Be informed

I am a frequent flyer. Usually short-haul. Naturally, like many of my contemporaries, the news of the loss of the German Wings Airbus A320 over the Alps en route to Düsseldorf from Barcelona, was shocking. There was an horrendous loss of life on board, each with grieving families and friends.

We now know that the crash was no accident. The First Officer, Andreas Lubitz, deliberately and consciously crashed the plane. We find that those doors that are always locked in order to protect us from the enemy without are no protection from the enemy within; namely those in the cockpit. Lubitz, it seems, was a privileged white man from a well-to-do family living in a quiet rural town conveniently connected to Frankfurt with a high-speed rail link. His father was a banker.

Lubitz perhaps saw his privilege slipping away. His poor mental health, seemingly, did not disqualify him from flying commercial aircraft. And the culpability of Lufthansa, the parent company of German Wings, is significant. People in Lufthansa knew that he was a risk.

Lubitz murdered 149 people.