Why We Can Never Avoid Disasters of Titanic Proportions
On Monday 23rd March 2015, the news filtered quickly across the world of the plane crash involving Germanwings Flight 4U9525 in the French Alps claimingthe lives of all the passengers. It is very sad and heart wrenching to know that 150 people have lost their lives just like that. This is particularly made more difficult to understand or accept with the news that the co-pilot on that flight, Andreas Lubitz had probably crashed the aircraft into the mountains deliberately in what is increasingly being described as a ‘murder-suicide’.
Experts in different fields have been trying to help the airline, families and governments whose nationals died in the plane crash to understand what happened and how to prevent such a tragedy in the future. These attempts to unravel what had occurred, what could have happenedand howthe crash could have been prevented must however be met with the humble reality that we don’t know everything about the function of the human mind or the complexity of human behaviour. We can only attempt to learn more. Also,because of ‘The ‘Iceberg Phenomenon’, we would never be able to predict or prevent this kind of eventone hundred per cent.
When the ‘Iceberg phenomenon’is used in behavioural or leadership and training settings, the suggestion is that we only know a little bit about human behaviour (or life or circumstances) on the surface.When an iceberg floats on water, what we mostly see is the surface (about 10 per cent) that is exposed above the water line.The larger part of the iceberg which constitutes the remaining90 per cent lies beneath the water surface, sometimes deep in the ocean. Unless you have sophisticated equipment to go around or below the icebergof a person’s life, you may be deceived into thinking that ‘what you see
[on the surface]
is what you get’, or that what lies below doesn’t really matter. But it does.
When you see a man or woman acting in a certain way, this is the behaviour on the surface, which may sometimes give away their motives and intentions. Sometimes a person’s feelings come to the surface from time to time which may give a false reassurance that we know the person well. Sometimes as humans, we delude ourselves that we know a lot, or that we have everything under our control. But that is not true – we only know what we know;and what we don’t know we don’t know!
What lies beneath the surface or in the core of the iceberg of a person’slife are his experiences (good or bad)which he may or may not disclose to you. The other attributes which may never be perceived by others are his temperament, struggles,fears, knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, views, values, prejudices, opinions and decisions. The closest person to that individual may never be aware of these.And until you know what is hidden, you cannot really do much about it.
The way society, organisations and experts deal with this kind of rare tragedyis to attempt to conduct better risk assessments and reel out a raft of new measures to manage the unknown. Apparently, the safety measure put in place to prevent intruders and terrorists from storming the cockpit of the airplane was what prevented the flight captain of Germanwings Flight 4U9525 from forcing his way back into the cockpit when he realised the aircraft was heading for the Alps. Several airlines have now ordered that at least two crew members must be in the cockpit at any one time but this in itself does not guarantee that two pilots would not form a suicide pact and decide together to crash their plane into a sky scraper or into the ocean. Also, nothing stops one pilot from overpowering the other in the cockpit and deliberately crashing the plane. The thought of these scenarios is very scary indeed but this is the nature of risks and complex human behaviour. But can we always predict this kind of event? “No” is the answer!
As a forensic psychiatrist whose job it is to assess human behaviour and conduct assessments on the risk of violence, I know too well that the best prediction of risk that anyone could make is dependent on what is known about the subject, the context and the various static and dynamic risk factors involved.In the case of the co-pilot involved in the Germanwings Flight 4U9525 plane crash, what was beneath the surface of his life was most probably not known to his family, friends and colleagues. We now know thatthe co-pilot suffered from depression for many years, and hid his illness from his family, his friends, hiscolleagues and his employers. According to reports, Lubitz recently suffered a break-up of an intimate relationshipwith his pregnant girlfriend.Investigators have found torn sick notes in Lubitz’s flat and there have been reports that he was previously treated for ‘suicidal tendencies’.There are also reports that Lubitz researched suicide methods and cockpit door security.
I am sure there are still more shocking news to come but these ‘sudden’ revelations about Lubitz can never justify why a man would decide to take his own life and those of 149 others. What is now clear is that this co-pilot managed to expose only the tip of his iceberg, making everyone feel confident about his performance at work whilst the real baggage lay beneath the surface.How on earth did everyone miss these important details? How come that the people who really knew Lubitz never raised an alarm?
There is a limit to how much we could know about people and we must never be complacent about what we don’t know. Or how else would you explain the behaviour of a 37-year-old happilymarried man with two children who ran away with a waitress while on an exotic holiday with his family, or a highly paid investment banker who was caught evading thousands of pounds in travel fares over a period of time, or a former choir boy who turned into a serial murderer, or perhaps a well brought-up lady from a decent middle class home who works as a bank manager during the day and as a high-class prostitute at night. In my profession, I sometimes wonder why an offender patient who had been working with hospital staff for over two years towards his discharge would impulsively abscond from care three weeks from his dischargedate and deliberately sabotage thewhole process. Some of these things are very difficult to explain, even with the psychological, psychometric and psychoanalytic tools currently at the disposalof experts.
The Metro (UK) newspaper, on Friday March 27, 2015 reported eight suspected suicides by pilots over a 40-year period (between 1976 and 2013). Many air passengershave long accepted that adverse weather conditions, severe turbulence, mechanical failure, human error, large birds and more recently terrorism add to the risk of flying. The possibility that a pilot, a crew member, a flight engineer or perhaps a baggage handler on the ground could compromise an aircraft and deliberately cause it to crash are now real risks that airlines and passengers have to face and think about.
What needs to be done now
- We must be humble at this time to recognise the complexity of human behaviour before we start to churn out a raft of measures, ideas and practices, based on a knee-jerk reaction.
- We must never be complacent about what we don’t know or become too confident about what we think we know about people.
- The families of the victims and that of the co-pilot will require considerable and timely support to attempt to come to terms with their losses. To assume or pretend that we should have known and done something about all these ‘hidden’revelations,and that we could have averted the disaster of Germanwings Flight 4U9525 would only serve to add to the emotional trauma and suffering of the bereaved families.
- Depression and stressshould not be trivialised. Staff suffering from these common mental disorders should be given the treatment and support they deserve.
- Men (and women) in all industries should be encouraged to seek help rather than suffer in silence. In my experience, women are more likely to seek help and follow advice from mental health professionals. A lot of men would still prefer to pretend that everything is normal even when there is‘fire in their trousers’.
- Work environments should foster a culture that promotesappropriate and honest disclosures, confidentiality and support to encourage employees that are going through stress and great difficulties to ask for help without the fear of being stigmatised, ridiculed or punished.
- Efforts must continue to make air travel safer whilst realising that human ingenuity, complex behaviours and hidden underlying attributes might subsequently cause new safety measures to lead to unintended adverse risks in other areas.
Dr Muyiwa OlumorotiMBBS, MRCPscych, MSc, Certificate of Completion of Specialist Training (CCST) General and Forensic Psychiatry
Consultant in Forensic Psychiatry
Springfield University Hospital, London. England. United Kingdom
+(44)7961446560
+(44)2035136643
