The Rogue Pilot Phenomenon
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Thomas Anthony Director, Aviation Safety and Security Program University of Southern California Human Factors in extremis The Rogue Pilot Phenomenon The Germanwings crash has brought the rogue pilot to review several of the cases that fall into the rogue phenomenon to the front and center of aviation safety pilot/intentional crashing category. Precedents provide attention. Unlike other aircraft accidents which may be context. Also necessary is a clear understanding of the resolved by evidence at the accident site, the rogue pilot terms that may apply to these types of cases. Finally, this investigation takes the investigator into non-traditional paper will examine the rogue pilot/intentional crashing areas of inquiry. Specifically, it will take the investigator phenomenon from two complementary perspectives. into the personal and often private life of the flight crew. First, as a crime that takes place within an aviation While accident investigators have adeptly addressed the context; and second, as a human factors/psychological issue of Human Factors via the lens of Crew Resource mishap that has profound aviation safety repercussions. Management (CRM), Threat and Error Management (TEM) and Human Factors Analysis and Classification I am not a psychologist. I am however an investigator (HFACS) for decades, the issue of the intentional crashing who dedicated 18 years of my FAA/TSA career to the of an aircraft by the pilot remains largely a dark corner of investigation and mitigation of unlawful acts against ignorance. The purpose of this paper is to focus the light civil aviation. Unlawful implies intentional. Unlawful and of understanding onto this issue so that we can take a intentional are two of the elements of the rogue pilot confident step forward in accident investigation. phenomenon. I led the Los Angeles portion of the Egypt Air 990 investigation in cooperation with the FBI and have This is not a review of the Germanwings case. The directed and participated in dozens of intentional acts of Germanwings investigation is not complete and the unlawful interference against civil aviation, most notably facts are not fully established. It is instructive, however, hijackings and bombings of aircraft. Semi-annual publication on Air Accident Investigation from UAE General Civil Aviation Authority 43 This paper draws primarily upon the work of two authors: Table 1: Pilot Initiated Crashes John E. Douglas, Special Agent (S/A) (retired) with the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit - considered the father of 26 September 1976 – 12 fatalities criminal profiling - and Dr. Thomas Joiner - a pre-eminent A Russian pilot stole an Antonov 2 airplane and authority on the phenomenon of murder-suicide; a directed the aircraft into a block of flats in Novosibirsk, where his divorced wife lived. phenomenon which provides many relevant insights into the development of the rogue pilot psychology. 22 August 1979 – 4 fatalities A 23 year old male mechanic, who had just been fired, S/A Douglas’ work is contained in The Crime Classification entered a hangar at Bogotá Airport, Colombia and Manual (3rd edition) by Douglas, Burgess, Burgess, and stole a military HS-748 transport plane. He took off Ressler and also in Douglas’ biography Mind Hunter. and crashed the plane into a residential area. Douglas served as the real-life model for the character of Jack Crawford in the movie. 9 December 1982 – 24 fatalities, 150 survivors The captain of JAL 350 a DC-8 on a domestic flight Dr. Thomas Joiner is a Distinguished Professor of from Fukuoka to Tokyo-Haneda, pushed the controls Psychology at Florida State University. He is the author of forward on approach causing the aircraft to crash over 475 publications. Among these his recent book, The into Tokyo Bay, approximately 1,000 feet short of the Perversion of Virtue, is solely focused on murder-suicide, runway. The first officer and flight engineer fought the fundamental psychological condition underlying the for control of the aircraft, but were unsuccessful in pilot murder-suicide phenomenon. His books, Myths preventing the crash. About Suicide and Why People Die By Suicide, also serve to inform this paper. 13 July 1994 – 1 fatality A Russian Air Force engineer stole an aircraft from the Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison is a Professor of Psychiatry Kubinka AFB to commit suicide. The aircraft crashed at Johns Hopkins University and an Honorary Professor when there was no more fuel left. of English at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. 21 August 1994 – 44 fatalities Her book Night Falls Fast provides significant statistical A Royal Air Maroc ATR-42 airplane crashed in the Atlas context for suicide as a whole. Similarly, The Suicidal Mountains shortly after takeoff from Agadir, Morocco. Mind by Edwin S. Shneidman provides understandable The accident was suggested to have been caused by context for the conditions which lead to suicide. the captain disconnecting the autopilot and directing the aircraft to the ground deliberately. The Moroccan Definitions Pilot’s Union challenged these findings. Homicide: The action, by a human being, of killing a 19 December 1997 – 104 fatalities human being. (Etymology; a man-slayer) The Oxford Silk Air Flight 185, a Boeing 737 en route from Jakarta, English Dictionary. Indonesia to Singapore, crashed in Indonesia following a rapid descent from cruising altitude. Indonesian Murder: The unlawful taking of human life. (Douglas, p. authorities were not able to determine the cause of 111) It is first among the commandments; “Thou Shalt the accident. It has been suggested by the U.S. Not Kill.” It is the most basic crime. The rogue pilot has NTSB that the captain may have committed suicide no right to take the lives of the passengers, therefore this by switching off both flight recorders and intentionally action is, at its most basic level, the crime of murder. putting the Boeing 737 in a dive, possibly when the first officer had left the flight deck. During 1997 the Mass Murder: The unlawful killing of four or more victims captain experienced multiple work-related difficulties, by the same offender(s) acting in concert, at one location particularly during the last 6 months. Also at the time of in a single continuous event that may last minutes, hours, the accident the captain was experiencing significant or days (Douglas, p. 16). financial difficulties, which was disputed by the Indonesian investigators. Murder-suicide: is the term that Joiner uses in his book The Perversion of Virtue to describe, “a murder followed 11 October 1999 – 1 fatality by a suicide.” (Joiner, p. 14) Joiner states emphatically An Air Botswana captain who had been grounded that the intention to commit suicide comes first, and only for medical reasons took off in an ATR-42. He made once suicide is decided upon does the individual seek to several demands over the radio and finally stated he justify his own death, by the murderous death of others. was going the crash the plane. He caused the plane to He states “Given the contingent nature of suicide and crash into two parked ATR-42 aircraft on the platform murder in these incidents, and given that both are tied at Gaborone Airport, Botswana. together in perpetrators’ minds by a perversion of virtue, it is not a surprise that the time interval between murder(s) 31 October 1999 – 217 fatalities and suicide is almost always on the order of minutes or Egypt Air Flight 990, a Boeing 767, entered a rapid hours.” (Joiner, p. 16) Further, Joiner asserts that “Far descent some 30 minutes after departure from New from Being Impulsive” murder-suicide is premeditated. York-JFK Airport. This happened moments after the captain had left the flight deck. During the investigation Psychosis: The mental disorder of not being able to it was suggested that the accident was caused by distinguish reality from unreality. Delusional. a deliberate act by the relief first officer. The NTSB Semi-annual publication on Air Accident Investigation from UAE General Civil Aviation Authority 44 internet as an individual not as a team or social activity. concluded that the accident was a “result of the relief It can be done in private with no one in attendance. One first officer’s flight control inputs.” The suggestions of can log in with an assumed name or identity. Working a deliberate act were disputed by Egyptian authorities. on the internet can create the feeling of absolute privacy but, of course, this is false. Every keystroke is recorded 29 November 2013 – 33 fatalities LAM Flight 470 entered a rapid descent while en somewhere. The impression of absolute privacy is route between Maputo and Luanda and crashed in ultimately false. Namibia. Preliminary investigation results indicate Some investigative organizations use a mental model that the accident was intentional. The captain made which can be called “The Three Selves” as a way of control inputs that directed the plane to the ground, shortly after the first officer had left the flight deck. looking at any individual’s behavior. This model posits that each of us can be seen as having “Three Selves.” The first is the Social Self which is the person that is In addition to the above cited cases, the crash of PSA known to friends, workmates, and other individuals that 1771 should be included. A Los Angeles based employee we routinely come into contact with. The second self is of Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA), after having been the Personal Self who is only shared with our spouse terminated from his position, used his airline ID to board or confidants. The third self is the Private Self which is a flight with a handgun, killed his supervisor who was a shared with no one. It is often within this private self where passenger, the other pilots, and caused the aircraft to the fantasy life exists and the seeds of violent crime grow.