Halo Stickman

Carbs expresses his views on Ashley Giles and man-management. http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/mar/31/michael-carberry-england-ashes

Vibrate mode, incoming calls only?

The only good thing if Ashley Giles gets the test match job is that he never picks Hampshire players to represent the shower of sh1t currently masquerading as the England team. Hampshire players should forget England and focus on achieving success with their county team IMO.

On my eighteenth birthday I went to the pub at lunch time with my mates and drank four pints of rough cider. Staggering home I suddenly remembered that my mum had promised to do me a steak for tea when she got home from work. As steaks were a rarity in our house, I thought the least I could do was to try and get sober. Being rather naïve to the mysteries of alcohol I thought it might help to sit in a hot bath. As I lowered myself into the hot water I promptly threw up a quite incredible amount of vomit into the bath, and had to spend the next few hours trying to get the lumps to go down the plug hole – not easy when you’re p1ssed.

St Chalet or shalln’t he?

Well, Tim, like I said, ‘simplistic’ is subjective, and maybe a mechanical or electrical malfunction maybe a simpler explanation. However, it seems to me that a suicidal pilot or co-pilot wouldn’t have to fight anyone – he would simply lock them out of the flight-deck, and instigate everything that we know did happen himself, i.e. turn off communications, alter course etc. As for why he would fly for seven hours until the fuel ran out, well, I think it was Whitey who made the point several days ago that it is impossible for rationally minded people to interpret the actions or behaviour of irrational minds. But, I really hope I’m wrong about this.

All I hope is that the explanation for this turns out to be the one that caused / causes the least amount of pain and suffering to those on board and to their loved ones – probably oxygen starvation, I suppose. However, in situations like these I tend to apply Occam’s razor, i.e. the idea that the simplest solution or explanation is usually the correct one. By ‘simplest’ I mean the one with the least amount of interconnecting variables or components. To my mind, in this incident the simplest solution is still pilot or co-pilot suicide. Of course, Occam’s razor is only a heuristic device and cannot prove anything one way or the other, because a) ‘simplest’ is subjective b) the simplest explanation or solution is not always the correct one.

IF the pilot did choose to deliberately bring this plane down in an area difficult to find then he seems to have made a very decent job of it.

To a layman like me this whole business seems to be raising some questions as to the proficiency of satellite technology. I guess those 1970s newspapers saying Soviet spy satellites could read newspapers from space were having a laugh. Am I right to assume that satellites operating over more sensitive areas have a much higher resolution?

About 15 minutes max, I believe; but, if you’re breathing heavily, a bit less.

ANNOUNCEMENTS: Ivor Catt and Kat Butcher have ended their relationship citing irreconcilable differences. Butch Mann and Gaye Bird have broken off their engagement. Mister D ick Happy and Little Miss Fanny Shy are to seek counselling. Randy Shepherd and Ivor Ramsbottom are to be married in a civil ceremony on Saturday.

Not only was that one of my favourite days ever, it was also my birthday! The best birthday I’ve ever had bar none.

One in ten of the men folk of an average town in middle England gather at the home of Mr and Mrs Fellows to welcome their announcement of twins Gaye and Nicholas.

Ah, so they are talking a language most of us are fully conversant with, after all.

Good point, Charlie. Many people will do or say anything in order to gain attention – the supporting evidence for that appears on our TV screens and in our newspapers with depressing regularity.

There's klingons on the starboard bow!

I’ll wager there’ll be conspiracists who insist that any wreckage found will be fake or planted.

Christ, hutch, it would take longer than that to psychometrically profile most of us on here – the beeper would be red hot and going off like a siren!

Good point, Tim, but, hopefully, the voice recorder might still reveal whether or not those on the flight deck were still conscious and acting rationally.

Agree with that, pap. Let’s hope the black-box can be found and that it will reveal the explanation for this tragedy.

Yes, at this point, it might be worth reflecting on a 1966 summer’s day in Texas, when ex-marine sniper Charles Whitman stabbed to death his wife and mother, climbed to the top of a water tower on a university campus, and shot dead a further 14 people, wounding 32. An even worse carnage was only prevented by the brave actions of two state policemen and a civilian who managed to scale the tower, break down Whitman’s barricade, and shoot him dead. Whitman left letters – effectively suicide notes – pleading with the authorities to conduct a post-mortem in order to establish what had compelled him to commit this terrible atrocity. The post-mortem revealed a previously undiagnosed brain tumour. The medical authorities have long argued over to what extent this tumour contributed to Whitman’s behaviour that day. But if we accept the views of those who say it did play a role, then it leads to any interesting question: how responsible was Whitman for his actions? As you say, Minty, no one can ever legislate for such terrible incidents; nor should they, thankfully, they are exceedingly rare.

If the lone-rogue-pilot-locked-inside-the-flight-deck scenario does turn out to be what actually happened then the aviation industry will be forced to adopt measures to prevent it ever happening again. Although, I would imagine it’s very difficult to install procedures for every possible contingency without compromising existing security measures.

I believe I’m right in saying that since 9/11 flight-deck doors have been fitted with impregnable locking mechanisms. These can be overridden by the cabin crew if the flight-deck crew are unconscious or incapacitated, but this overriding system can be negated from within the flight-deck. In other words, if someone on the flight-deck wants to bar entry, then there’s no way of gaining access to the flight-deck from the cabin. Hopefully, one of our aviation experts can confirm or deny this. Perhaps one of the pilots left the flight-deck for some reason and the other pilot took the opportunity to lock him out?

Like a bear that loses his killer instinct but can still dip his paw into the honey-pot.

Exactly, indeed, I understand that it’s protocol for the cabin crew to check on the flight-deck crew every twenty minutes or so to check they are ok. So, in the awful event that this incident did involve a rogue pilot, then, unfortunately, I can’t really see a way in which the passengers would not know about it. Surely, even the most professional of cabin crew would not have been able to hide their own feelings of dread from them.