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Have a look here: Attempted murder - Wikipedia[^]
Quote: First, acting deliberately and intentionally or recklessly with extreme disregard for human life, the person attempted to kill someone; and the person did something that was a substantial step toward committing the crime.
Was it a deliberate act? Yes.
Was it intentional or reckless with extreme disregard for human life? Yes.
Did he take an action that was a step towards killing the passengers? Yes. If he thought at all, he relied on the other pilots realising what he did in time, and being able to undo what he did in time, assuming the attempts to undo it didn't have complications resulting in a crash (the system could have failed, the off switch could have broken, hydraulic problems, etc.)
I suspect his defence will try to wriggle it down, but I'd say that you fly for the big one and let a jury decide.
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"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
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OriginalGriff wrote: Was it a deliberate act? Yes.
He did commit a deliberate act. That's a yes.
OriginalGriff wrote: Was it intentional or reckless with extreme disregard for human life? Yes.
His deliberate act was both intentional and reckless with extreme disregard for human life. That's a yes.
What we haven't established yet, are his intentions for committing an intentional act. We know it was intentional and reckless with an extreme disregard for human life, but we don't know what his intentions were in committing this act. I don't know what his intentions were, but I agree with you on the points you made.
OriginalGriff wrote: If he thought at all, he relied on the other pilots realising what he did in time, and being able to undo what he did in time, assuming the attempts to undo it didn't have complications resulting in a crash (the system could have failed, the off switch could have broken, hydraulic problems, etc.)
That's thought-provoking. You make an interesting point.
OriginalGriff wrote: I suspect his defence will try to wriggle it down, but I'd say that you fly for the big one and let a jury decide.
Ultimately, a jury's decision is what matters. We can discuss our opinions as long as we do so in a reasonable manner. Everyone has an absolute right to hold their opinions and express them as they choose to do so. I respect that. Everyone has the right to challenge the opinions of others. I respect that. It's important that we remind ourselves of these rights. To infringe upon these rights is a violation of the most fundamental principles we live by. I want to reiterate that this thread is entirely about opinion. We don't know what the facts are. If we don't have knowledge of the facts, we can't establish a valid argument to support an opinion. Opinions are entirely subjective, and that's something we need to keep in mind.
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I don't know how much intent even matters here from a legal perspective.
Intent is the difference between 2nd degree and 1st degree murder.
Attempted murder would seem to cover even the cases where intent wasn't there, as long as say, the reckless disregard was.
In general prosecution overcharges if anything, and defense over defends. It's an adversarial system by design where in the end, hopefully the two opposing sides air every possible avenue and something resembling "fair" emerges from the smoke.
For my part, everything that happened from a legal perspective seems par for the course.
I won't weigh in on how I feel about the legal system because it would get political.
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Steve Raw wrote: this thread is entirely about opinion. We don't know what the facts are. If we don't have knowledge of the facts, we can't establish a valid argument to support an opinion.
Exactly, so not sure of the point of this thread. I have an interest in crash investigations (mainly rail but also air) from a technical perspective. In due course I'll be interested to read the details of this incident and the way that the judge/jury came to a conclusion, based on the facts that will be presented to them. We don't have those facts. Until then we, like the jury for now, shouldn't be reaching conclusions and judging whether a murder charge is appropriate.
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Right, we can't reach any reasonable conclusion here. What we can do is we can explore possibilities of what may have happened. We can discuss scenarios based on how we view the incident from our point of view. The point of this thread is to understand how others interpret the situation. That way it leads us to consider ideas that we haven't thought of.
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Steve Raw wrote: I don't know of any FAA laws that prohibit an idiot from doing something stupid
Most of the FAA laws are there because an idiot did something stupid and they want to prevent the next one doing it!
Think about it: turning up to work drunk is bad in any profession, but as a pilot? But they still do, the FAA law is there to make sure they can't do it again by permanently removing their right to fly.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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OriginalGriff wrote: Most of the FAA laws are there because an idiot did something stupid
You nailed it. That's exactly how it works. It's often referred to as "graveyard legislation".
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It seems to me that his wish was to crash the airplane, which would (probably) have caused the death of 83 people. Even though his "primary" intent probably was to commit suicide, he most certainly knew that everybody on board would die with him. Maybe he can convince the court and the judge that he did not intend to crash the plane; that would change matters - but I'd be surprised. So to me, it sounds very much as if he attempted to murder them.
I also think that if you murder 83 civilians because you think that there is a certain chance that there possibly is an enemy soldier among them, you are still murdering 83 civilians.
Here in Norway, a young man who "technically" was a virgin, he had never been in bed with a girl, was convicted of raping 120 girls. He hadn't ever met any of these 120 girls in person. But he had seen pictures of their bodies on his PC screen. According to Norwegian law, that is more than attempted rape, it is equivalent to actually performing the rape. As far as I understand it, it applies only if you see a digital image on a PC screen. If you see the girl's body in real life, with nothing more happening beyond you seeing her body, as far as I know, you cannot be convicted of rape. The difference comes when we can put the label 'internet' on it.) Noone claims that this guy had any real intent of physically raping the girls, and it didn't happen. Yet he was convicted as if it had happened.
I find this a lot harder to accept than a man deliberately and knowingly trying to crash an airplane being convicted of attempted murder of the passengers and crew on board the plane.
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trønderen wrote: Here in Norway
I like that we have a community that spans the world. The more diverse input that is provided to think about makes this question all the more interesting.
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trønderen wrote: Here in Norway, a young man who "technically" was a virgin, he had never been in bed with a girl, was convicted of raping 120 girls. He hadn't ever met any of these 120 girls in person. But he had seen pictures of their bodies on his PC screen. According to Norwegian law, that is more than attempted rape, it is equivalent to actually performing the rape. As far as I understand it, it applies only if you see a digital image on a PC screen. If you see the girl's body in real life, with nothing more happening beyond you seeing her body, as far as I know, you cannot be convicted of rape. The difference comes when we can put the label 'internet' on it.) Noone claims that this guy had any real intent of physically raping the girls, and it didn't happen. Yet he was convicted as if it had happened.
  Wow...
Local laws are local laws, but WOW...
Missing more information about the case:
if he stalked the girls to take the pictures when undressing or in what could be called "safe space" (home, college dorms, gym...) I would kind of understand it.
Just possesing some pictures that might have been hot selfies, that got synchronized to the cloud and then somehow leaked... then I would think it is a bit too harsh to make it as raping.
Kind of frightening without more information about the concrete law.
M.D.V. 
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trønderen wrote: was a virgin, he had never been in bed with a girl, was convicted of raping 120 girls. He hadn't ever met any of these 120 girls in person. But he had seen pictures of their bodies on his PC screen.
Googling I could not find any references to that.
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Here's something to consider.
What if he experienced a psychotic break? What happens during a psychotic break is that a person loses touch with reality. Losing touch with reality could easily have been what caused such bizarre behavior. It can happen to anyone, even if there is no evidence that could indicate the presence of mental illness. It's possible that mental illness may not even be present. A psychotic break can happen to someone as a result of a medical condition. Oftentimes, a psychotic break will occur as a result of significant stress or trauma. If you're a pilot over the age of 40, you require a health checkup every six months. It's required by law. It's well within reason to consider that he has passed his health checkups without any problems in the past. It's well within reason to understand that without any history of mental illness, this can happen to someone without forewarning. Given that these psychotic episodes occur in a state of psychological stress, he may have acted out of panic, with a delusion that caused him to believe there was in fact an engine fire. If this were to be the case, how would it change your opinion? By no means would I consider ruling this possibility out. If this were in fact the case, would it affect your opinion? How so?
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For the initial question, it is attempted murder, even if the plane did not crash or was not likely to crash - you are judged for what you tried to achieve, not by whether it could still be avoided or not. A defence line like "Look, I am an experienced pilot, and I knew the plane would not crash" might succeed, but will still be hard to, IMHO.
As for the psychotic issue : In France, it goes that way : experts will say whether a criminal had all his mind and means when attempting or performing a crime. If you are judged mentally disabled - be it temporarily or definitely, you cannot get sentenced, but you usually end up in psychiatric hospital for like forever.
In any cases, this is a complicated topic - This case : Germanwings Flight 9525 - Wikipedia[^] ended up in very different sentences for the company or company members. There was no post-mortem sentence for the pilot though, since you cannot sentence someone who died.
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Remember, the charges were brought by a lawyer 
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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What if he had succeeded to crash the plane, killing everyone else on board, but miraculously managed to survive, would he then have any responsibility the deaths of the other 83?
So they did not die. He is not accused of killing them, only of attempting to. Are there various degrees of attempting to kill 83 persons, some are justifiable, others are not - and trying to crash an airplane is a justifiable killing attempt, when it was prevented?
One bad thing about the legal system of the US, as seem from abroad, is that when we see fiction movies ridiculing it, we frequently have problems distinguishing them from what we read in news media about actual lawsuits. It is so that given the right lawyers (and judges) I wouldn't be the least surprised if they decided that he certainly attempted to crash the plane, and he was not mentally disturbed in the legal sense, but responsible for his actions, yet he is aquitted. We are regularly reminded that there are reasons for those ridiculing movies!
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Steve Raw wrote: I don't know what happened up there,
That is a very true statement, but spare a thought for the captain and the first officer who found themselves with a 200 pounds, 6ft 1" guy who went off the rails in a confined space full of breakers, levers and handles. All that in plane with a L/D ratio of around 14 giving you probably less than 100 miles or 15 minutes before grass goes in the cockpit. I've seen bar fights that take longer than that In the end, with adrenaline going through the roof, they tell ATC "we have a guy that went a bit overboard". Mic drop.
Steve Raw wrote: Should he be charged with attempted murder?
Most certainly. Sadly, this will not prevent similar incidents from happening in the future. Nervous breakdown can happen in any profession and it has happened to pilots before. See Germanwings Flight 9525 - Wikipedia[^]
Mircea
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Message Closed
modified 26-Oct-23 12:06pm.
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Steve Raw wrote: it's a little more complex than what you're describing here.
It sure is. That was just a back of the envelope calculation meant to show that crew didn't have lots of time to solve the situation. They needed to react quickly and correctly and did just that. Again kudos to a very professional crew!
Steve Raw wrote: Most importantly, remember to acknowledge a person's right to form their own opinion, and be sure to respect their opinion when you are exercising the right to express yours.
I don't see where I failed to do that, but if you feel offended, please accept my apologies - it wasn't intentional.
Mircea
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Mircea Neacsu wrote: I don't see where I failed to do that, but if you feel offended, please accept my apologies - it wasn't intentional.
Oh, I didn't mean to imply that I was talking specifically to you. It was just a reminder to everyone who may be viewing or posting to this thread. No need to apologize. I failed to specify that I was addressing everyone.
Mircea Neacsu wrote: It sure is. That was just a back of the envelope calculation meant to show that crew didn't have lots of time to solve the situation. They needed to react quickly and correctly and did just that. Again kudos to a very professional crew!
I see what you mean now. I inferred that you were stating technical specs.
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If I shoot you in the guts with .22LR (and I aim away from the liver), and you drive yourself to the hospital before bleeding to death (which will take at least 30 min) and you receive a proper surgery/treatment, the chances you die from the wound are about as high as getting struck by lightning while sitting on the toilet.
BTW: At that altitude the speed ranges that will keep the airplane in the air are very narrow. With both engines on idle even a small error or delay to act from the crew could (and will) stall the plane. Which is not going to be fun for the passengers even if the pilot-flying later regain control.
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modified 24-Oct-23 12:59pm.
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"At that altitude the speed ranges that will keep the airplane in the air are very narrow."
IAS(indicated airspeed) holds true at any altitude, so if the IAS is 250 knots at FL300 and say the stall speed is 150 knots they surely still have a 100 knot window of safe flight?
Or are they flying at 150 knots IAS at FL300?
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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Means at lower altitude the airplane can fly between let say 200 and 400 knots but in higher altitude it will stays in the air only if it makes between 350 and 400 knots.
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He was "too perfect".
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
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I think you are asking this question to the wrong group of people. You should be asking this to the 83 people on the plane.
Brent
Brent
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