This is so terribly sad.

News reports this morning saying his relationship had recently broke down and he had recently undergone treatment for depression. Perhaps he was suicidal but to take 150 innocents with him surely makes him a mass murderer.

I am glad that airlines might be forced to focus more on objective mental health assessments rather than self-reporting - they should in my view have a right to access pilots' medical records. For my money this is even more important than ensuring that 2 people are always on the flight deck. If sick pilots were weeded out they would not be on the flight deck in the first place.

People in the grip of a serious depression with suicidal thoughts are sadly not able to act rationally and certainly should not be piloting a plane. They need support and treatment. Those moments when you can see no way out but to die are initiated by physical changes in systems in the brain and are not accessible to reason.

It is so sad that this man took the lives of all these people when his mind it sounds as though was not functioning as it should.

Let us hope it will focus people's minds on the need to have high quality mental health services; and on the serious nature of these illnesses.

I agree, Mishap. It must be very difficult to assess the mental health of people who are in good physical health and are not raising any concerns. This may involve delving into personal matters which may cause objections.

In the past, passengers on aircraft would more than likely be anxious about whether or not the pilot is likely to have a stroke or heart attack, despite being assured that regular health checks have taken place. How many passengers have given a thought towards whether the pilot may be suicidal?

I do worry that this is just the view of a judge and the legal system in France. Their system is so different to ours and, until any post mortems (if possible) and the air accident investigation are concluded we really only have an opinion and not one from someone with the relevant knowledge. It may turn out to be the truth but all news broadcasts are treating it as if it is. Surely there should be some caveats.

I also worry about the sort of remarks made in this thread. These are an example of what I mean.

"Evil monster. Mentally ill or not."
"Perhaps he was suicidal but to take 150 innocents with him surely makes him a mass murderer."

You are asking that an person in a clinically irrational state (if he did suffer from depression) behave rationally. Depressives can become paranoid - and I can assure you that is no joke and can be dangerous for those around them because of their fear, even if they are, by nature, the most gentle person - and they can also believe things that those of sound mind would feel was irrational such as the world being such a dreadful place not only for them but for others to.

Those extreme remarks and the jumping to the assumption that the judges comments carry the normal weight we give to a full investigation are a very sad way to treat such a serious subject.

I think a lot of people will think of him as a mass murderer because although it now appears he was suicidal he must have known he was going to kill 150 innocent people. He will have had other opportunities to take his own life without harming others if that was how he was feeling.

The airline must be called to account as there are now reports that he was still under psychiatric care.

Well said Gracesgran, understanding of mental illness as well as treatment is
still sadly lacking

He was a mass murderer. You can't get away from that fact. He wasn't completely out of his mind. There is no excusing him.

I don't think we are asking that a person in a clinically irrational state be expected to behave rationally, Gracesgran , rather that he not be in a position to enable him commit suicide and kill so many innocent people at the same time.

Yes - I agree that the airline should be called to account and change its protocols - but, to be fair, it would seem that other airlines are equally lax about mental health issues. Let us hope that this will change in the wake of this tragedy.

Different airlines must have different standards. I seem to remember on the Breakfast programme last year(??) that a girl had been turned down for a cabin crew job by,I think, BA because she had been treated for severe depression a few years ago. There was a bit of a protest from mental health charities re discrimination because it had been in the past, and she'd made a full recovery. But with depression how does one know if that's the case?Even the sufferer doesn't.

Terms used on this thread re evil monsters etc are totally inappropriate.

But perhaps understandable. A bit soon for rational thought?

Perhaps mental health generally will be taken more seriously now especially for those in charge of others. There is still a stigma attached to it and people suffering from it sometimes try to carry on regardless or else they are drugged up and only living half a life.

I read that the relatives of the pilot are being kept away from other grieving relatives, that is really disgusting and shows how our society has deteriorated. the pilots relatives are just as shocked and grieving as the passengers relatives are. Is this implying that someone may harm the pilots relatives if so why, it is not his familys fault that he crashed the plane and Im sure if they had any indication of what his state of mind was they probably would have advised him to seek help.

He must have had a complete breakdown to take all the passengers with him, I know many people with depression who would still help others and are kind loving individuals. Mental health is so scary and still carries such a stigma that this incident will have not helped our perceptions.

Yes, perhaps mental health will be treated more seriously now, not just a case of 'pull yourself together' as sadly, many people think is all that is needed. However, there is a danger now, surely, of people in a position of responsibility choosing not to seek help with depression or other mental health issues for fear of the effect on their future career prospects. My DS has suffered from, and sought treatment for depression and although I am of course, very glad that he did, there is always the niggling worry about the impact on his future career prospects. My heart goes out to the parents of this young man, and to the partner in the broken relationship, just imagine the thoughts that must be going through their minds.

did the pilot have any children, they must be the ones we must sympathise with, imagine growing up with the cruel remarks people can make.

I accept suicide is very sad, and anyone that desperate deserves sympathy but taking 149 innocent, unsuspecting individuals with you is evil and mass murder.
He must have planned this, I can't accept it was a spontaneous action. Yes, I do feel for his parents and relatives but for the others' families it must be incalculably worse that the actions of one man were done with no thoughts of others.

How could it have been planned? On a short-haul flight, he couldn't know if or when the pilot would need to go to the loo. There's a line in a Louis Macniece poem about a suicide who 'found the manhole under the hollyhocks' - it was unpremeditated and he just found the opportunity.

loopylou, being mentally ill is not evil , no one can say it was planned because no one can read minds . How do you know the msn did this with no thoight of others, people have killed their families because they fear they are in danger living in this world which they see as evil . I accept it is much easier just to dismiss that tragedy as an evil act, saves bothering to try to understand the horrors a mentally ill person often endures

If all this is factually based, then there are questions to be asked about Lufhansa's recruitment of pilots.

I stand by my remark Gracesgran I don't think you have any need to "worry". You can make every excuse in the book for the state of his mental health and or the reasons behind what he did. But the fact remains. If what we are being told is true and he did deliberately crash the plane then he is a mass murderer. No two ways about it.

I was thinking that although he could not have known that the Captain would have used the toilet on that particular flight, how do we know that this "person" had not been planning this for weeks, months even. If it was not this flight it may have been the next one or the one after that.

It sounds as though he was a person suffering from a mental illness who committed mass murder as a result of his condition.

It is slightly alarming to read that he had had such a serious depressive illness in the past. It is known to be a relapsing illness and careful monitoring would have been the appropriate thing to do.

It is sad all round.

Are some people saying that those with depression are not responsible for their actions?

When someone is in the grip of a severe depression they are not able to control some of their actions (e.g. self-harm), so they cannot be held responsible. Our legal system recognises this.

It would appear that they are Anya