Randomizer, have you not followed the conversation? If this man was completely apathetic towards the lives of these people, *he does not care* if they live or die. It makes no difference. This was simply a convenient way of him achieving his goal, ie. killing himself.

Now, for the record, I don't know if this was the case. He might have been a terrorist. He might have really hated someone on that plane. I don't know. But he did not have to kill everyone else.

Sorry, *did not have to HAVE A MOTIVE to kill everyone else.

I would say gangs are terrorists but that they terrorize to survive...

Okay, so he might have been a terrorist. That's a start. At least it's no longer an impossibility.

But is that political in the case of gangs? Their point isn't to have violence, generally. Usually, they do something, such as a drug cartel, that needs violence to protect. As you said, the violence is to survive, not to make a point.

When did I ever say he couldn't be? You and I have no real idea why he did what he did. I am just throwing out possibilities. But we can't really label this as anything, unless we find a note or something.

Sure. Most gangs are political. Besides, the point of terrorists in the sense that we know them (i.e. Islamic) is not to be violent but to survive and govern. We drive them into violence, and, like gangs, once they become violent, there is no going back.

You didn't say he couldn't be. Others were sure as hell implying it.

That is fair enough, at least at a local level. Gang Red hits someone from Gang Blue, so that Gang Blue knows not to mess with them. I guess that is political, just at a very local level. Very few "gangs" (as in, neighborhood, or city) are going to blow up a plane. National attention is actually bad for them.

Well, I agree it could be terrorism. I just disagree that it is the only option. And we have no proof, that I know of, that it was. None that it wasn't either.

Even in the biggest gangs, it holds true. When I ran, it was true here and it was true in Chicago and LA too, and Boston to a lesser degree, mostly because Boston has things under control for the most part, as does New York, and I'm hoping the NSA stays off my ass for this, but I wouldn't put it past some of them to bring down a plane. They've just never needed to like terrorists in the Middle East and Africa do, or at least like they think they do.

If people under severe mental stress killing themselves is one of your triggers, bo, I suggest you don't bloody well take part in a thread where the topic is someone who killed themselves whilst under severe mental stress.

I am happy to engage in civil discourse, Octavious. When you make it personal, you're an ass. Kindly shut the fuck up.

In what twisted logic have I made it personal?

Is Bo spewing bullshit again? What the fuck do you know about gangs Bo? Nothing. Go back to farmland and shut your pie hole.

Farmland? I have never lived on a farm...? I literally hung out with three guys from the same local gang for over a year. They talked about it all the time. They tried to drag me in, but I stayed out of their business for the most part. Not sure what's so crazy about that.

If this is about to become a trollfest, I'll just bail and maybe someone can resurrect this thing and bring it back to some semblance of a conversation.

You know what I find interesting? I posted this as soon as I heard about the crash. Two days go by, and no one says anything. As soon as they hear it was intentional, they all start talking. Why is that? Shouldn't we have been actively discussing how airlines can make themselves safer, if we thought it was mechanical or weather, etc?

You know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all "part of the plan".

@ KC

I'd say that was more due to the fact that talking about how to solve a problem before you know what the problem is can be rather difficult.

We still don't know what the problem is. We don't know whether we need to screen pilots better for terrorist links, or if we need to give them more psych evaluations. We don't know whether we need to stop homicidal maniacs.

Even so, I feel the new found popularity of this thread somewhat disgusting.

We have a far better idea what the problem is. We know it's a problem with the pilots, and we suspect it is quite unusual. Although pilot suicide could well be the reason behind a lot more incidents than we know about.

I find your disgust entirely baffling

Disgusted that people will only express interest once it isn't an accident? Disgusted that no one gave any condolences until their was a culprit?

How about this. If your wife got hit by a car and died, and no one showed up to her funeral, and then people figured out it was an intentional hit and run, and then expressed condolences, would you be pissed?

I'm not aware that anyone who has posted here has given their condolences to any of the family and friends of those who died, and nor do I believe that the families and friends would appreciate a bunch of random people from the internet doing so...

It's the thought that counts. People were going crazy for Charlie Hebdo, and this is far worse in terms of loss of life.

Winter flu is far worse in terms of loss of life. Should I be disgusted at you for not mentioning it or sending condolences to the sufferers? Of course not. What makes this an attention grabbing story is that it concerns a new threat that we don't know how to deal with. We can cope with faulty engines because we understand them and can impose strict maintenance routines to combat them. Occasionally an engine will fail anyway, but we are confident we are in control of the risk.

Crazy pilots, on the other hand, are new. We don't know how to deal with it. It demands attention.

No, I don't think it really does. All the extra pilot scrutiny will do is make those who actually have depression or other issues even MORE reluctant to come forward with them. It has never really been that much of a problem before and so it isn't now just because one instance of it occurred. Statistics, bro.

Overall I'd say pilots are extremely well trained. Although the job is soulless and leaves you empty, as one former international airline captain put it to me-- it ruined his marriage and the purposeless life really dragged on him. If anything, the discussion should be on mental health in general, and how employers should support those having issues.

Though the US seems to be on the right track with "two in the cabin" idea-- though it leaves the option open for a stewardess to hijack the plane-- you can't have it both ways!

Also, no one talked about the safely ramifications because the plane was clearly in perfect working order. There was nothing the airline could have done in that respect. There's really nothing they could have done in this case, either-- anyone saying otherwise is delusional-- but there could be potential lessons to be learned.

Botox "ran" with gangs.
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That's it for me today folks.

once again, why are you so obsessed with terrorism? As far as I am informed, it isn't even clear that the co-pilot killed them intentionally. All we know is that 150 people are dead, only one of these was inside the cockpit when the plane headed downwards, the cockpit door was locked, the co-pilot was inside and did not reply but was breathing. And then the plane crashed. We know now a lot more about this co-pilots psycho-medical history but even under these conditions everything is mere speculation.

What we clearly miss here is a political issue so far. And we all know that a necessary condition for anything terrorist is the existence of a political motive. As long as you can't provide one, there are so many other alternative explanations and crimes more applicable than terrorism. Eg. mass murder, mass voluntary manslaughter, etc. or a simple failure nobody has discovered yet.

@dibster The airline could have done what other airlines did even absent any similar incident. They could have implemented the 4-eyes in the cockpit rule. A stewart could at least have prevented the locking of the door.

That is true when it comes to the 4-eyes policy. And how the hell did terrorism get into this? Did someone decide to throw it into the mix?

If it were a terrorist motive than why wasn't the co-pilot saying how much he hated whatever he hated when he was sending the plane down, rather than just sitting there breathting? Also, surely some terrorist organization would have taken responsibility for the crash.