
Huge rule introduced after Germanwings tragedy that pilots still follow
Sky Documentaries is set to revisit the heart-wrenching Germanwings flight disaster that occurred in 2015, killing all passengers on board.
Flight 9525 was en route from Barcelona to Dusseldorf on March 24, when co-pilot Andreas Lubitz barricaded himself in the cockpit and deliberately crashed the plane into the French Alps.
The flight's captain, Patrick Sonderheimer, had reportedly stepped out for a toilet break and was unable to persuade Lubitz to unlock the door in the crucial moments leading up to the devastating crash.
Subsequent investigations unveiled that Lubitz had a history of psychiatric treatment and had grappled with suicidal thoughts. Prosecutors also found evidence of his internet searches, which included inquiries about the most effective methods of suicide, reports the Manchester Evening News.
A new rule required flights to have two crew members in the cockpit at all times (Image: AFP via Getty Images)
A decade after this shocking tragedy, viewers will be keen to understand what measures have been implemented to enhance flight safety.
In the aftermath of the incident, Lufthansa, the parent company of Germanwings, introduced a rule mandating the presence of two crew members in the cockpit at all times. Other airlines, including EasyJet, followed suit by adopting similar policies.
This safety protocol was already in place in the United States, and some European airlines such as Ryanair had comparable procedures in effect.
In a pivotal move back in 2017, the German Aviation Association (BDL) declared that airlines would no longer be compelled to adhere to the two-person cockpit rule. They asserted that the policy did not bolster safety on flights and could invite other dangers, such as cabin crew being tied up during emergencies rather than assisting passengers.
The new Sky documentary revisits the tragedy (Image:)
The announcement from the German association came a year after the European Aviation Safety Agency eased up on the same regulation. They advised airlines to apply the measure on a case-by-case basis.
While some airlines continue to practice the two-person policy, it is no longer considered compulsory.
Tonight's new Sky documentary (May 7) offers an in-depth investigation into the sequence of events that culminated in the catastrophic crash of the Germanwings plane.
The official synopsis states: "In 2015, Germanwings Flight 9525 crashed in the French Alps, killing 150 passengers and crew members. A decade later, survivors, experts and journalists have their say."
Germanwings: What Happened on Flight 9525? airs tonight at 9pm on Sky Documentaries
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New Statesman
35 minutes ago
- New Statesman
Letter from Gaza: 'What I feel isn't just hunger. It's slow, internal erosion'
Photo by Omar Al-Qataa / AFP via Getty Images Monday It seems there's no escaping the chronic grief that has gripped everything in Gaza. Against my will, my identity as a Gazan has become tied to a life reduced to nothing more than a tent and an aid queue. A scene I witnessed remains etched in my memory. I was on my way to visit my friend Ola. The street was half-rubble, lined with shattered storefronts and twisted metal, the smell of dust still heavy in the air. Just before reaching Ola's house, I heard rising voices and hurried footsteps. I turned cautiously. A relief lorry had entered the neighbourhood at speed. People rushed towards it with a thirst they didn't bother hiding. Some climbed onto its back, grabbing whatever bags and cans they could reach and throwing them from the lorry. No one cared what the packages contained. People tried to catch everything that was thrown. Some bags hit the ground and burst open, scattering their contents across the street. Anything caught was a treasure. The crowd swelled quickly. Tense faces, pushing bodies, orders flying through the air: 'Grab this!' 'Pick up the bag!' The scene looked like a real battle, but the only weapon was hunger. In the chaos, a funeral procession slowly passed through the crowd. Four men carried a coffin draped in a flag. Chants of 'Allahu Akbar' rose above the noise. No one stopped. The crowd simply parted for a moment to let the body pass, then returned to the scramble behind the truck. Here, death passes beside you like it's part of the scenery. On the edge of the crowd, a man in his sixties was bent over silently, picking up scattered grains of lentils and rice – one by one – from the ground, reaching between feet, dust and debris. As I got closer, I recognised him. It was Ola's father. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe I walked past quickly. I didn't want him to notice me. I didn't want him to know that I had seen him like that. I felt a weight in my chest I couldn't shake, but I kept walking. The truck continued on and vanished from view, but people kept chasing it until their breath ran out. After several minutes, the noise faded. One by one, people headed home. The lucky ones returned with something, anything, for their children. The others returned empty-handed, carrying only their disappointment. I continued on until I reached Ola's house. When she opened the door, I followed her into the living room, saying nothing about what I'd seen. Moments later, her father entered. He was holding a small bag carefully, as if it contained something fragile. Ola took it from him eagerly, opened it, looked inside, then said with a pained expression: 'The rice is on top of the lentils – and it's full of sand and stones, Baba.' He didn't answer immediately. He sat beside her and rested his back against the wall. Ola softened her tone. 'Never mind,' she said. 'Thank you. We'll sort it out.' She poured the contents of the bag onto a large tray. Dust lifted into the air. I sat beside her and said, 'I'll take care of the lentils. You do the rice.' We removed the stones, blew away the dust, and separated the good grains from the broken ones. We didn't speak much. Inside me, thoughts were colliding. I just stared at what lay between my hands, picking up lentils, one by one – as if I were organising some of the chaos this day had created. If I hadn't lived through this famine myself, I would never have believed true hunger was real. I used to think hunger was just a passing sensation, something your body uses to tell you it's time to eat. You open the fridge, answer the call, and that's it. I don't know when the fridge turned into a decorative piece: useless. But the hunger here feels nothing like that. True hunger doesn't knock only on your stomach. It knocks on your dignity, too. It slows time: an hour feels like a day, and a day feels like an entire life of waiting. It changes you. It reshapes your thoughts, redefines sufficiency, rearranges your priorities. It teaches you arithmetic in a new language: number of loaves, number of meals. It shrinks your dreams gradually, not by forcing you to give up on them, but by sapping the strength needed to chase them. The most dangerous response is to get used to it: to wake up each morning without expecting anything, not searching for a meal – just continuing to exist. True hunger blends into life, dissolves within it, becomes part of your identity, your character, your daily vocabulary. But this pain is not my fate. I want it to stay unfamiliar, no matter how long it lasts. I want it to remain an intruder in my heart, no matter how often it returns. Normalising pain means surrendering to the idea that there is no alternative. It means withering while breathing. It means death while we're still alive. I can't accept this. I believe that joy – however small its margin – has a right to exist, even in the narrowest alleys of this siege. I believe it is my right to say, with clarity and courage: 'This pain is not me.' Sunday My body, barely midway through its twenties, behaves as if it has endured 70 wars. I wake to a heavy dizziness that drags me downwards, as though I'm drowning in a bottomless void. I cannot lift a bucket of water, nor sweep the floor, nor stand long enough at the sink. Every motion feels like combat, every postponed meal a dream deferred, every waking moment weighed down by headaches, hunger, and fragility. I don't know when breathing became a burden, or balance a luxury, or why getting out of bed became the first triumph on my daily battlefield. Ghazal, my neighbour's ten-month-old baby, has been crying since dawn. She wants milk. Israel is no longer merely an occupying force – that description is now stale, insufficient. Israel has taken up the role of the supreme administrative deity, the Lord of Registries, Permits, Approvals, and Denials. It starves at will, permits whatever goods it pleases, decides whether you deserve to be healed or die at the gates of coordination. All under its omnipotent authority. We live under the rule of a bureaucratic god, His Administrative Majesty, obsessed with delusions of grandeur, one who measures national security by the cholesterol content in our cheese, and the softness of our toilet rolls – each allowed entry only by pre-approved paperwork. Even before 7 October, we were lab rats in a laboratory run by a state that monopolises air and water and determines the fate of coriander. Yes – coriander. In a CBS News report from 2010, titled 'Israel's Gaza Blockade Baffles Both Sides', the absurdities of Israel's blockade policy were laid bare. The report stated: 'Military bureaucrats enforcing Israel's blockade of Gaza allow frozen salmon fillets, facial scrubs and low-fat yogurt into the Hamas-ruled territory. Cilantro and instant coffee are another matter – they are banned as luxury items.' Not tanks, not explosives, but an aromatic herb is deemed a threat to national security. In Gaza, life was measured by a checklist of what was banned or permitted, curated by the clairvoyant in the Ministry of Defence: Cinnamon? Approved. Chocolate? Forbidden. Plastic buckets? Take two. School notebooks? Security risk – one might write resistance poetry. Strawberry jam? Strategic threat. And then came this war. After two years of relentless bombing and rubble, it's as if Israel has placed us on a compulsory nutrition programme. We do not choose our meals; our meals are chosen for us. Lentils are permitted, tomatoes are suspicious, and chocolate is a crime. Flour – the white gold – is prohibited; bread loaves are besieged. This is no accidental famine. This is an engineered one – a war on our bodies, our clarity, our ability to move. And so, we continue to 'live' – or pretend to – under a system of forced feeding, where our ration cards are issued from Tel Aviv, and the national palate is dictated by the Ministry of Defence. Thursday The endless stream of food videos on our phones is visual torture. Chocolate truffles, fresh bread, our phones flaunt a world that doesn't acknowledge our hunger. I don't ask for a hot meal or a varied menu – I only ask that lentils not be the law. What I feel isn't just hunger, it's slow, internal erosion. It doesn't bruise the skin, but it devastates the soul. This is a cold form of death – without blood, without noise, without witnesses, without headlines. The administrative God does not stop at controlling our bellies and our prescriptions, it interferes in our families too – deciding whom we love, whom we marry, with whom we live, and who may be officially registered as our child. Under the label of 'family reunification permits', Israel decides who may legally exist in Gaza or the West Bank, and who remains a shadow – an unrecognised citizen in their own homeland. Thousands of Palestinian families remain torn apart because the occupation refuses to acknowledge them – either because one spouse is from Gaza and the other from the West Bank, or because a child was born abroad. According to Human Rights Watch, Israel froze 'family reunification' in 2000, later resuming it for only a very limited number of cases, as a 'political gesture', not a human right. Even survival requires security clearance. Patients in Gaza are not 'evacuated' – they are 'coordinated'. And coordination can be denied, because their bodies are not yet deemed trustworthy. Thousands of patients, including children with cancer, heart conditions, and kidney failure, wait on endless lists of stamps and signatures to determine whether they will be treated, or buried. As for the students? Their stories are even more absurd. Bright young minds with scholarships from top international universities, with visas and funding secured are trapped – because 'the crossing is closed' or their names are not 'security approved'. In the logic of the supreme administrative deity, knowledge is a threat, travel is a gamble, and any Palestinian outside Gaza is a potential crisis. Thus, a scholarship becomes a suspended miracle, and medical treatment becomes a dream with an indefinite delay. This is not just an occupation. It's a sarcastic supply manager, distributing food aid to the starving beneath rubber bullets and pepper spray, guarded by an overweight American soldier seemingly assigned to protect sacks of flour. Israel has perfected the art of total control – over stomachs, minds, hearts, classrooms, and hospital wards. Is there any place left where Israel cannot reach? Sondos Sabra is a Palestinian translator and writer. Her account of the war appears in 'Voices of Resistance: Diaries of Genocide' (Comma Press), out now. Related


Scotsman
3 hours ago
- Scotsman
Why we shouldn't kill 'menacing' seagulls in towns – and what to do instead
Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Around a month ago, I visited a friend who lives in Burntisland. His third-floor flat overlooks a level roof at the back, which a lesser black-backed gull had chosen to nest on and hatch a chick. It felt like a privilege to watch this fluffy new being investigate her world, while her parent watched carefully. This memory makes quite a contrast to the screaming headlines that we frequently see at this time of year, proclaiming gulls to be a 'menace' or a 'nuisance' and blaming them for 'mugging' and 'divebombing' people. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Such language is unhelpful and misleading. It implies that gulls are acting maliciously against us, which is simply not true. It turns gulls into the enemy, rather than seeking to understand the causes of any tension and seek solutions. Seabirds like kittiwakes are devoted and protective parents of their young (Picture: Dan Kitwood) | Getty Images Gulls are constituents too While some within the media are responsible for creating and amplifying a negative and inaccurate depiction of gulls, disappointingly, politicians also make judgmental, harmful statements about them. In June, during a member's debate in the Scottish Parliament, various MSPs vilified gulls using the same inflammatory words as the tabloids and demanded that they be 'controlled' – a widely used euphemism for 'killed'. MSPs represent their constituents. Gulls cannot vote but are constituents in the other sense of the word, being part of a larger whole, our shared community. And the human constituents, who do vote, overwhelmingly want wild animals to be protected. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad A 2024 poll of more than 7,000 people in the UK found that 92 per cent think that it is important to protect wildlife in towns by legislation or regulation, and 76 per cent believe that human survival depends on protecting the survival of wildlife. MSPs should not allow scare stories to muffle the voices calling for us to live in harmony with other animals. Preventing gulls from gaining access to rubbish is one way to reduce the problems they can sometimes cause without resorting to killing them (Picture: Vincenzo Pinto) | AFP via Getty Images Intelligent and resourceful Thankfully, many don't, and other MSPs who spoke in the debate did so thoughtfully and well. At OneKind, we hear stories every day from our supporters that confirm how much people care about animals and want governments to do more to protect them. For more than 100 years, we have advocated for animals, supported by individual donors who want animals to be fairly represented in debates. For many gull species, natural nesting sites and food sources are dwindling, due mainly to human activities. As intelligent and resourceful birds, they have adapted to life in towns, and what they have found is safe nesting sites and abundant food sources. Gulls are devoted, protective parents. When people come near to their nest, they feel that their eggs or chicks are threatened and dive towards people to communicate this. Far from the nefarious intentions too often mis-attributed to gulls, this diving behaviour is born of deep care. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The other main complaint made about gulls – taking food from people's hands – is a foreseeable consequence of decades of directly feeding them, littering, and having unsealed and often overflowing bins. Stop feeding gulls There are simple changes that could go a long way to reducing the behaviours that people have complained about. Everybody could stop feeding gulls and littering, and authorities should ensure that all bins are secure and 'gull proof' and seek measures that allow gulls and humans to feel safe during the birds' breeding season. There are some vulnerable people who can be at risk from gulls' defensive behaviour, and it is, of course, very important that they are protected. There is help available for business owners, local authorities and individuals to minimise harms to gulls and advise on more complicated situations. For example, Humane Wildlife Solutions is a business that offers expert advice and non-lethal alternatives to 'pest control', including services relating to gulls. They have also worked with NatureScot to develop guidance for the non-lethal removal of eggs and chicks. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Across the UK, many local authorities understand their responsibilities and are seeking to co-exist with gulls, adapting their practices accordingly. It was reported recently that in Lowestoft kittiwakes began nesting in the town centre following the destruction of a derelict building at the docks where some had been nesting. They found ideal nesting sites in the town and the numbers grew. Building owners are now, rightly, being encouraged to provide simple wooden nesting ledges for them, in sites that are less inconvenient for people, rather than trying to remove the gulls. Sharing the planet In 2018 South Ayrshire Council launched their 'feed a bin, not a gull' campaign, encouraging people to dispose of food waste and other litter responsibly. Local primary school children took part by designing posters for the launch, a good initiative to empower and educate young people. This is the path that those in power and the media should be following, seeking solutions to help people live alongside gulls and other wild animals, not repeating worn narratives of domination. The Scottish Government plans to hold a summit to discuss issues relating to gulls. I urge them to choose this less travelled path. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Now – in a time of nature and climate crises, following the devastating impact of Covid and avian flu, both linked to industrial animal farming – is an opportune time to recalibrate our relationship with other animals. We must learn to share a little better the finite space on our planet. Can we care more and blame less? Can we look beyond the problems and remember the joy that comes from connecting with others, including our fascinating, clever gull neighbours?


Scotsman
3 hours ago
- Scotsman
Why the Sycamore Gap tree provoked such strong emotional reactions
Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... In September 2023, so many people were shocked when the famous Sycamore Gap tree, thriving in a dip along Hadrian's Wall, was deliberately cut down overnight. For many, the tree symbolised British resilience, heritage and an enduring history. The public response was swift and intense, with widespread outrage and grief over the loss of this cultural landmark. The two men convicted of felling the Sycamore Gap tree have been sentenced to four years and three months in prison. Meanwhile, the tree lives on thanks to an AI-generated alternate world in the film 28 Years Later. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad As a psychologist, I'm interested in what inspired such a strong reaction to the destruction of a single tree. One psychological explanation, known as 'terror management theory', suggests that the emotional response reflects deeper anxieties about death – and not just about this tree. The sycamore tree was one of the UK's most photographed and appeared in the 1991 Kevin Costner film Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell) | Getty Images Belief systems Terror management theory, developed by psychologists Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg and Tom Pyszczynski, builds on the work of cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker, author of the Pulitzer prize-winning The Denial of Death (1973). This book's central idea is simple yet profound. In it, Becker proposes that our awareness of mortality creates the potential for considerable existential anxiety. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad To manage this, we rely on cultural worldviews. These are our belief systems. These worldviews can be religious, secular, political or national. They all share a promise that life is meaningful and offer prescriptions for how we should live. When we live in accordance with our cultural values and standards – whether by being a good parent, a loyal citizen or following religious texts – we gain a sense of self-esteem and feel we are contributing to something enduring and significant. These worldviews also offer the promise of immortality. Some do so literally, as in religious faiths that promise life beyond death. Others offer symbolic immortality, through lasting achievements, family bloodlines, or the continuation of one's nation. By embedding ourselves in these worldviews, we gain a sense that some part of us will continue after we die. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Cultural symbols such as flags, religious icons, or even a tree can embody our core values and collective identity and are therefore treated with deep reverence. Throughout history, people have waged wars and shown intense emotional reactions to the desecration of such symbols (burning the American flag or the Qur'an, for example). The famous Sycamore Gap tree before it was cut down in a wanton act of vandalism (Picture: English Heritage/Heritage Images) | Getty Images The Sycamore Gap tree carried similar significance. As a centuries-old landmark, it came to represent Britain's heritage, strength and continuity. From the perspective of terror management theory, its felling may have stirred strong reactions because it reminded people that even the symbols we rely on for a sense of permanence can be suddenly lost. This sense of cultural loss is also echoed by other recent events, such as Brexit and the immigration crisis. A collective fear over the erosion of British values and traditions place questions about the loss of British identity at the centre of public consciousness. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Rooted in mortality Decades of psychological research support this theory's claims. One common method (a technique called 'mortality salience') involves making participants subtly aware of their mortality (control participants are not reminded of death). In studies carried out in the 1990s, researchers found that when the solution to a task required desecrating a cultural symbol, such as using an American flag to separate ink from a jar of sand, participants reminded of death took longer to complete the task and experienced greater apprehension. Hundreds of studies also show how being reminded of death can increase anger and hostility towards people who threaten or violate one's cultural values. One line of research examining reactions to those who commit moral transgressions may be particularly appropriate to this case. For instance, in one study, participants reminded of their own death were more likely to support harsher punishments for those who committed moral transgressions such as someone who destroyed an irreplaceable artefact (much like the cutting down of a tree). Other research has shown similar effects: participants (including judges!) when reminded of death gave out harsher penalties or sentencing for those who have committed a crime. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad You might question whether these effects truly reflect death anxiety or if they could be explained without invoking a desire for immortality. Research may provide compelling evidence. One study found that reminders of death increased support for harsher punishments for moral transgressors (replicating the study mentioned earlier). The afterlife effect However, when participants were first presented with evidence of an afterlife, the effect of death increasing harsher punishments disappeared. In other words, the promise that death is not the end appeared to provide a buffer from the anxiety that death arouses. The fall of the Sycamore Gap tree was more than a loss of natural beauty. It was, for many, a symbolic attack on permanence, on meaning, and on shared identity. Yet while such losses can stir outrage and calls for punishment, research also shows that when people endorse prosocial values like empathy, reminders of death can actually foster forgiveness towards those who commit moral transgressions. According to terror management theory, these responses are not just about anger, but about what it means to be human in the face of inevitable death. In this light, the tree's felling uprooted something sacred: a collective continuity that gives meaning to our brief lives. As we grieve its loss, perhaps we're also mourning something more elusive – the comforting illusion that some things might last forever. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad