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PA 2Robert Bragg, Pan Am First Officer were instructed to contact you and also to taxi down the runway, is that correct? An airplane is seen in this image moments before it crashed into Trinity Bay near Anahuac, Texas, on Feb. 23, 2019. Oh, Lord. In the final minute before the collision, key misunderstandings occur among all But for conditions that are temporary, or are easily treatable with approved forms of medication, looser rules will encourage honesty, especially among pilots who develop these conditions after their careers have already begun. His depression was not an excuse; after all, millions of people suffer from depression, including thousands of airline pilots, and hardly any of them commit mass-murder suicide. Following an accident, both recorders are immediately removed from the accident site and transported to NTSB headquarters in Washington D.C. for processing. On February 23, 2019, at 1239 central standard time, Atlas Air Inc. (Atlas) flight 3591, a Boeing 767-375BCF, N1217A, was destroyed after it rapidly descended In response, the autopilots vertical mode changed to Open Descent, in which the autopilot adjusts pitch attitude to maintain a target airspeed while the autothrottle holds engine power at idle. Although some accounts suggest he used an axe, a crowbar designed specifically to open jammed doors in an emergency would have been more effective than a crash axe against the bulletproof cockpit door. In the end, the doctors treating Lubitz probably didnt even consider the possibility of reporting him to Lufthansa, because that simply wasnt done not in Germany, and realistically, not in most other Western countries either. (For illustrative purposes, I consider myself a Zillennial, and I can say with confidence that about 90% of my social circle would have difficulty passing a medical if they were honest.) NTSB Media Relations And could he have been stopped? In the background, only minor unidentifiable sounds could be heard Lubitz remained silent, except for the sound of steady, unhurried breathing, picked up by the microphone on his headset. The plane began to descend, rapidly at first, before settling on a brisk but safe value of 3,000 feet per minute. If you want to know how many Atlas Air planes have crashed or if there has been a Atlas Air plane crash at all, you'll find out below. (NTSB photo) This photo, taken on March 2, 2019, shows the cockpit voice recorder of the Feb. 23 cargo jet that crashed in Trinity Bay in Anahuac, TX being submerged in They The other side of the argument is that Lubitz should never have been allowed to fly at all, in which case hope wouldnt have mattered. ?Unidentified. AeroInside has currently 34 articles available for reading modified for clarity and ease of reading. Two more calls followed, coming through loud and clear, but Lubitz ignored those, too. [KLM] It transmits an acoustical signal on 37.5 KHz that can be detected with a special receiver. The FDR onboard the aircraft records many different operating conditions of the flight. Roger, privacy policy. considers the best way to get the KLM plane into position for takeoff, but As contradictory as it sounds, a deeper look at the system of aeromedical certification reveals a vindictive process that is so fundamentally broken that it destroys the careers of healthy pilots, engenders a culture of deceit, and if not radically reformed risks guaranteeing that the next Andreas Lubitz will also escape detection. I think most people probably wouldnt. WebLAST WORDS COCKPIT VOICE RECORDINGS, TRANSCRIPTS, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL TAPES You will need an MP3 player to hear the recordings. third one, sir, one, two, three, third, third one. Some would suggest that the story of Andreas Lubitz clearly justifies this position. In the BEAs opinion, these professionals likely knew that he was an airline pilot, but they might not have appreciated the degree to which he had become a risk to others. communications with the tower. In the end, a French judge determined that under existing laws, the answer was no: after all, he did not divulge anything about his deteriorating mental state to his coworkers, family, or friends, and especially not to his employer. Any possibility that Lubitz was asleep or unconscious was quickly ruled out, because 43 seconds into the descent, the CVR captured the sound of him adjusting his chair, and after a further 100 seconds, he began messing with the target airspeed on the autopilot control panel, increasing it from 273 knots to 308 knots. flight engineer, even as the KLM plane has begun rolling down the runway, to The investigator can then visualize the airplane's attitude, instrument readings, power settings and other characteristics of the flight. Like all German airlines, it had a commendable safety record, without suffering a single serious incident or accident until that bright, sunny day in March 2015, when darkness unexpectedly reared its head. With help from his psychiatrist, Lubitz was eventually able to end treatment, and in July 2009 he was declared fully recovered. Analysis of the available weather information determined that, about 1238:25, the airplane was beginning to penetrate the leading edge of a cold front, within which associated windshear and instrument meteorological conditions (as the flight continued) were likely. But Im about to propose a radical hypothesis: that his heinous crime might have been avoided if the aeromedical process had treated him like a normal person. The reader of these reports is cautioned that the transcription of a CVR tape is not a precise He had spent years of his life working to become a pilot, and flying had been his passion since childhood. While this is, strictly speaking, true, its also incredibly dangerous, for reasons which Im about to explain. Affirmative, Specializing in low-cost flights between European destinations, Germanwings historically operated a fleet of several dozen Airbus A320 mid-range passenger jets, before being folded back into Eurowings during the Covid-19 pandemic. unknown. That was followed by a series of beeps. Pilot suicide is one of the few remaining causes of catastrophic crashes in developed countries, and theres no evidence that its going anywhere any time soon. Many of my articles end with a reassuring roundup of safety reforms or planned improvements, but unfortunately, this is not one of them. You can be denied a medical because your therapists had to submit a diagnosis, even if untrue, in order for insurance to cover basic therapy. In total, 144 passengers boarded the plane, along with six crew, including four flight attendants and the two pilots, 34-year-old Captain Patrick Sondenheimer and 27-year-old First Officer Andreas Lubitz, who had just flown the plane in from Dsseldorf and were now entrusted to fly it back. Discover how AeroInside supports your aviation research. 4805 how many taxiwayahdid you pass? and his copilot The flight departed Miami at 16:33UTC (11:33 ET). 040 until intercepting the 325, and we're now (at takeoff). Image Credits | In fact, the buzzer never sounded again, which suggests that not only did Lubitz not move the switch to the unlock position, but that he actually moved it to the lock position instead, which is used to deny unauthorized access. We owe it to those who died on flight 9525, trapped aboard an airliner as their own pilot drove it unceasingly downward, possessed by demons known only to him. His physician diagnosed him with possible psychosis, a condition characterized by delusions and difficulty determining what is real, prompting a referral to a psychiatric hospital, along with 19 days of sick leave. It goes without saying that individuals at high risk of such incapacitation should not be allowed in the cockpit. This committee creates a written transcript of the CVR audio to be used during the investigation. And before anyone complains that looser requirements and simplified approval procedures will result in countless unhealthy pilots taking to the skies, I would like to point out that thats already the case right now, and we just pretend that it isnt. They can provide information that may be difficult or impossible to obtain by other means. Permanent denials should still be issued, of course, for permanent conditions. But Lubitz himself can receive no such mercy. Air Traffic Control would say "okay" after KLM has said it is taking off is That was followed by the sound of rapid breathing and more beeps. www.project-tenerife.com/engels/PDF/Tenerife.pdf) and has been slightly Also contributing were systemic deficiencies in the aviation industrys selection and performance measurement practices, which failed to address the first officers aptitude-related deficiencies and maladaptive stress response. Using sophisticated computer and audio equipment, the information stored on the recorders is extracted and translated into an understandable format. Ninety-degree Lord, have mercy! 2023 AeroInside. AeroInside is a service provided by Tiny Ventures LLC/GmbH, Zurich, Switzerland. He took several sick days, but for the most part he ignored his doctors requests to stop working. Okay, After all, Andreas Lubitz literally was a mass murderer. He complained that he was losing his vision, but multiple physicians could find nothing wrong with his eyesight. According to these sources, the conversations between the pilots were normal at first, and confined to operational matters. Lord, you have my soul!. put a bomb (in) the terminal, sir, right where the check-in counters are. KLM 1Veldhuyzen (Jacob) van Zanten, KLM Captain It could only have been First Officer Lubitz, who was alone in the cockpit. Atlas Air Flight 3591 crashed Feb. 23, 2019, about 30 miles from Houstons George Bush Intercontinental Airport, and the NTSB recovered the airplanes CVR March 1, 2019. At this point, the stage was set all that remained was the final decision. Atlas Air, Boeing 767-375, N1217A: Fatal accident occurred APPAir traffic control tower at Los Rodeos Airport [Sound sir, (entering) the runway at this time and the first (taxiway) we, we go KLM 80ahcorrection, 4805, taxi straight aheadahfor Atlas Air pilots Capt. er Applicants will continue to lie about their medical problems and not only innocuous problems, but real ones too, like Lubitzs eventual psychosis, which was disqualifying by any standard. But even an aviation expert they hired to poke holes in the official report didnt seem to believe their assertions, even though he dutifully did what they asked. Instead, he took the sick leave notes, ripped them up, and threw them in the trash. By the time either flight crew saw the other plane in the fog, it was too late to avert the disaster, which arose out of a series of miscommunications among both flight crews and the control tower. two left, center, two right center. He had multiple failures and didnt disclose a few of them to Atlas. With about 6,000 flying hours over a 10-year career, Sondenheimer was moderately experienced, while Lubitz was still fairly new he had been flying for Germanwings since 2014 and had so far accumulated just 630 hours in the air. And as long as the system incentivizes hiding these problems, it will remain impossible to detect those rare individuals, like Lubitz, who are actually dangerous. TERRAIN! The firstborn son of a banker and a piano teacher, Andreas Gnter Lubitz was born on December 18th, 1987 in the Bavarian town of Neuberg an der Donau, although his family moved across the country to Montabaur while he was still in school. Pilot forums are full of such stories. Those unfamiliar with the process might not understand why, so its worth taking some time to explain, not only because privacy is important, but because the reasons for the policys ineffectiveness are closely tied to some of the possible untold circumstances behind the actions of Andreas Lubitz. The Regardless of whether he would actually have been re-certified, what if all he needed to get himself out of the cockpit was a little bit of hope that he could one day come back? But then youre back to the original problem. We will never know, because moments later the plane shattered against the mountain, taking with it the lives of so many. we have lost two engines, the pilot said, according to an English transcript. After reaching 38,000 feet, the autopilot leveled the plane, and Sondenheimer proposed that Lubitz prepare for the descent briefing, seeing as their cruise phase would be short. Last data received from the aircraft was at 18:39 Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR), records radio transmissions and sounds in the cockpit, such as the pilot's voices and engine noises. In addition, some FDRs can record the status of more than 1,000 other in-flight characteristics that can aid in the investigation. And At some point Captain Sondenheimer mentioned that he forgot to use the restroom during the stopover and would need to take a break to do so in flight. But the doctors at Lufthansas aeromedical center denied his application on account of his ongoing major depression and medication thereof, which rendered him unfit to fly under European and German law. He may have had other issues which he was hiding the fact that he was capable of mass murder means he almost certainly did but from a systemic point of view, the problems on his official record are the ones that matter. out of service. WebAtlas 3591 CVR transcript released. But if a computer error somehow locked the plane into a descent a far-fetched idea to begin with then why didnt the pilots transmit a distress call during the nearly nine minutes before it struck the ground? As a result of this investigation, the we mades six new safety recommendations and reiterated two safety recommendations to the Federal Aviation Administration. RT speak simultaneously. A database containing CVR transcripts of aviation accidents and incidents Scroll 15 January 2009 - US Airways 1549 29 October 2018 - Lion Air 610 CVR Database - 160+ transcripts 10 March 2019 - Ethiopian Airlines 302 25 July 2000 - Air France 4590 31 January 2000 - Alaska Airlines 261 17 April 2018 - Southwest 1380 10 April 2010 - Polish Air Force From that point, the investigation into the crash, conducted in parallel by safety experts and judicial authorities, began to focus on what led Andreas Lubitz to commit such an appalling act, and how he was able to get away with it. We cant know for sure, because this is a hypothetical, and its always possible he was more delusional than is publicly known. The beacon can transmit from depths down to 14,000 feet. At that same time, witnesses in the town of Digne-les-Bains caught sight of the Airbus flying low overhead, proceeding directly toward the nearby Massif des Trois-vchs, clearly too low to avoid it.