'll start.

* Funding local, state, and federal support for both responsive and preventative mental health at anywhere near the level of need would be a great start. Most mental health programs funded by government (either directly or indirectly e.g. via Medicaid) are underfunded and do not sufficiently meet demand, provide incomplete care, etc.

* Increased training for recognition and prevention, to include school teachers, police, nurses, and general practitioners. Not only does this increase the likelihood that people with problems will get help sooner, but it increases the likelihood that people in the above professions will respond appropriately when they come across somebody with a problem, particularly police and teachers, who can just as easily traumatize someone as help them, depending on their behavior, and GPs, who can make things worse by prescribing inappropriate medication out of ignorance. (For example, if Rich was bipolar, giving him an antidepressant could cause the type of behavior we've seen from him.)

* A major emphasis on family-focused therapy for kids with problems, especially kids with high biological risk. When it comes to mental health over the course of a person's entire life, an ounce of prevention in childhood is worth a ton of cure in adulthood.

* Vastly increased availability of parenting education for parents, offered relentlessly in the pre-, peri-, and postnatal phases.

* Mandatory parenting education for parents found to be even slightly abusive.

* Mandatory family-focused therapy when parents involve their children with the police due to the child's behavior, which does not arise in a vacuum.

That'd be a good start at trying hard enough.

I'd like to add mental health education for school children. With the aim of getting to the point where we can recognise mental health issues in ourselves and others, are OK with that and rapidly seek help, and feel confident that we can tell others, including employers, without facing discrimination.

treetreeseven wrote:

The level of defeatism regarding improving mental wellness (as some are trying to call it these days, perhaps in light of this phenomenon) in this thread is quite depressing, no pun intended.

No amount of prevention will ever reduce the chance of somebody stealing an airplane to zero, just like we will never see transportation deaths fall to zero no matter how many airbags or how much automation we stick in cars, etc. This does not mean that throwing up our hands and working on fancy locks and calling it good is the appropriate answer, and frankly I'm surprised and disappointed that clearly intelligent people seem to be taking that position, particularly when the likelihood of working on the much more difficult problem of mental health is likely to yield vast side benefits beyond just reducing (but not eliminating) the likelihood that people will want to steal and crash airplanes.

I'm not sure why we can't agree that discussing one alternative is not ruling out others...

You've spelled out the real issue:

treetreeseven wrote:

Funding local, state, and federal support for both responsive and preventative mental health at anywhere near the level of need

Which is just a matter of prioritization, but as I wrote just a few posts ago:

Revelation wrote:

The world largely does not want to help people in need. They'd prefer to horde resources and get themselves the best possible house(s)/car(s)/vacation(s)/clothes/school(s)/etc instead. They prefer to blame the mentally ill themselves, or blame their parents, or blame the diagnosis of a mental health issue as a favor (!) granted by a doctor to a lazy shirker.

Revelation wrote:

The public in general, and in this case the pilot's union in particular, seems to have a deep seated fear of a medical professional having the power to end their career, even if/when doing so would probably save their lives and the lives of many around them.

For the majority, even if they are minimum wage workers, their career is their only means to sustain themselves, and often their family as well. The compensation by private or public insurance for being unable to work is relatively small, if any is even offered. For many, their job is a source of pride as well. All of this is especially true for pilots and other aviation employees. The greatest fear of the Germanwings pilot was to not be permitted to fly anymore.

Revelation wrote:

The world largely does not want to help people in need. They'd prefer to horde resources and get themselves the best possible house(s)/car(s)/vacation(s)/clothes/school(s)/etc instead. They prefer to blame the mentally ill themselves, or blame their parents, or blame the diagnosis of a mental health issue as a favor (!) granted by a doctor to a lazy shirker.

It is all too common for people with mental issues to get tips like "Just don't be depressed!" or "Man up! Don't be a bitch!". We all deal with our own problems and often don't understand why other people just can't deal with theirs.
Mental health issues are thus considered weakness, and our society doesn't tolerate weakness well. Also, people often confuse mental illnesses and being stupid or retarded. Which is blatantly wrong. People can be ill and still be excellent mathematicians, pilots, doctors, musicians, ... "a beautiful mind".

At least until they "snap".

Revelation wrote:

Yet I wonder how the industry can look the other way now that it's so clear how easy it is to steal an aircraft and how dangerous that can be.

The industry never really considered the case of an industry insider with ill intentions. Until quite recently, all safety efforts tried to prevent technical and human errors. That something could be bad when it works as intended, and is easy to use, runs counter to that mindset.

Owlmaniac wrote:

AirCalSNA wrote:

I think you folks are placing way too much confidence in your "mental health issue" theory, which I think is often used as a catch-all excuse for problematic behavior that is just a part of human nature. People do dangerous and crazy stuff, both for fun and in response to difficult circumstances; it's part of the human condition.

This is not directed only at you, this is just an observation of various comments on the internet. One of the things that this tradgey has brought to light is that there is still a degree of denial about mental health issues; that they even exist at all or that they only exist for certain people. Maybe it would be more helpful to think of mental well/ill health as being a spectrum that we are ALL on and our place does not stay static during our whole lives.

I felt a bit disturbed when I read some other comments last night and there seems to be some issues around suicide acceptance as well. The majority of suicides are as a result of mental health issues of some description or another. The brains of suicide victims show consistent changes compared to non-suicide deaths. These changes are the sort you expect could be treated with medication or therapy (yes social and psychological factors affect biology). It's sad to think that people don't believe something could be done.

I don't think it's a shock that many of the comments that have worried me have been made by men - male suicides by far outnumber female. Maybe there needs to be some more targeted work here. How many guys know of a dedicated male suicide hotline they can ring? I only know of one, it's in the UK. https://www.thecalmzone.net/ They did a campaign recently which shocked people (they placed dressed up mannequins at the edges of a building roof, as if they were going to jump) but it least it got them talking.

So much could change in healthcare but of course it requires money. More in-depth training for family doctors, closer monitoring of antidepressants, improved access to therapy, more focus on community care and increased number of groups or therapeutic activities that people can attend. This could turn into an essay...

No need for an essay ... you might start simply by defining what you think is a "mental health issue." I'm not at all against people getting help with a recognized problem reaching out voluntarily for that help (unless there is some overt dangerous or illegal conduct), as I have recognized from time-to-time for myself when I have needed support for personal struggles. But I think it's overly simplistic to suggest that everyone who does something stupid, including committing suicide, has a "mental health issue," and the vague "more this and more that" remedy seems more like throwing whatever is at hand at a problem that hasn't even been defined. You can't cure normal, and human nature is not something that can be therapized to the point where impulse and bad judgment will be eliminated.

The fix for this particular event is relatively simple and has nothing to do with fixing "mental health issues" ... using lock or codes make sure that only those authorized to start the engines on a plane can do so.

AirCalSNA wrote:

you might start simply by defining what you think is a "mental health issue." .

For most issues/cases...

either:

An individual subjectively reports mental suffering (for example when Rich said he was "a broken guy" with "screws loose")

Or:

Others (usually doctors or the police) consider a person a danger to themselves or others (I would love to hear from any doctor or police who would consider Rich not to be a danger).

But...

Obviously there are cases where neither may be applicable.

A psychopath may not feel they are suffering and may not actually pose a direct risk to anyone, but they still meet the criteria for that personality disorder which is classified under mental health (just in a different section of the manual).

Of course some doctors agree that very ill patients with little hope to improve should be granted euthanasia/assisted dying and may judge them to have capacity to make that decision.

I don't want to enter your argument about mental health care (seems like it is useful, but I agree with Revelation that multiple things can be done at the same time).

But:

AirCalSNA wrote:

The fix for this particular event is relatively simple and has nothing to do with fixing "mental health issues" ... using lock or codes make sure that only those authorized to start the engines on a plane can do so.

I didn't think this was "relatively simple". Particularly for preventing the authorized to do bad things, or for ensuring that the fix doesn't has some unintended side effects. As has been discussed in this thread earlier...

Revelation wrote:

Owlmaniac wrote:

So much could change in healthcare but of course it requires money. More in-depth training for family doctors, closer monitoring of antidepressants, improved access to therapy, more focus on community care and increased number of groups or therapeutic activities that people can attend. This could turn into an essay...

I sympathize with where you are coming from, but with regards to aviation we have seen the worst case scenario in the recent past ( a pilot with diagnosed mental health issues decides to commit suicide by flying a plane load of passengers into the side of a mountain ) and the world decided to look the other way.

The world largely does not want to help people in need. They'd prefer to horde resources and get themselves the best possible house(s)/car(s)/vacation(s)/clothes/school(s)/etc instead. They prefer to blame the mentally ill themselves, or blame their parents, or blame the diagnosis of a mental health issue as a favor (!) granted by a doctor to a lazy shirker.

In general the public is afraid to look the issue of mental illness directly in the eyes, because they might see themselves, or they might see someone they love.

I don't see how this incident will change things much, if at all, despite the fact that anyone doing anything more than a casual listen of the ATC recordings will have to pick up on the fact that Mr. Russell was mentally ill.

I agree with all you say, but bringing Germanwings 9525 into it. that is a much much deeper subject, and unless you have lived in Germany, you will not understand their privacy laws , especially relating to medical matters. Every country has privacy , data protection, medical confidentiality laws etc etc, but in Germany, they really are a holy grail! Need to put this into context and consider the historic past (WW2) and how the Nazies dealt with ´challenged´ people. Having lived there for 30+ years, I would almost call it ´over democratic´ on a lot of points and that is not always a good thing. Lupitz´s (Germanwings Pilot) doctors surely had their thoughts on him, but local laws would simply not allow them to raise the red flag. Add to that anti discrimination laws and you have a (although very rare) recipe for disaster. heck, he took a break from this flight training for obvious phsychological reasons, yet was readmitted once he felt better. That is the system there, there is no other way.
I feel these laws are to ensure that what happened in 1933-45 can never repeat itself , a burdon german society still carries and it is deeply engraned in current laws.
Of course the debate has stared as a result of this tragic indicent, but again, you need to look at the bigger picture and local circumstances and history to fully understand
the background on that one. It is not a case of anybody looking away......

Here is the ATC recording of the chase fighters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9geutArj9ts

AirCalSNA wrote:

No need for an essay ... you might start simply by defining what you think is a "mental health issue." I'm not at all against people getting help with a recognized problem reaching out voluntarily for that help (unless there is some overt dangerous or illegal conduct), as I have recognized from time-to-time for myself when I have needed support for personal struggles. But I think it's overly simplistic to suggest that everyone who does something stupid, including committing suicide, has a "mental health issue," and the vague "more this and more that" remedy seems more like throwing whatever is at hand at a problem that hasn't even been defined. You can't cure normal, and human nature is not something that can be therapized to the point where impulse and bad judgment will be eliminated.

I think you're going to unusual lengths to preserve the "it was just a joy ride" theory. And you're exaggerating because no one said that everyone who does something stupid is mentally ill.

I think most of us think that someone who is not just contemplating suicide occasionally, but who actively formulates and then executes a suicide plan, is not "normal" but are mentally ill and could have used some professional help before things got to that point.

This guy was saying things like he knew there were many who cared for him and would be upset by his actions, and yet refused any suggestion that could have lead to him saving himself.

To most of us, that's far more than "impulse and bad judgement" as you suggest.

Revelation wrote:

AirCalSNA wrote:

No need for an essay ... you might start simply by defining what you think is a "mental health issue." I'm not at all against people getting help with a recognized problem reaching out voluntarily for that help (unless there is some overt dangerous or illegal conduct), as I have recognized from time-to-time for myself when I have needed support for personal struggles. But I think it's overly simplistic to suggest that everyone who does something stupid, including committing suicide, has a "mental health issue," and the vague "more this and more that" remedy seems more like throwing whatever is at hand at a problem that hasn't even been defined. You can't cure normal, and human nature is not something that can be therapized to the point where impulse and bad judgment will be eliminated.

I think you're going to unusual lengths to preserve the "it was just a joy ride" theory. And you're exaggerating because no one said that everyone who does something stupid is mentally ill.

I think most of us think that someone who is not just contemplating suicide occasionally, but who actively formulates and then executes a suicide plan, is not "normal" but are mentally ill and could have used some professional help before things got to that point.

This guy was saying things like he knew there were many who cared for him and would be upset by his actions, and yet refused any suggestion that could have lead to him saving himself.

To most of us, that's far more than "impulse and bad judgement" as you suggest.

Exactly.

All the perp's time on flight sims, without any known effort to even get a PPL (think Civil Air Patrol, community college, etc.)... shows long term calculation, probably obsession, with the Q as a coffin.

trnswrld wrote:

Hey guys one question I didn’t see brought up that Rich and the controller actually brought up. So let’s say Rich did manage to land the plane which to be honest I think could have possibly been done successfully had he really wanted to. Maybe the plane would have been damaged to some extent, but maybe survivable. Anyway, what kind of jail time do you think he would have gotten? I was talking with guys at work (ATC) and I asked if it would be life. Most said NO. The guy is only 29 years old, and we brought up the situation how the 2014 Chicago Center contractor that tried to burn the facility down, commit suicide, and cut several critical lines only received 12 years. Crazy!
It’s too bad, I bet Rich could have landed that thing and got some help and eventually lived his life outside of jail at some point.
Seemed like a cool guy based on listening to him chat and some of the pictures and videos he’s posted.

Funny I thought that too. I wonder if maybe suicide wasn't really his intended purpose. I think he was maybe a wanna be pilot he did something on the fly and once airborne he realized he was in real trouble he would maybe have trouble landing and more important he was facing jail time even if he pulled it off. So he did all the crazy flying all the things he wanted to do and figured he had to crash it because he in his mind had no way out. Tragic.

WPvsMW wrote:

All the perp's time on flight sims, without any known effort to even get a PPL (think Civil Air Patrol, community college, etc.)... shows long term calculation, probably obsession, with the Q as a coffin.

How so? I have been flight simming since FS2002 and I still dont have a license. You think I or any other long time flight simmer is plotting as well? Apply that same bs logic to people who own 20 guns yet have never shot a place up vs someone who buys the stuff 2 weeks in advance and goes on a killing spree. Stop trying to blame the hobby.

In the context of "was the perp's suicide carefully planned or spontaneous", the perp's prep suggests planned, not a whim.

Saw it on the TV on the day of the crash that the plane was sadly stolen and flew out of the airport without controller communication then crashed. Sad for sure.

SomebodyInTLS wrote:

Revelation wrote:

catiii wrote:

They have. The Iranians grabbed a Sentinel.

Wiki ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%8 ... 0_incident ) says back in 2011:

A Christian Science Monitor article relates an Iranian engineer's assertion that the drone was captured by jamming both satellite and land-originated control signals to the UAV, followed up by a GPS spoofing attack that fed the UAV false GPS data to make it land in Iran at what the drone thought was its home base in Afghanistan. Stephen Trimble from Flight Global assumes UAV guidance could be targeted by 1L222 Avtobaza radar jamming and deception system supplied to Iran by Russia.[17] In an interview for Nova, U.S. retired Lt. General David Deptula also said "There was a problem with the aircraft and it landed in an area it wasn't supposed to land".[18][19]

American aeronautical engineers dispute this, pointing out that as is the case with the MQ-1 Predator, the MQ-9 Reaper, and the Tomahawk, "GPS is not the primary navigation sensor for the RQ-170... The vehicle gets its flight path orders from an inertial navigation system".[20] Inertial navigation continues to be used on military aircraft despite the advent of GPS because GPS signal jamming and spoofing are relatively simple operations.[21]

So, while it's clear a RQ-170 was downed, it's not clear how it was done, and it should be clear that neither the US or Iranian side wants you to know how it was done.

It should also be clear that some of the things being discussed here wouldn't use the same technologies as were used before 2011 and the industry awareness around hacking is not the same as it might have been in 2011.

We need to take a step back from getting too focussed on unnecessary details (although this is a.net, I know): the point was

a) "we should add remote control to prevent people stealing aircraft"
b) "that would not be 100% secure" (subtext: could actually enable *more* rather than less incidents)
a) "yeah right, no-one's ever hacked a military drone"
b) "yes they have - ergo my point is made"

It's irrelevant whether or not security has changed since then - it happened.

So if it can happen once - on a relatively rare military-spec example no less - then it's indisputable that it could happen again on commercial-spec security on tens of thousands of aircraft with hundreds of thousands of personnel requiring daily access.

Then it follows that adding this function in the name of security would actually make things less secure.

Adding smartphone-level security *without a remote control function* is another thing entirely, and that would certainly improve the security situation - although at the cost of more inconvenience and delays when things go wrong / codes are forgotten, etc.

No one has hacked any sophisticated military UAV or any critical aircraft system EVER. Prove that it's ever happened and no, old Iranian propaganda isn't proof.

Revelation wrote:

We'd need mental health screening to be a lot more accurate and a lot more frequent for it to be an effective solution.
.

And you'd win a Nobel prize if you could make more frequent and accurate mental health screenings an effective solution.

So we are expected to believe that someone with no cockpit experience in a Q400 is able to taxi this aircraft to a runway line it up and take off and perform a set of highly difficult acrobatic maneuvers and not crash the plane he executes all his stunts as if he were a highly skilled pilot and the plane only crashes when it runs out of fuel to me those are some pretty big odds he over came when from the sound of his voice it appears he's not all there and like many said he sounds like a twelve year old at a carnival. To me 2+2=5

klm617 wrote:

So we are expected to believe that someone with no cockpit experience in a Q400 is able to taxi this aircraft to a runway line it up and take off and perform a set of highly difficult acrobatic maneuvers and not crash the plane he executes all his stunts as if he were a highly skilled pilot and the plane only crashes when it runs out of fuel to me those are some pretty big odds he over came when from the sound of his voice it appears he's not all there and like many said he sounds like a twelve year old at a carnival. To me 2+2=5

What do you mean? He had plenty of Q400 cockpit experience.

It was a part of this guy's job to get into the Q400 cockpit, start the APU, monitor the hydraulic pressure, use the radio, travel the raxiways etc.

The aerobatic maneuvers he did aren't highly difficult if you don't care if you survive them.

A flight sim could give him enough comfort/confidence to do everything he did beyond taxiing, again given he wasn't afraid of dying.

Finn350 wrote:

Here is the ATC recording of the chase fighters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9geutArj9ts

This was fascinating. Quick question: who is Bigfoot? I get who ROCK41 and ROCK42, as well as TOI1 and of course SEA ATC. But who is talking when it says Bigfoot?

SuseJ772 wrote:

Finn350 wrote:

Here is the ATC recording of the chase fighters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9geutArj9ts

This was fascinating. Quick question: who is Bigfoot? I get who ROCK41 and ROCK42, as well as TOI1 and of course SEA ATC. But who is talking when it says Bigfoot?

Yes, that was fascinating in deed. I noticed how the lady lowered her voice when she offered to help the jets to find „TOI1“.. as if she fealt kind of guilty or at least uncomfortable to do this.

R.I.P. Rich. I liked how he said that he has a loose screw. With all due respect, most aviation enthusiasts including me have kind of a loose screw... ask my wife and she will answer that I have a warehouse of loose screws

SuseJ772 wrote:

Finn350 wrote:

Here is the ATC recording of the chase fighters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9geutArj9ts

This was fascinating. Quick question: who is Bigfoot? I get who ROCK41 and ROCK42, as well as TOI1 and of course SEA ATC. But who is talking when it says Bigfoot?

Can’t get a clear answer off google. But looks like big foot is a helicopter. Probably off of McCord.