#ShowMeTheImam

The Baron has responded again to yet another commenter who left a link to yet another assertion that the Germanwings co-pilot who deliberately crashed the plane was a convert to Islam.

BB says:

Jim Hoft, like everyone else, is sourcing his post to Michael Mannheimer, who is well-respected. However, this is Mannheimer’s only source.

Mr. Mannheimer made a mistake when he based his assertion on that post. It provides the flimsiest of evidence — virtually non-existent. This story is being spun out of less than gossamer. If it is ever definitively refuted, it will discredit everyone who jumped on it.

I still think there’s a fair possibility that the guy was a convert. But we have no evidence to support it yet, NONE. The fact that he lived in Marseille and Bremen and suffered from depression proves nothing.

People need to be more careful in their assertions, and label outright speculation clearly as such.

This “co-pilot = Muslim” meme is reminiscent of that old childhood game “Telephone”. Do you remember when kids sat in a circle and one person was chosen to whisper into the ear of the child next to him some random sentence? That child in turn whispered it to the one next to him and so on, till it came to the last person in the circle. He would then repeat what he’d heard and the child next to him, who’d said the original sentence, would repeat that starter statement. The ending was so garbled compared to the beginning that the participants would have a real ROFL moment before beginning another round. [In their games, children are pretty good rule enforcers. The implicit rule here was to repeat as faithfully as possible what you thought you’d heard; it was no fun if spoilers just made up something.]

On Twitter this morning the same thing was going on. One fellow, John Galt, proposed there was no Islam involved and I agreed with him. A third person said we were wrong so I asked him for sourced information. I don’t understand his non-sequitur response. Maybe it was a form of “shut up”??

Here’s the screen cap. See for yourself:

And that is what led to my frustrated #ShowMeTheImam.

We know:

  • Andreas Günter Lubitz, the co-pilot/mass murderer had a history of depression.
  • His depression was serious enough to interfere with his flight instruction.
  • As a result he had only six hundred hours of flying time despite his training beginning in 2008.
  • Police have found a doctor’s note for leave, torn up (either in his parents’ home or his apartment.

The Daily Mail would have no trouble naming this as terrorism or jihad if they had any evidence with which to back up such an assertion.

Thus, to those people claiming it must be jihad, I will continue to say #ShowMeTheImam. Until solid evidence about some JIM feature in this guy’s life surfaces, that claim is a fatwa too far for this here radicalrightwingextremist.

If we want to be taken seriously it behooves us to step carefully, to act with probity, and to wait for the truth to surface. Especially since the evidence has been utterly obliterated.

I keep thinking of those bereft family members of the flight crew and the passengers. If you have friends in aviation you know how deeply saddened they are by this… imagine the screws that are going to be turned on pilots’ heads, trying to ascertain whether they’re “safe”.

Update

In a “What Would Wretchard Say” moment, I looked at his top post. He begins this way:

[…]

Authorities have now mounted a massive effort to find some motive or explanation for his actions. They may succeed in unearthing a publicly acceptable motive or nothing, for the blackest of boxes is not the flight data recorder but the innermost citadel of consciousness.

Sometimes people do things that nobody else can understand. Sometimes they even do things that are contrary to their rational interest. The underlying premise of the A320 security model was enlightened self-interest. Because the pilot shared the fate of the plane and all its passengers it was assumed that he would do nothing to harm the collective platform.

But once upon a time men knew that self-interest was not always a true shield. What Milton called “the unconquerable will” often trumped it; demanding it should be obeyed, even when destruction is the result. The name given to this unquenchable selfishness used to be evil. There is a strange moment in the New Testament when the disciples marvel at Christ’s ability to cast out demons and He responds by recalling a memory from an eon past. “It was a little before your time,” He told his followers, “but Satan and I have fought before.”

The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” And He said to them, “I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning.”

Christ’s reminiscence is one of the spookiest moments in the New Testament. He knew evil of old. We, on the other hand, have forgotten it, or deny it exists. Lufthansa thought it could make its planes safer through layers of screening and automated processes, but it failed to defend against the oldest enemy of all: the insistent will. To guard against this old enemy — which civilization remembered until recently — systems of checks and balances were built into critical systems to ensure that no single individual will could unilaterally control them.

Of course he has more. Much more. Algorithms, the power of two people exercising control together, and the Founding Father’s ideas on checks and balances are just a few of his passing thoughts in this meditation. But Milton and the Gospel of Luke are indeed a robust response to the mystery of this evil.

“The citadel of consciousness” indeed.

65 thoughts on “#ShowMeTheImam

  1. Then again is being “dumped by a girlfriend” enough of a motive for this to be laid to rest? Or could the real reason be more to do with why she dumped HIM? Has she been identified? I guess now she won’t be – as there are enough trolls on twitter (+ even worse – in real life) to make her life hell… but at least the cops should interview her, to find out what he was like, or any clues as to why he may have done this…

    Btw, at least one (although, to me, unfamiliar) online blog claims the girlfriend is a Turkish Muslim. So could there still be a JIM connection after all? I guess it’s too early days yet… and given the pace at which all the news is coming out, there may yet be more twists to this story.

  2. Those who make claims that the co-pilot is a convert is are plants and are part of a massive cover-up. How easy to lay the blame on a dead co-pilot, and interestingly enough, the FBI has stepped into this European investigation with a specialized intelligence unit. Now why is that? I’m sure someone will come up with a perfectly logical explanation to legitimize their presence. The same propaganda misdirection technique was used in the 9/11 coverup. Get people focused somewhere else. You cannot believe anything anymore, especially if the State is involved.

    What is really odd about the Germanwings crash site is that there is no impact point to be seen in all the fotos and video I have seen. Only thousands of pieces covered across acres of mountain range. This probably means the aircraft exploded in mid air. Meanwhile everyone is concerned with a scapegoat terrorist. Get ready for more sensational news to support a coverup.

    • “What is really odd about the Germanwings crash site is that there is no impact point ”
      Also no scorched earth from an explosion.
      I would also like to know the stats on, how many pilots / co-pilots have purposely crashed their planes in the past.

    • “Across acres”? No, they were concentrated around the crash site, Carax- as you’d expect if an intact ‘plane flew into a mountain.

      • @Green Infidel

        “If the plane exploded in mid-air, you’d have the remains splashed across a lot more than “acres”’.

        It would depend at what height in mid-air it exploded. And if it exploded we don’t know or may never know at what height. All we have is a chart that put out shows the 8 second descent of the aircraft. Charts like these are not necessarily evidence and can be made up. You can believe the official version if you want.

        Mark H’s explanation, like all of us here, relies on inconclusive evidence, though he believes his “evidence” is final even though he doesn’t defined the word “concentrated” and seems to know without a doubt the plane was intact when it crashed. A thousand pieces of wreckage “concentrated” over acres of mountain range and doesn’t mean it did not explode at some point in mid air. I live approximately 25km from the crash site and surveyed the area with binoculars and still don’t know if there was definitely an impact point.

        • Ok, I’ll come clean- I’m a troll. No, not really, but, having spent (too?) much time on GoV and related sites, because I share their genuine fear of the effects of Islam, I have a (not original) observation:

          People on the political “right” tend to be fearful, which encourages them to believe in conspiracies; those more to the “Left”, like yours truly, are more trusting (maybe sometimes naive). I’m just trying to encourage a more balanced viewpoint than is d

          • ….oops! …than is demonstrated by some of the comments on this subject.

            Sometimes, the bad guys are incompetent, or simple absent.

          • The right is far more varied than you are ever willing to give it credit for. Just to demonstrate two distinctions among them, there are social conservatives and there are fiscal conservatives, plus a mix of the two. The Left wants to put them all in one basket and silence them. The Left consistently ridicules the Right and treats it with an unwarranted contempt.

            I would posit the Left is the more fearful: not trusting people, it wants more regulation of speech, of education, of personal liberties. It is afraid of guns, of history, of real differences of opinion. It doesn’t trust people to live their own lives without government’s “help” – which has led, historically, to fewer freedoms and more onerous rules.

            The “effects of Islam” are real. The rule by crony capitalism across the West is also indeed real.

            The “conspiracies” to control prices, commodities, ideas, etc. have been proved and recounted. The West is now largely made up of totalitarian democracies and we are fast losing our most important group: the middle class. Where there is not a strong middle class, there is a huge chasm between the haves and have-nots. South America is a good example of a whole continent which doesn’t respect the rule of law, private property, or free speech. One despot after another.

            On the other side, show me ONE free Islamic state.

            Many on the Right, not all, are realistically fearful of the totalitarian nature of Islam. But then we’re not burdened with Leftist dogmas about the joys of multiculturalism nor do we lie to ourselves about the shadowy parts of human nature. ALL humans.

            The Right and the Left are both afraid, but they’re afraid of different things. The Left is sure that global warming/cooling -whatever – is real and that carbon dioxide is evil and we will all die because of it. The Left thinks we need to control birth and death.

            The basic difference is between the Left’s belief in life as a zero-sum game where the goodies have to ‘fairly’ parceled out, and the Right’s belief in abundance, in the surety that life is open-ended and that human ingenuity solves the most pressing problems and leaves the mysteries alone. We can’t know everything, solve everything, or be everything for everyone.

            Being naive beyond a certain age is dangerous to the person and to the people around them. It is not a virtue but a failure of nerve. Rollo May wrote a wonderful book, somewhat dated now, about the pathology of being naive beyond a certain developmental point:

            Power and Innocence: A Search for the Sources of Violence

            Dr. May was an old-style liberal who recognized the limits of what human beings can do, be, know. This book is still in print, though it came out in the early 70s. He was a good friend of a major 20th century theologian, Paul Tillich, whom he greatly admired. After Tillich’s death his wife wrote her own biography, exposing his feet of clay, much to the sorrow of the good doctor:

            From Time to Time.

            Like many famous powerful men, Tillich suffered from satyriasis; May was afraid his work wouldn’t survive public knowledge of his foibles. How typically Leftist is such fear.

            I was surprised to find a fairly recent blog post on the Tillichs, below, and left a comment.

            http://szezeng.blogspot.com/2010/10/paul-tillich-hannah-tillich-their.html

            For all your innocence and naivete, I’m glad you’ve continued to comment on Gates of Vienna. While I disagree with you on most points, I’m glad you’re willing to hang around.

            In the end, we grow to deserve whatever it is we need to believe.

          • Mark, on your ‘fearful right’. We had a state election here yesterday (Saturday March 28) my next door neighbor went out early to vote, I had already done so, and in passing he remarked to me in words similar to; “I’m off to vote for the Nazis, they’re all bloody Nazis as far as I am concerned.”

            He and I have had some long discussions about the state of the West and how it is governed. I share his concerns, so do you believe he was ‘fearful’ or just aware of what the ‘choices’ are now when we get to vote?

          • Nemesis:

            Being that there’s often not a dime’s worth of difference in the “sides” of the political parties, for the first time in my life I’m considering not voting. My vote doesn’t matter. I may change my mind as we move to November 2016 – or rather, my behavior – and show up to vote but I no longer have any confidence in the con men who run things or their pontificating puppets. Especially with the MSM in charge of who gets to run, you can be sure the GOP choice will be as sure a loser as they can manage.

          • Thanks for your thoughtful reply, Dymphna. It’s a complex issue; I’d argue that the left is- or can be- more trusting because it has the optimistic belief that people are capable of improvement, and systems will help to bring about this Utopia.

            Yes, this can lead to Gulags and Political Correctness, but it stems from benign impulses, at least initially.

            The belief of the libertarian right in minimal state interference is probably less idealistic; whether such a stance does more or less good for most people, we might dispute till the proverbial cows connect themselves to the robot milker! Either way, I’m not convinced that private enterprises are more efficient and less wasteful than public ones, but that’s another bone of wax- sorry, ball of contention!

          • You and I run into very different groups of liberals. The ones I listen to are snarky, suspicious, and think we need more government to protect ourselves against whatever “THEM” is the villain du jour.

            It wasn’t by accident that Cynthia in California wants to differentiate herself from the Leftists – a mean bunch.

            What I like about conservatism is that it respects our ‘fallen’ nature. I don’t mean any religious dogma by that (though it can serve as a symbolic understanding). The universal human experience as infants unable to communicate our needs leads to an inherent, existential sense of frustration.

            There was excellent work done post WWII in England on childhood development. “The good-enough mother” was a term used by Donald Winnicott to describe the best we could do – i.e., pay attention, tune in, to each stage of development. A good-enough parent processes & metabolizes for the child his overwhelming feelings. She or Dad provides a container; otherwise the world is too vast, without limits. That is bedrock for the Right: a world with limits.

            I bring that up because the Left is busy asking “Why” “How” “Who’s to Blame?” about the latest airline tragedy. The Right accepts the existence of evil, the fact that it will always be here, and the best anyone can do is not to attempt to fool-proof the environment, but to figure out ways to make it fool-resistant.

            So the government made those locking cockpit doors after 9/11, not bothering to account for the fact that sometimes the evil to be controlled will reside in one of the pilots. It’s that kind of fuzzy thinking which gets us into a heap of trouble…trouble that can be resolved if you throw enough teddy bears and candles and flowers at the problem. Sigh.

            State interference in lives – the welfare state – is a proven failure. It kills ambition, ingenuity, and the willingness to strive. It’s the smother mother. Command economics is another failure. What works is producing what people want, not what some planner thinks they should want. Communism failed; it continues to fail in China, being propped up by small stabs at permitting individual production…

            America proved this to herself in two very different cultural climates: the Plymouth Colony, founded on religious “freedom” (the free part didn’t last too long), and the Virginia Colony, founded as a commercial enterprise by rich English investors looking for a return on their money (which is why Virginia ended up with slavery, by the way. Those English investors ran out of indentured servants). Each colony tried communal rules: everyone worked for the good of all. Despite whippings, time in the stocks, public humiliation, etc., neither place could induce people to work for the good of others; often the colonies came close to starving. Eventually both colonies had to toss in the towel and permit individuals to strive for their own well-being and the good of their families. The result was an industrious population and surpluses of food and goods.

            This tale was told well by George Washington’s first biographer, also the fourth Supreme Court Chief Justice:

            The Life of George Washington (All Five Volumes) – High Quality, Satisfaction Guarantee

            I love Kindle. All that for a dollar.

            At any rate, the Left’s socialism is a con game, a Ponzi scheme. The basic foundation – that we willingly support people who won’t work – is permanently awry.

    • I wondered about the impact point… Will an aeroplane crashing into a mountainside at 400mph+ really be reduced to confetti – engines, wheels, tyres et al?

      • Its a reasonable question maninthepub. I don’t believe anyone has yet provided a reasonable answer to what is obviously missing from the crash site.

    • The laws of physics don’t necessarily operate in extreme situations exactly the way people expect them to based on their knowledge of “folk physics” (which is what you learn as a kid while throwing a ball around).

      Watching a few of the right episodes of Myth Busters, or simply riding a motorcycle at road speed, should be enough to convince someone of this. For example, see the episode where they fire a .50 cal sniper rifle into a swimming pool. You’d think it would go through at least several feet of water, but it turns out that water almost might as well be solid to projectiles at supersonic speeds. So the bullet just disintegrated immediately after hitting the water. (So if trying to shoot something underwater, use subsonic ammunition as it will actually make it through at least a few feet of water. The movies showing the bad guys shooting 5.56mm rounds from infantry rifles through several feet of water are BS.)

      Misconceptions about things like what actually happens when a jetliner hits the ground at 400mph aren’t helped any by movie special effects which are not exactly based on rigorous physical studies.

      I don’t know exactly what to expect to happen in this situation, but I at least know that I don’t know exactly what to expect.

  3. ” Christ’s reminiscence is one of the spookiest moments in the New Testament. He knew evil of old. We, on the other hand, have forgotten it, or deny it exists. ”

    So it all depends on one’s conscience. Can you imagine someone with a vivid conscience hurting, let alone killing a child or a bunch of passengers? Can you imagine him or her giving tainted food to someone (e.g. in a restaurant even no one sees you)? Can you imagine selling rotten fish after treating it with chemicals to hide the decay?

    Do you feel guilty? Why?
    Ok ” Do what you feel is good” The sinless motto of the last 70 years.

    But how can you build conscience in one’s psyche?
    Conscience? Sin? Shame? Shyness? Those are old fashioned attitudes. You are crippled if you have them. If you have them you can’t enjoy your life to the fullest. As a matter of fact you need therapy.

    The result? Rulers that you don’t know how they think? They have a shape of humans. But are they animals? Are they devils. Why they hate their own people but are fascinated by islam? Why they lie and lie for islam? Why they do exactly the opposite of logic and reason?

    So impenetrable to reason. And why the perverted reason of islam for them is logical?

  4. According to Heavy.com He Suffered From an ‘Existing Illness’ But Not Depression. Lubitz Had Ordered 2 Audis for Him & His Fiancee but cancelled one of the cars last week.

    Based on Lubitz age (27) and his history of ‘burn out’ six years earlier, his health issue may be a mental health issue like schizophrenia which requires dedicated persistent medical supervision/treatment.

    According to CNN: Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz declared unfit to work, officials say.

    Media reports over the last couple of days, since Lubitz was identified have made the case that flying commercial/recreational aircraft was a lifelong dream of this co-pilot. Yet, since 2013, he only managed to earn some 600 hours in the cockpit. Why so few hours? Were his co-workers suspicious of his mental health? Was the airline aware that he had issues in the last six years and kept him on probation?

    No conjure-able reason for his deadly act could possibly ease the pain from the devastation he has caused the loved ones left behind. Perhaps, it will however trigger discussion to address this vulnerability in commercial air travel as mentioned in this article in Forbes: Germanwings Tragedy Focuses Attention On Psychological Evaluations Of Pilots
    At that point, perhaps the proclivity of JIM/SJS activities routinely dismissed and redirected as part and parcel related to a ‘history of mental health disorder(s)’ will be included in the diagnosis.

    • At this point it looks like his employer probably knew he was unfit to fly, despite the pilot’s attempts to conceal it, and this would explain why it took so long to release his name. Now the investigation is going to turn toward finding proof that airline employees were negligent and I would expect possible criminal charges and that the victims’ families will be filing a lawsuit against the airline.

    • CBC: Germanwings Flight 4U9525 highlights lack of mandatory psychological tests for pilots

      “To the Dusseldorf crewmates who knew him, First Officer Andreas Lubitz gave no sign he was mentally unstable.

      They didn’t know about the torn-up doctor’s note found in his home, or another sick note excusing him from flying the very day he crashed Germanwings Flight 9525 into the French Alps.

      Lubitz had never come forward with any problems.

      How and why the 27-year-old apparently hid his illness is now the focus of investigators and is also putting renewed scrutiny on pilot screening, and whether mandatory psychological tests could have prevented Lubitz from downing the airliner, killing all 150 people on board, as is alleged.

      All the rules governing international flights are based on standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organization, notes aviation safety expert Suzanne Kearns.

      Must ‘self-identify’ psychological issues…

    • @Anonymous

      Right, you can always rely on msm like CNN and Forbes to “make the case” and never ever manipulate facts or misdirect.

  5. One of the basic principles of the police investigator who takes his/her job seriously – and I have worked with many who didn’t – is that there is always two sides to every story. In other words, everything that can be remotely connected must be sifted through before a conclusion can be arrived at. Not enough evidence to draw a conclusion? Then it becomes a case for the backburner until other evidence becomes available.

    When incidents like that plane going down occur everyone seeks the quick answer – this author included. Some may even jump at a conclusion based on what they believe happened – the Azaria Chamberlain case (the Dingo has my baby) is a classic case in point for how conclusions can be reached without so much as one leaving their armchair in front of the god in the corner – the TV – while proclaiming to all who would listen that the Mother and not the Dingo, did it!

    I have seen police veterans of 30 years experience do the exactly the same thing.

    There will be no ‘easy’ answers to come from this incident – if the co-pilot was an Islam convert would the authorities be willing to disclose that? I note that many airlines are now taking steps to ensure that there will always be two personnel within the aircraft cockpit at any one time – but what kind of reassurance is that if the second person is a tiny stewardess overseeing a large muscular co-pilot intent on killing himself and all on board while the pilot is off somewhere else?

  6. Great, now we have to invent some now phrase that will really mean “this has nothing to do with Islam”, beacuse if you say: “this has nothing to do with Islam”, then 90% of people in my country know that you are saying: “this is Islam”. This will be a bit complicated.

    Ideas anyone?

  7. Dear Dymphna what you wrote about the reality of evil was very moving and pure poetry and I agree with it completely. But having nursed a dear friend who was the victim of a sudden outbreak of severe mental illness I must say that sometimes mentally ill people do very harmful acts like this while having the best of intentions. They temporarily lose all means of recognising rational cause and effect and make up really weird and outlandish rationale for doing the most senseless of acts. They even are sure that they are doing good and even saving the world by doing their crazy act and that the rest of us are too stupid to see why! They definitely are not evil! Just crazy! In fact that is the main difference between evil people and insane ones. The insane ones are still aware of the reality around them and normal cause and effect, and knowingly chose to do harmful acts, but the insane people are completely confused and can’t figure out what’s going on around them clearly.

    That is why I despise people who deny evil! I have seen many secular people say that for example Nazis were not evil but insane! No! My poor friend was insane when she couldn’t understand anything that was going on around her clearly and because of the frustrating confusion was doing potentially dangerous things to herself and others. But Nazis knew very well what was going on around them and did their dark acts while in complete control of their mental faculties!

    If this co-pilot was badly depressed (and there are depressions that lead to serious bouts of full psychosis) then he might not have been evil at all, but very very insane and worthy of out deepest pity. It is a tragedy that the destiny of 150 people was tied to him at that point and my heart truly breaks for everyone involved, but I will not judge the co-pilot unless we can be sure that he had a “rational” but evil motive for his act, like Jihadis usually do!

    So having seen a person in severe psychosis I can understand that things like this can happen without any rational motives or malice being involved, so I am not too surprised. I just don’t understand why his supervisors were not more alert to his condition.

    I also salute your wise refrain from jumping to any conclusions. That’s why I like and respect this blog so much and trust its content!

    • I think the “pure poetry” part was Richard Fernandez, more familiarly known as “Wretchard”. My impetus to write online came from reading him.

      The “malice” part of evil that arises from a disordered brain isn’t in the same league as mass evil like, say, Stalin’s plans and perversions. That distinction doesn’t help us when evil acts are perpetrated by mentally-disordered people, but it helps make the world more comprehensible.

      I originally wrote a reply to you that was over a thousand words long. Too much for a “reply”. I will wait for events to ripen in the fullness of time and perhaps put it up as a post. Things are still in flux now as people wrestle with the idea of mass murder not done via Islam. When the smoke clears, it would be a good discussion.

    • Don’t we know that even the most profound psychotic illness still leaves most patients with an instinct for self-preservation? Not all, but most. The reason we know this is because we do not see a disproportionate number of psychotics killing themselves by walking in front of cars or trains or driving into bridge abutments or jumping off balconies. We see depressed people doing this, not out-of-range psychotic people. Nor do psychotics often pick fights with football linemen. We see self-preservation operating somewhat, not matter the severity of the psychosis, don’t we? Otherwise, these people would always look reckless. “Reckless” would be in the DSM manual as a diagnostic feature, would it not?

      • Well, I don’t know about that “most patients…self-preservation.” I’ve had the odd fortune (not good, not bad fortune) to be a witness to two different individuals experiencing psychotic breaks.

        The first was in college in Atlanta. A roommate, whom I hadn’t known had a diagnosis of schizophrenia (approx. 22-y.o. woman), became disoriented in the house. She simply could *not* find her way around. I guided her to her bedroom and sat with her, waiting for further indications. After maybe 30 minutes of mutual silence, she started talking at me as if I were someone completely different than myself.
        I told her to wait just a minute, I would go get “someone” for her. Instead, I spoke in a low voice to another roommate to ask whether we had Roomie’s home phone (family home in Alabama). Yes, we did. Roomie #2 placed a call to the family home, and that’s when we found out about the diagnosis, the meds (which I found in Roomie #1’s dresser and got her to take–no idea whether she’d had them that day or a week before), etc. Roomie #2 provided Family with driving directions, and 4 hours later Family arrived with much concern. They were *angry* at us! We never did figure that part of it out.

        The second was in Berkeley, CA. A music group I directed was arranging with a recording engineer to use his studio and his equipment and his skill to record a CD for general release. It seemed to be a case of poor timing; Engineer’s arm was in a cast and sling. I was at Engineer’s house discussing specifics of these arrangements when Engineer went out his back door to “look at the fruit trees.” I love picking fruit, so I went outside with him.
        There were no fruit trees.
        His wife, also a musician, was away on a two-week or so tour. I didn’t have her itinerary (before cell phones, folks), but knew a mutual friend who might. I stayed at Engineer’s house until Friend came over with two others; then I left.

        Neither of these individuals posed a risk to anyone other than themselves. The Engineer had broken his arm trying to “fly” off his back porch like a bird. Roomie #1 became disoriented but was amenable to suggestion (“Maybe you’d like to lie down; it’s pretty hot today…”).

        I and other family members/friends have experience with depression. It doesn’t include homicidal feelings.

        I think Lubitz was staring the end of his piloting career in the face. 630 flight hours (not “training hours,” as I’ve read somewhere) in 7 years is pretty light. It averages 90 hours/year, or not even 2 hours/week. Something was going on, or possibly flights were assigned by seniority and more junior pilots *had* to live with Mom and Dad until they earned enough hours to get more assignments…?

        A man in the position of losing his career can be consumed by many destructive impulses: rage, hatred, revenge, etc.

        I would believe *this* scenario, but doctors and executives will have to be subpoena’d–or whatever the German equivalent is–to get at some measure of the truth.

        • Agreed. I have a post sitting in drafts that I can’t quite face yet…I am so glad the “sudden jihad” meme has died away. I am annoyed that Meghan Kelly at Fox -Megan Fox at Kelly? – practiced such poor investigative skills on this story. Just meat for the jihad-deniers…folks who have only a hammer make all the world a nail…

  8. FWIW:
    Wiki: Montreal Convention
    The Montreal Convention (formally, the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air) is a multilateral treaty adopted by a diplomatic meeting of ICAO member states in 1999. It amended important provisions of the Warsaw Convention’s regime concerning compensation for the victims of air disasters.

    Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air Done at Montreal on 28 May 1999 (Germany and Spain are signatories)

    ConsumerEagle: Plane crash victim compensation under the Montreal Convention published 4/3/2014

  9. Find out what people are really thinking by setting up an electronic futures market, like the Iowa electronic market.

    My dough would be on “we find a Muslim connection”, 3:2.

    • There is one item of real interest there: a capture by Pamela Geller of a Facebook Page that shows some Arabic script.

      For a moment I thought it was a real lead, but it’s not. The co-pilot’s page is gone. The new one is called “Andreas Lubitz FANS” [emphasis mine]. It has a total of ONE “like”. The “about” section says:

      We love our martyr.ANDREAS LUBITZ WILL LIVE FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS.

      When I looked just now, found this report:

      http://www.dw.de/facebooks-vanishing-memorial-to-germanwings-co-pilot-andreas-lubitz/a-18344936

      When his own FB page was searched immediately after the plane crashed, it was unremarkable. I looked at it. A few pictures, music he liked, etc.

      This new page with the Arabic script? That’s it: a NEW page. A posthumous page.

      However, what about the other source of this news?? It’s still Mr. Mannheimer.

      It sounds like Ms. Kelly is going to have egg on her face.She really ought to know better. The need to have “breaking news” and “exclusives” seems to be a New York and Southern California disorder. And now, maybe a German one. I sure hope Fox News has a robust policy for oopsies.

      Sorry, SyB. This was a sick man who hid his disorder from his employer. He’d never have flown as a co-pilot again had they known of his (probable) bi-polar illness.

    • Although it may appear otherwise, I’m not trying to push one theory over another. Don’t know whether Kelly is a good journalist, but whether she is or not I would hope that when she speaks of “emerging evidence,” she is referring to direct evidence and not hearsay, e.g., Mannheimer.

  10. I am only curious, but can a person with a disordered mind fly a complicated machine like a commercial jet, while having a disordered mind? I don’t know the answer, but it seems that the tasks involved would require a lot of focused attention to detail, which would require quite a sound mind.

    • Not really, because much of the process is automated. Pilots don’t even touch the controls that often, almost only on takeoff and landing. Also, given enough familiarity with the processes involved, even if they seem complex to the layperson, people can do these things as though their brains were on autopilot, sort of like zombie drivers can usually stay on the road and get from point A to point B.

      But sort of like zombie drivers, if anything unexpected happens the reaction will be slow or nonexistent.

      It is worth mentioning that this guy was the co-pilot and not the captain. That could be part of why his condition wasn’t taken more seriously.

  11. I’m rather surprised that Baron Bodissey and Dymphna have this much trust in the Mainstream; a trust that would seem to be belied by their other broader, more amorphous perspective on how Leftists (of various flavors) have virtually taken over most of the institutional, sociopolitical and cultural structures of the West. I concede there is plenty of wiggle room in the “amorphous” nature of what I perceive to be their distrust (if not condemnation) of the institutional, sociopolitical and cultural structures of the West which could explain the apparent disparity noted in my first sentence. A nagging feeling, nevertheless, remains.

    • I don’t trust the MSM or their Leftist accomplices in government. You are making an unwarranted jump there, Hesperado.

      Where do you see evidence of your assertion? I certainly *do* trust the ambition and avarice of those who desperately want to present the world with their “exclusive” so if it’s in there somewhere no government clamp down will hide it. Not yet. Though I daresay we’re moving in that direction…

      If it’s found, the Daily Mail will probably be first in line. But this stumble by Fox is most unfortunate; it’s just the kind of thing the Left loves: “oh there go those hysterical islamophobes again”.

      Nope. No more assertions on here without reliable sources.

      • Well, I was referring to both Dymphna and Baron Bodissey; and the latter writes in his piece here above:

        “The Daily Mail would have no trouble naming this as terrorism or jihad if they had any evidence with which to back up such an assertion.

        “Thus, to those people claiming it must be jihad, I will continue to say #ShowMeTheImam.” ”

        These words from BB seem to show an unremarkably normative sense of trust in a mainstream source (one which I share, btw).

        • Well, I happen to have a personal acquaintance with some Daily Mail people. More than that I cannot say — I want them to hold on to their jobs, after all.

          The Mail, in its sensationalized uber-PC fashion, performs an essential service, although a lot of fastidious intellectuals seem not to recognize that fact.

      • When the whole of the Western elites constantly lie, sometimes you have to spook them with unfounded rumors, just to force, if nothing else, an examination of the rumor.

        • I agree that the elites lie, and their paid jornolist lackeys will repeat those lies. “Spooking them with unfounded rumors” merely makes the spooker look hysterically reactive. Why examine a rumor when it’s difficult enough to examine the truth?? With that kind of push, all you do is call into question your whole project. Ain’t gonna happen here.

          I will grant that the jihad concept is the product of some sick minds, but they are diseased in a very different way from those suffering from bipolar disorder. Both are delusional but the latter don’t have a supremacist world view, though some feel insignificant and claim they want to be remembered. And lithium, or its like, can keep a bi-polar disorder in check.

  12. Many years ago pilots were almost all ex-military types with thousands of hours of flight time before they even sat down in a co-pilots seat. This guaranteed you got the creme of the crop.

    Later we got civilian pilots who went through a tough filtering process where once they left flight school they worked at a regional airline, built up thousands of hours before moving on to a national carrier. This made sure some oversensitive or unstable flake didn’t make it.

    This guy OTOH was a grad of a Lufthansa flight school and in 5 years only amassed 600 hours. That amounts to 3 hours a week. Hobbyists have more flight hours than this clown.

    Yeah I know airlines are in desperate need of pilots, but they better up their standards or something bad is gonna happen again.

    • From what I understand entry and mid-level pilot pay is pretty lousy along with a lifestyle that does not lend itself to stability. I bet there are a lot of smart, talented pilots who went into business because of this.

      I also would not mind a bit of ageism when it comes to hiring civilian airline pilots – a no unmarried, childless people under 35 need apply policy strikes me as appropriate.

      Finally, let’s also spare a thought for the pilot, who upheld the traditions of duty and service by trying every possible means to enter the cockpit and regain control of the plane.

  13. I took a different tack in defending the worthiness of a discussion whether Lubitz was a Muslim without having any evidence he was, even now. And that is my conviction that if such evidence exists, and if it’s in the hands of the German or French government, or one of their MSM lapdogs, the evidence would be made to disappear.

    Whether it be the Islamization of Europe, open borders in the US and several related social phenomena, plus nukes for the NorKors, nukes for Iran, arming ISIS, sponsoring Muslim Brotherhood etc. these are acts of such high treason, with such potential of catastrophic consequences, that the perps in high places know their survival depends on making the link between their treason and each case of catastrophic consequence disappear.

    BTW, ranchers in Arizona report seeing Somalis crossing the borders or being led by Border Patrol for, you may be sure, brief, detention. Yet “Somalis” do not appear in Border Patrol statistics; Infowars (and I know they sometimes engage in hyperbole) claims to have received evidenc from a named source that BP has been ordered to label them “Mexicans.”

  14. You must admit. What a waste – he would have made a great Muslim. Anyone who can get very depressed and be narcissistic enough to kill 149 complete strangers was real Jihad material.

    • Your point has already been recognized by those who set up the fake FB page declaring him a ‘martyr’.

      As for me, I hope that this child-killing monster is enjoying his permanent stay in one of Hell’s lower circles.

  15. Whether he was a Muslim convert or not remains to be seen. The unpleasant reality is that if he was, it would make some sense of the otherwise inexplicable tragedy. I don’t think that could be said of any other religion than Islam.

    And Islam is to blame anyway. A security cockpit door so well structured as to resist an 8 minute axe attack by the pilot simply didn’t exist before 9/11.

    • The captain knew that it is impossible
      to force open the door with an ax.
      Why should he then try it ? Rational?
      Is his 8 minutes working with the axe
      to be heard on the recording?
      Simutainously the calm brething of
      co-pilot was recorded?!

      Is this vese 0 of sura 4711?

    • Yes ! Islam is to blame anyway, because such security doors didn’t exist before 9/11 !

      You have a very good point here, Paul Weston.

      Da Capo, if you or I had been in the pilot’s place, would we have remain rational ? I suppose that we would have tried anythin in our powere to regain control of the plane and save 150 lives (OUR lives, BTW) !

  16. I am very happy that you’re not advancing the pilot = Muslim meme without concrete evidence. I hate it when the left makes up nonsense and posts it as fact, and it behooves the right not to play that game.

  17. I did see one internet assertion of the co-pilot’s alleged muslim background, but as has been said, no real evidence, except for the Fan page, plus some other posts that struck me as being completely looney.

  18. Whether the perp was a muslim convert or not, the simple fact remains that his act of mass murder + suicide is entirely consistent with muslim jihadist behavior. Can the same claim be said of any other possible cause, including any of the various mental disorders? I don’t think so. Even if highly depressed or suicidal individuals have on occasion decided to end it all in a blaze of glory that also results in the death of innocent people, such senseless acts are so exceedingly unusual that one couldn’t speak of a consistent connection between his mental condition and his murderous act.

  19. Wonder which girlfriend this co-pilot purchased the second Audi for link?

    Was this co-pilot’s broken relationship allegedly with Goldbach (name on post box at apt. shared ) or the blonde chick, “Maria W” his neighbors mention?

    UK Guardian reports:

    “Lubitz was suffering emotional problems, too, with his girlfriend of seven years. “ “…Sibila Zaccaron said that Lubitz was a regular at her ice-cream bar, La Galleria, on the city’s cobbled main street. She said she saw him frequently with his blonde girlfriend,“He was a sympathetic guy. He didn’t seem depressed. He had a nice girlfriend,”

    While the UK Telegraph reports:
    “The couple dated for five months last year, after meeting while working on a flight, and would fly together around Europe, spending time in hotels together. “

    The Daily Mail picked up on this discrepancy too:

    Some media reports claim the pair were together for seven years and were engaged to be married next year.
    However, a former lover of Lubitz came forward today to claim she had dated the troubled co-pilot for five months last year.
    The woman, known only as Maria W, revealed to German newspaper Bild how he ominously told her last year: ‘One day I will do something that will change the whole system, and then all will know my name and remember it.’”
    *****
    Also noted: Lubitz’s father is a banker; his mother an organist who plays at the local evangelical church. He has a younger brother.

  20. What it sounds like in the cockpit when the bird is gonna crash…

    http://www.airdisaster.com/downloads/cvr/ual232.mp3
    – – – – – – –
    and maybe some minute before that:

    http://www.planecrashinfo.com/MP3s/ratpolish.mp3
    =================================

    Gerhard Wisnewski has presented at Kopp online (Geman) the ‘Cui bono’ question:

    http://info.kopp-verlag.de/hintergruende/enthuellungen/gerhard-wisnewski/germanwings-absturz-der-moerder-ist-wieder-mal-der-tote.html

  21. Dymphna and Baron, I would just like to take a moment to commend you for your intellectual honesty. Even today, people at other sites are still repeating the “Muslim convert” rumors.

    As you know, it does our cause no good to reflexively blame Islam for something it had nothing to do with.

  22. http://internetz-zeitung.eu/index.php/3167-2-germanwings-flugschreiber-gefunden-speicherkarte-im-gebirge-über-nacht-gestohlen

    Germanwings flight recorder found – Memory card in the mountins during
    nigtrte stolen – Government criminality??

    ———————–
    ..official said, by the discovery that the second black box, which was found on Wednesday, was severely damaged, and its memory card dislodged and missing.

    ..The official said that workers on the scene had found the casing of the second black box, the flight data recorder, which investigators had hoped would provide significant information about the flight, including its speed, altitude and direction. But he said that the crash had severely damaged the box, and that the vital memory chip inside it had been dislodged.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/26/world/europe/germanwings-airbus-crash.html

  23. Well, for one time, and this is not often here, I have to disagree.

    As far as I know (today is sunday and I didn’t read the news of today yet), there is no connection whatsoever between Andreas Lubitz and islam.

    At this stage of the inquiry, I think that it is a little bit early to draw any conclusions !

    Second, the news spread on the internet that he had lived in Marseilles, but this is a hoax ! He has never lived there. However, he did gliding training, several times, in the area of the crash, with groups from his flying school in Montabaur, who appreciated this montagnous place for gliding.

    Moreover, there wasn’t any claim issued after the catastrophe from any islamic group. When there is a terrorist act, we get such claims before hours after the act, often from several differents groups who try to get glory about it, though they were not involved. I really don’t see any terrorist act which wouldn’t be claimed by anyone ! What would be the mediatic benefit of an act which is not claimed ?

    It is true that the destruction of the Twin Towers was not “claimed” immediately by Bin Laden, but it was lauded by him, and from all his speeches, we could infer that he, for the least, had advised muslims to do it. If we interpret correctly his double speech, this was clear from the beginning.

    Thanks God, not ALL catastrophes are connected to islam ! The network of evidences, as far as for now, all point to the copilot’s acute psychological disorder, increased by the huge frustration triggered by his eye problems, which would have barred him forever the career of pilot… And psychological disorders are a very intricate field of science, in which the most trained specialists know very little, and can hardly predict the behaviour of a person suffering from such a disorder. Moreover, this disorders led some to be very efficient in hidding their disease to everyone !

    There were several documented instance in the history when planes were intently crashed by a suicidal pilot. And we don’t know about buses, trains, etc., and all trains running on heavy-traffic lines have a fail-safe system of safety, which prevent a suicidal driver to make an accident, even when he wants so.

    But as said, at this stage of the inquiry, I will carefully avoid to draw any conclusion, I just try to gather information in hope to understand what happened.

    • About atypical disorders which led to such a “passage à l’acte”, we have available to us an abundant litterature, which includes studies of serial killers, serial rapers, serial pedophiles, etc., enough to read for a whole lifetime !

      Unfortunately, this litterature gives us little clues… And unfortunately still, the processes in our brains, and especially in the brains of criminals, still remain unknown for the most part.

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