Posted on 03/26/2015 5:25:59 PM PDT by Kaslin
RUSH: So, "The copilot of the doomed Germanwings jet barricaded himself in the cockpit and 'intentionally' sent the plane full speed into a mountain in the French Alps, ignoring the pilot's frantic pounding on the door and the screams of terror from passengers, a prosecutor said Thursday." It's amazing how fast they get prosecutors on the case over there. You know, in Europe, the spokesmen are always the prosecutors, not the cops. I mean, it's all law enforcement.
It's amazing.
"Copilot Andreas Lubitz's 'intention (was) to destroy this plane,' Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin said, laying out the horrifying conclusions reached by French aviation investigators after listening to the last minutes of Tuesday's Flight 9525. The Airbus A320 was flying from Barcelona to Dusseldorf when it began to descend from cruising altitude of 38,000 feet after losing radio contact with air traffic controllers. All 150 on board died when the plane slammed into the mountain."
The prosecutor "said, 'The most plausible, the most probably, is that the copilot voluntarily refused to open the door of the cockpit for the captain and pressed the button for the descent.' He said the copilot's responses, initially courteous in the first part of the trip, became 'curt' when the captain began the mid-flight briefing on the planned landing." Have you noticed that stretching? They don't want to call this terrorism. They don't want to call this terrorism.
I guarantee you the people on that plane were terrorized. In fact, it's being theorized that for... You know, it took eight minutes to descend, and there was not a whole lot of radio contact, and it didn't seem to be a descent. The theory is the passengers didn't know 'til the last minute what was happening, and that's when the screams were heard. Here is the prosecutor. This is the segment of the press conference that has set the world on fire just a bit here.
BRICE ROBIN (via translator): He voluntarily allowed the plane to descend and lose altitude, about 1,000 meters per minute. It's not normal.
RUSH: No question it's not normal, but they don't want to call it terrorism here yet. Folks, they just don't know. The copilot, 28-year-old German, has a home there. There's a picture of him sitting by the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. On Fox & Friends this morning retired Air Force general Thomas McInerney was the guest, and Anna Kooiman said, "He's 28 years old, a German national.
"They don't know his religion or his ideology," and it took 'em a long time to announce the pilots' names, and they knew these names for a long time. It took them awhile to make that news public. But she asked General McInerney, "What type of background checks do pilots have to go through in that part of the world, and also here in the US? What kind of psychological examinations, things like that, before they're hired?"
MCINERNEY: They're pretty extensive, and the thing is is... But they're very sensitive on religion, and that's why -- because I focus on radical Islam is why -- I migrate to that, because there's a logic and a rationale that they become suicide bombers. For other people, I would call a violent extremist for whatever his ideology is. You'd have to look into that. But the airlines are pretty extensive on that, and I think we're gonna find as this peels back and we get the facts, the question is what is the ideology behind the terrorism, and that's what they're gonna have to look at very extensively.
RUSH: They're not gonna want to tell us. It's obvious they're not gonna want to tell us. They're trying to stretch this out or delay this as long as they can.
Now, Copilot "Lubitz' recently deleted Facebook page appeared to show a smiling man in a dark brown jacket posing in front of the Golden Gate Bridge in California," San Francisco. "The page was wiped sometime in the past two days. Lufthansa said Lubitz joined Germanwings in September 2013, directly out of flight school, and had flown 630 hours. The captain had more than 6,000 hours of flying time and been a Germanwings pilot since May 2014, having previously flown for Lufthansa and Condor.
"The circumstances of the crash are likely to raise questions anew about" background checks and this kind of thing. Yeah, they're actually gonna look into background checks a little bit more extensively here. They're saying, "Okay, well, maybe the pilot was depressed. Maybe he just wanted to commit suicide. No, folks. You don't commit suicide and take 150 people with you. I mean, maybe you do. I don't know.
I don't have the suicide mentality or gene or what have you. Anyway, whatever they're trying to do here to avoid calling it terrorism or what have you, doesn't change the fact that the people on board that plane were terrorized. Ever wondered why plane crashes so captivate people and the attention span? I mean, here we have 150 people died, and they died all at once, and it's... I'm not being critical of this. I just examine this sociologically. It's fascinating to me.
The number of people who die in the United States on the highways of this country in automobile accidents is roughly on average 50,000 people a year. The number of people who perish in airplane crashes is way, way below that. But even when there is a massive pileup in an automobile accident, and there are a significant number of deaths, it does not occupy the news cycle for hours and days like a plane crash does. I think there's more to it than just the number of people. Have you ever thought about why this is?
Why is it that airplane crashes actually are rare compared to other accidents that claim people's lives? I've always said, "If you really want to ban death, if you really want to cut down on the number of deaths, then ban the wheel." Automobiles are involved in more deaths than smoking cigarettes, playing in the NFL, or any number of things. Yet there's never even the slightest consideration given to banning the wheel because it's entirely impractical. Yet so many more people die as the result of wheels being used ever since they've been invented.
It's just fascinating to me.
You know what I think part of it is?
I think part of it is rooted in the fact that even people who claim to not be afraid of flying still think it's a really unnatural thing to do. And so a plane crash reminds them of how unnatural an act getting in a fuselage or a tube and heading up five miles in the air is. Whereas getting in a car, you're already on the ground. It's the old thing. My father owned an airplane, when my brother and I were young. It was a single-engine Cessna 182, and there was, to be honest about it... There was some fear, a little bit fear of flying in certain sectors of the family.
I remember one time somebody saying to my dad, "Well, what happens if the engine quits and you're up there?"
This plane maxed out at 10,000 feet. It had no oxygen. It was a small plane.
"What happens if you're up there five or six thousand feet and the engine quits?"
And the fact that you are completely dependent on the integrity of a machine.
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I disagree. You are completeley dependent on: Pilot, weather, terrorist acts, acts of god, bad software, integrity of a machine, etc.
Most car trips are only a few miles. A trip to the corner store is statistically far less likely to involve as many dangerous situations as a 100 mile trip.
A far better comparison would be accidents per hour of travel time but we don’t have the means to measure it at this time. It would show how dangerous spending 1hr in a plane is compared to driving.
But even that is almost meaningless since driving safety primarily depends on driver skill and reaction to other drivers. Flying airliners is far more dependent on mechanical systems and weather. One driver might actually be far safer than flying but another could be constantly getting into accidents.
I suppose that is why people are so terrified of flying- the sheer randomness of accidents and no control.
The number of people who die in the United States on the tables of the CHOICE clinics is roughly on average 1,000,000 people a year.
The biggest factor: the Grace of GOD
More accurately, in a car you are usually in control.
But sometimes you are not, as anybody who's ever hit a patch of black ice can attest. Or barely missed being obliterated by an out of control semi.
So sometimes you just have the illusion of being "in control."
While this is accurate, it also sees a lot of traffic during spring break. Not that I wouldn’t live there in a heartbeat - particularly in the spring - but Hulka seems to want to avoid crowds. Maybe down near St. Mary’s would be a good bet, though.
Thanks, guys. Will look as per your suggestions.
I am tired to the noise and lots of people associated with big cities. Had enough with the urban challenges.
Because we love our machines.
Aircraft and ocean-going ships are often some of our most beautiful creations.
To see them destroyed is heart-breaking. To think someone would wreck them deliberately is scary.
I think we already know where this investigation is leading.
Islam?
Ha!
I tried to get to Florida after Christmas, and ended up seeing a LOT of Georgia countryside (And Tennessee, too) that paralleled (more or less) the Interstate.
Gridlock on an interstate?
Not in Indiana!
Besides; EVERY tenth driver in T & G are evidently practicing for qualifying for some upcoming NASCAR race.
I've NEVER seen so many reckless idiots careening in and out of traffic!
Then there are the absolutely CRAZY bikers that are going at LEAST 110 MPH!
Thank GOD (or maybe AlGore) for a cell phone with GPS and mapping on it!
I hear ya!
I was a city person for 60+ years, until I moved to the relative boonies.
I've got 13 acres to play on now and some critters to attend.
I came to realize why GOD put man in a garden.
I hope I'm not too spoiled by it all to appreciate the city from GOD, coming down from Heaven.
Revelation 21:2
Okay, fine.....I get that you are not always in control 100% of the time in 100% of situations. But you are in control most of the time, and you can survive black ice even if there’s an accident. The topic at hand was not literal control of a vehicle, but the emotional reaction to a plane crash versus car accident.
Georgia drivers aren’t fast, the rest of you are simply too slow.
I agree with that.
But given the wildly disproportionate death rate per mile traveled for car vs. airplane, I’d simply note that the emotional reaction is not based on facts.
In fact, while accurate statistics are hard to come by, it is probable other modes of transport are not as safe as we think they are. Cycling and walking are 10x to 15x more dangerous per mile traveled than driving. Motorcycles, of course, are the most dangerous standard mode of transport, at 30x to 50x more dangerous than cars per mile traveled.
All this goes to show is that emotional reactions are not a particularly good basis for making decisions about risk.
Would also like to point out that if you’re a passenger in a car you have just as little control as a passenger in an airplane.
Despite the fact that total miles traveled keep going up.
This means that deaths per mile are going down rapidly.
Number of trips seems to be an inappropriate metric.
I think risk per hour or risk per mile makes more sense.
In one NZ study I ran across, it showed risk per hour was about the same for driving and walking. Since cars generally travel faster than people on foot, you can extrapolate the risk per mile yourself.
How can that be with the proliferation of cell phones? Worse than drunk driving. Shouldn’t those numbers have climbed?
Cars themselves are much safer in crashes these days.
The proof of it is that all the ambulance chasing tort lawyers have branched out into SocSec disability law because vehicle injury business is falling off.
Of course it’s not based on facts. That’s why the discussion is fascinating....that is assumed. If it were simply fact based, it would just be a thing, not a fascinating human nature thing.
Altho there is one fact that is important: the horror of knowing for many minutes you’re going to hit the ground and die is a horror that is only maybe a half second or so in a bad car crash. And in some cases, these poor souls know at 30 thousand feet they’re doomed. (not the case with Germanwings - they apparently knew for just a few seconds.)
Altho, seeing the captain try to break into the cockpit with an axe could not have been comforting.
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