{"id":6764,"date":"2015-03-28T11:44:05","date_gmt":"2015-03-28T15:44:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=6764"},"modified":"2015-03-28T11:45:05","modified_gmt":"2015-03-28T15:45:05","slug":"so-it-was-mental-illness-after-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=6764","title":{"rendered":"So it was mental illness, after all?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was quite doubtful<\/a> about the theory that Germanwings 9525 was brought down intentionally by its co-pilot. I was more inclined to bet on a health problem. Perhaps I could argue that in a sense, I was right: mental illness can be just as debilitating as any physical condition. And a person suffering from severe mental illness can be quite capable of doing unspeakable, irrational things, whether it is due to “voices”, an exaggerated sense of self, or whatever.<\/p>\n

In response, airlines around the world are now instituting the “two person rule”, requiring\u00a0two members of the crew to be present in the cockpit at all times. Like the reinforced cockpit door, I wonder if this recommendation is based on the best scientific analysis available, or if it is another example of knee-jerk “security theater”.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am especially concerned because in response to a very low probability event (a pilot going berserk and locking the other pilot out), we introduce\u00a0another possibility, the probability of which may in fact be higher: that a non-pilot member of the crew gains access to the cockpit with nefarious intent.<\/p>\n

Arguably, this is replacing one black swan with another black swan but still… think of the reinforced cockpit door itself. It was supposed to prevent another 9\/11-like scenario, however unlikely it is for one to occur again; instead, it introduced its own unique dangers, and now claimed 150 lives. Not only that, but I just found out that the door mechanism itself has been responsible for at least one unscheduled landing<\/a>, when it began smoldering and the resulting smoke caused pilots to divert.<\/p>\n

Wouldn’t it make more sense to listen to the professionals, say, at the American NTSB and ask for their informed analysis<\/a> and opinion before introducing these regulations?<\/p>\n<\/fb:like>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was quite doubtful about the theory that Germanwings 9525 was brought down intentionally by its co-pilot. I was more inclined to bet on a health problem. Perhaps I could argue that in a sense, I was right: mental illness can be just as debilitating as any physical condition. And a person suffering from severe […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aviation","category-37-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6764"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6768,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6764\/revisions\/6768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}