Anyone who boards a commercial jetliner knows the safety risks. Passengers buckle up and sometimes fortify themselves with a drink and the assurance that, statistically, flying gets safer and safer because planes are better engineered and pilots are better trained.
That assurance has been shaken by a spate of mysterious air crashes. Last year, a Malaysia Airlines jet carrying 239 people disappeared between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing, without a trace. This week came the crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 in the French Alps. On Thursday, a chilling assertion: A French prosecutor said the co-pilot of Flight 9525 locked himself in the cockpit and deliberately slammed the plane into a mountainside.
How did it happen? Authorities said that, based on cockpit flight recordings, they believe the pilot left the cockpit, then later knocked on the door to gain re-entry. The co-pilot, identified as Andreas Lubitz, ignored that plea. The pilot pounded on the door and then tried to break it down. Investigators said Lubitz didn’t respond, but his steady breathing was heard as the plane plummeted from 38,000 feet in a terrifying eight minutes.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, jet cockpit doors have been reinforced to be all but impregnable to keep terrorists out. Now we learn that they can also be electronically secured from the inside so that even a pilot can’t quickly and easily re-enter.
We emphasize: This is what authorities think they know now about the cause of the crash. These conclusions are tentative. Much is likely to change as the investigation deepens.
People savor mysteries in books and movies because they know the clues will lead to a solution by the end. A plane crash offers no such guarantees. Case in point: that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 en route to Beijing last March. The plane veered off its planned course but sent no distress signal. There was no evidence of technical failures or weather trouble. The jet wreckage is thought to be resting on the Indian Ocean floor, but it has never been found.
These two mysterious disasters leave families in terrible grief and leave the rest of us impatient for answers. What happened inside the Germanwings cockpit? The natural instinct is to want to pinpoint the cause of a crash and then pinpoint a remedy to prevent the next one — more reliable equipment, more layers of security.
But there is often little protection against a determined assailant, whether on the streets of a city or at 38,000 feet.
In the days ahead, we’re sure to learn more about co-pilot Lubitz, a lifelong flying enthusiast. Investigators, journalists, victims’ relatives will ask the same question: Did anyone see any signs that he was capable of, that he was contemplating, such a terrible act?
If Lubitz deliberately doomed the plane, it would be among only a handful of such incidents since the mid-1970s. Among the most recent: the 1999 crash of EgyptAir Flight 990, en route from Los Angeles to Cairo. In 2002, the National Transportation Safety Board said co-pilot Gameel el-Batouti cut power to the engines and chanted “I rely on God” in Arabic for almost a minute and a half. All 217 people aboard died.
Perhaps there’s still room to wonder if the crash of Flight 9525 was a fluke accident, that Lubitz was somehow incapacitated.
Deliberate or not, the final story will be cold comfort to families and friends of those who died. And flying will give a little more pause to every traveler.
