A Tragedy for Sure - Germanwing Crash

Apologies, I was agreeing with you Bruce. Unintended consequences are sometimes difficult to spot, Othertimes, we just don't seem to look very hard.

We know of two threats, "Insane" pilots and terrorists. We need to cope with both. My reason for asking "are there any others" was to anticipate and avoid further unintended consequences as much as possible. It was also intended to look for "elephants" in the room, so to speak.

As a species, many of us seem to deal with issues on a piecemeal basis, rather than trying to see the big picture.

On the other point about air travel, well, clearly i'm biased given the job I do. Also, a good chunk of my family lives in BC so we travel to and fro quite a bit. Without air travel we wouldn't be able to enjoy much time together.

But it is essential, now. You cannot put the genie back in the bottle...

I guess I feel that mankind has become casual about air travel, and looked at in that way we assume it is normal to whizz half way around the world for a party, and come back the next day. It has costs (other than financial), and risks. Maybe we should not take it for granted.

I certainly consciously re-calibrated my approach to air travel. I also realised that airports and flying had generally become a horrible experience.

Don't miss it. I doubt I will fly again.

Bruce

Do you drive?

Without air travel we wouldn't live so far from family and friends.

I also limit the amount of of flying I do for various reasons (however none of them are to do with safety), although I do enjoy flying.  For me, the more agile the aeroplane and the more you can 'feel' the airframe in the air, the more I enjoy it!  Heck, I even enjoy rotaries!

The other thought is that compared to travelling across an ocean 250 years ago, it's now orders of magnitude safer.  They had their terrorists then as well, and those terrorists still exist - they're called pirates.

Well, that's not entirely true.

Half my paternal Grandfather's brothers emigrated to Canada in the 1890's, well before air travel took off. They just didn't see one another for decades, rather than months.

My daughter would have emigrated regardless of air travel. We are simply fortunate to be in a situation where we can all meet up either there or here quite frequently.

Don,

I’ve waited 24 hours decide as the whether your diatribe against me should be allowed to go unchallenged, and also to ensure that I give a balanced and respectful reply.

For the record:  You have made certain claims and chosen to not provide relevant evidence.  When challenged on this you ignored the request.  Now you state that the request was irrelevant, based on hopelessness.  The implication of this is that your assertions should be believed just because you have stated them.

If you provide the appropriate evidence to back-up your claims, and through that evidence prove those claims, then I will support your position.  Until that time I will continue regard your claims as unproven (not that this will bother you).

However, the worst aspect of your behaviour is the tone of your more recent response - taking a high handed position using bully tactics in an attempt to beat me into submission through a use of language that can be clearly be considered demeaning.  That won’t work; nor will directly insulting me work.  Please desist.

I look forward with interest to the time when you provide enough evidence for others to assess your claims.

On the other hand however, your input into the debate on the technical aspects of flight recording and aircrew practice has been very illuminating – thank you.

Huge,

Please read my posts in context. I don't dance to the tunes of others. The basis of my position is clearly set out in my posts. You have used a common technique, often seen on this forum, to demand that people provide references, statistics, etc etc with the threat of "or else". I can live without you supporting my position.

I have re-read my post on the previous page. My response to your demand for statistics stands (see above).

"Hopelessness" refers to the state of the (your) argument, not you personally. See my post above.

"Pathetic little" refers to the band-wagon you chose to join, not you personally.

Demanding statistics, proof, independent witnesses etc etc constitutes the real bullying tactics often seen on this forum. It doesn't work with me, no matter how nicely people try to dress it up.

That is very kind of you to say so. Thank you.

It appears you have an interest in flying as well ?

http://www.smh.com.au/world/ge...20150330-1mbhnx.html

This is just ridiculous. Why would/should passengers be "nervous"? We are just so irrational. Pensive? Sad? Stunned? Sure, these things are understandable.  But "nervous"? Do we think suicides come in threes?

Given that this flight took place one day after the fateful crash, there wasn't any substantial speculation suggesting suicide, That came about later IIRC. So this group of passengers wouldn't be nervous about being the next of three suicides.

I also think its possible, wrong but possible, that people and reporters use words rather loosely. "Nervous" is more readily grasped than "pensive". In other words, they might simply have used the wrong word to describe peoples' pensive feelings.

I think you're right about the use of words. I also didn't pick up that it was before there was much idea what had happened.

I think anxiety is entirely understandable. Fear does not have to be rational, indeed it is the irrational nature of an anxiety that makes it so persuasive and disruptive. If it were only about logic it would be easy to disregard.

I think of flying as a sort of suspension of disbelief. You are in a big metal tube, surrounded by a fatal environment, 30,000 miles up. Any air accident or catastrophe surely serves to just remind your psyche that, fundamentally, flight includes risk. Logic defines just how rare that is, but does not remove the underlying cognitive dissonance.

if you are a totally concrete thinker you may be able to file your emotions in these circumstances, but most people will feel anxiety.

Bruce

30,000 miles up! Who do you fly with NASA?

It is a leap of faith, although principle of flight seem to have been sorted, the principles of people haven't.

Aircraft are man made therefore can fail and as for the human brain well, when will we ever know?

One of the more harrowing stories I heard was that the  sound of the pilot trying to break the door down with an axe, was recorded on the flight deck recorder.

I wonder what the passengers were told if anything?

Yes, understandable in the context of the human psyche, but still irrational. That's my point (perhaps poorly made). Understandable but irrational "feelings" shape much of our world, and not always for the better. MH370, for example. Why are they still looking? There is no rational reason. Just a waste of money, when viewed rationally.

They are looking in the hope of finding the cause, which in turn might help prevent a similar event in the future.

Now that is not irrational.

What you consider to be irrational is the amount of money that has been spent, given the small probability of finding the aircraft. What you also find irrational, is the number of people who disagree with your point of view. But that's another story

It's simply a poor cost-benefit trade-off. Better ways to invest the cash. So continuing the search is irrational. That's not the same as saying finding the plane isn't a useful outcome. It's just so costly and utterly unlikely as to be essentially worthless on an expected-value basis.

I make my living quantifying cost-benefit trade-offs to guide investment decisions. Most that I deal with aren't as emotionally charged as aircraft safety, but I still have to identify, understand, and often compensate for, a range of agency issues and moral hazards to come up with truly objective and rational analysis.

The people who disagree with me are indeed taking irrational positions, but the fact that there are people who disgaree with me is not unexplainable. It is easily exaplined by the fact that we are fundamentally emotional and irrational beings.

I gather the initial search was called off after about 10 days. No doubt the accountants decided it was no longer economically viable - assuming they were able to dismiss the emotional elements.

Happy serendipity outcome

A sailor who says he spent two months lost at sea has been rescued after apparently surviving on raw fish and rainwater.

Louis Jordan, 37, was found by a passing German tanker 200 miles off the North Carolina coast on Thursday.

His 35-foot sailboat had overturned and Mr Jordan was sitting on the hull, from where he was hoisted to safety.

His family reported him missing at the end of January, and when his father spoke to him after the rescue, he said: "I thought I lost you."

Ben Ando reports.

Read more

US sailor rescued after 66 days lost at sea

I guess we'll soon be hearing news of the MH370 passengers finally making their way ashore.

Such a volume of diatribe has been posted on this thread, one initiated, I hoped, to express a sense of sympathy and compassion towards the many people affected by this tragedy, in addition to the poor people whose lives were lost.  Unfortunately not the case.

'Facts' are still appearing in the press, the jist of which seems to indicate that the co-pilot's employer Lufthansa could well have known about the underlying mental conditions suffered by the co-pilot and reported by medical practitioners; information which it is claimed was not passed on to their subsidiary, German Wings.  Seems incredibly sad/ negligent that this could have been allowed to slip through the corporate net in such a large company with such disastrous consequences.  Given the responsibility air crews have, I would have expected them to come under the closest regular scrutiny.  Doesn't seem to be the case and, if so, much more concerning than the number of crew remaining in the cockpit at any one time.

Peter

Peter

The thread was initiated to point out that the relatives and friends of those killed in rare, high-profile events are no more deserving of our sympathy than the relatives and friends of the vastly greater numbers killed in preventable and anonymous circumstances such as in road accidents. (They are also not any more entitled to public funding in order to find "causes" just because the event was rare and very public.)

Winky,

We'll have to agree to disagree - I just consider your viewpoint misplaced - whilst acknowledging there are a myriad of dreadful things going on across the globe, I think events like this deserve a bit of space and respect for the victims.  If I were a computer it may hold up.  I hope not.  But it might.  Maybe I'm a sucker for the press generating a good story.  I probably should not have submitted my comments to restart this discussion, particularly as I won't say anything further on it.  Apologies for any irritation this may cause.

Peter