GermanAir tragedy.

[MikeGodsell]

Apologies for posting this, but after 25 years of airline flying it has really got to me and I wanted to share with you guys...

Oh God! …. the bad news just keeps on coming. The sky fell in, sky gods don't exist, pilots are just people. We study, we train and practice, we make safety and responsibility our mantra, people put their lives in our hands. We are a tribe but now one of us has done the unthinkable, and deliberately driven his airliner into the Alps killing himself and all the innocents aboard that Airbus. Right now it's Veronique's birthday and I look at her and Max over the breakfast table, and feel my love for my precious family. Other families , partners, mums dads, children , lovers, are not so fortunate. The grief, the rage, the fear, the compassion, the sorrow the waves of sorrow rise up in my stomach and tears come like gentle rain. It feels like the World is awash with waves of sorrow and I am drowning in its sad wetness ... who am I to take on this grief? Yet this has shaken me to my core, and for now I can only say sorry sorry sorry for me and my tribe who are only human and sometimes we just can't carry the load put on us. Love to those who are suffering because of this and other tragedies.

Love to you and yours, please take care in this sad sad World.
MG

[dozzy177]

This is very well put, Mike and thank you for this. Yes, the unthinkable has happened, and we are also still very unsure of what happened to MH437 in the SE Asia, so the public is naturally worried and it has been a very bad year so far for the airline industry.
"Airline industry", "Airline Business", "Low cost airlines"... Beyond these tragedies lie dormant many problems in particular with the status of new, young, over-indebted 200 hour pilots, many having to P2F to obtain their type ratings, many overworked and very tired pilots... What has happened to this grand industry ? I believe it is time that airlines rethink the way they run their operations and the treatment of personnel, especially the low cost airlines. Everything is now regulated and managed by bean counters who are often working in head offices far away from the centre of operations. This will have to change if we want to avoid an ever increasing level of accidents.
Just my bit here.
Fly safe

[Chris Martyr]

I'm sure that Mike was probably shocked to the core when this OP was posted , as it almost made a mockery of all the training that modern day aircrews have to endure.
It attracted a few forum postings within the airline that I work and one of the most salient ones commented that this awful tragedy was not so much an air-crash, but more of a political issue regarding mental health care in the community.
The aircraft that this guy stoved into the ground was fully serviceable and its perpetrator could have been driving an artic on a busy motorway, captaining a car-ferry or driving an express train.
Nonetheless, it still chills you to the bone and no subsequent 'airline measures' will ever combat a sicko who wants to kill everyone ,regardless of whether he's employed by the airline or Al-Qaida.

Re: Didiers comments on Asian based airlines. Unfortunately some Asian airlines have a somewhat different culture when it comes to cockpit and co. safety procedures and are still very much "in progress" when compared to european counterparts. We used to handle a very large Asian based airline, some of whose pilots had a frighteningly defficient grip of the international language of aviation .
Didiers comments on overworked young pilots and low quality, boot-boy managers,,,,,,yep they're everywhere and pretty much endemic in all airlines these days! Walk into your bank and try and see the manager, it ain't Capt. Mainwaring sitting in his oak-panelled office anymore. [unfortunately ]

Sorry chaps, I know this is supposed to be a grass-roots, builder/flyers forum.