Co-Pilot of Germanwings Flight 9525 crashed the plane deliberately. Yahoo/AP.

An Airbus A320. Wikipedia/Julian Herzog. 

The Germanwings Flight 9525 was deliberately crashed by its copilot, Andreas Lubitz, killing 150 people. Yahoo/AP. Officials claim that Andreas Lubitz locked the pilot out of the cockpit and put the plane into a dive. The pilot could be heard trying to get back in to the cockpit on the black box voice recording. Lubitz never responded to the pilot and dove the plane into the side of a mountain without saying a word. The Airbus A320 is designed to allow pilots to override the lock on the cockpit door with a special pass-code, but the pilot can override that override and deny entry. In the United States, flight regulations require at least two people in the cockpit at all times. Unfortunately, European flight regulations allow one pilot to be alone in the cockpit. Andreas Lubitz is not reported to have any connections to any terrorist organizations. Officials have not given any motive for the crash. 

My Comment:

I didn't post about this crash earlier because it was obvious that nobody new anything until now. This is a very disturbing development all around. I have no idea what the motive for this was. I can say that I really doubt that it was a terrorist attack. And by that I mean that Lubitz had any connection to any terrorist groups. It could still be politically motivated but I haven't heard any reason for that to be the case. And if it was a case of political terrorism, why crash it into a mountain? Why not into a building? 

Another option is suicide. That also seems unlikely, at least in the sense of that Lubitz's only motivation was killing himself. Though there is no way to kill yourself that won't end up hurting someone, there are ways to do it without taking 149 people with you. Frankly, I just can't see someone having so little consideration to other people that he would just kill everyone else on that plane. I consider all suicide to be selfish but that is too far selfish to even be called suicide anymore. The only thing I can think of is that he had some kind of break where thought he had to kill himself right then and there, but even that seems unlikely because he had several minutes to change his mind. I guess there is a possibility that the copilot entered into some kind of fugue state to the point he had no idea what he was doing but that just seems unlikely. 

The most likely option is that Lubitz just wanted to kill a bunch of people, along with himself. We might never find out why, but it is possible it was due to mental illness. He might have just been evil as well. Like I said, if all he wanted to do was kill himself, he could have done it without killing 149 other people. You don't kill 149 people without being angry about something. It may have been political or personal, but until we get more information about Lubitz, we won't know for sure. 

What we do know for sure is that the Europeans and the Germanwings/Lufthansa need to change their policies are change them fast. There is no reason for a pilot to ever be alone in a commercial aircraft like this one. If the pilot or copilot have to leave the cockpit for any reason then a flight attendant should sit in the cockpit until they return. The pilot or copilot might still be able to fight the flight attendant, but at least there would be a struggle and he or she could call for help and/or unlock the door. This is one of those things that just seems so basic in a post 9/11 world that I can't believe they don't do it already.