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Abstract
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I noted in 2002 (Lester, 2002) that occasionally pilots of commercial aircraft die by suicide while piloting their plane full of passengers.2 The example I gave was of Gameel-al- Batouti, the co-pilot of EgyptAir flight 900 which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on October 31, 1999, an act which seemed to be suicidal Langewiesche (2001).
More recently, Langewiesche (2019) has given more examples of possible suicides by pilots: (1) in 1997, the pilot of a SilkAir plane (an Indonesian airline) is believed to have disabled the black boxes of his Boeing 737 and crashed the plane into a river, (2) the pilot of a LAM Mozambique Airlines flight 470 flew his Embraer E190 into the ground killing all 27 passengers, and (3) Andreas Lubitz, the co-pilot, crashed his Germanwings Airbus into the French Alps, having locked the pilot out of the cockpit when the pilot went to the bathroom.
In his new article, Langewiesche argues that the most likely scenario for the missing Malaysian Airlines flight 370, which disappeared over the Indian Ocean March 8, 2014, was that the pilot deliberately choose to die by suicide, taking all the passengers and crew (who were most likely already dead inside the plane) with him.
Langewiesche saw the co-pilot as an unlikely instigator or collaborator. He was young, an optimist and planning to get married. He had no history which would suggest suicidal inclinations. In contrast, the co-pilot of the Germanwings plane that crashed flew for budget airlines with low pay and showed signs in the past of psychological problems.
In contrast, the pilot of MH370, Amad Shah Zaharie, although described by his family and the authorities as a happy family man and excellent pilot, was described by friends as often sad and lonely. His wife had moved out to their second home, and Zaharie spent the time between flights pacing empty rooms. He had a wistful relationship with a married woman who had three children, he was interested in two Internet models whom he met on social media, and he had a history of liaisons with the flight attendants. Some who knew him thought he was clinically depressed. Prior to the disappearance of MH370, Zaharie had experimented in a simulator with the flight path that MH370 most likely followed.
In none of these cases was a reputable and thorough psychological autopsy carried...
Language: en |