Looking at Andreas Lubitz
You have probably already heard the news of the Germanwings pilot, Andreas Lubitz, who is now being looked at for intentionally slamming the plane he piloted and that carried 150 passengers into the mountain.
Why would a man do this?
A capable man who held a respectable job?
It’s mind-boggling.
Lubitz locked the captain out of the cockpit, experts speculate, and put the plane into a direct descent into the mountain.
When I look at Lubitz in photo (no longer available), I see a man who shows great neutrality in his face. This means he is not one to be emotional or act out emotionally. He was likely neutral in most of his interactions with people and in life.
This attribute can actually contribute to a superior pilot because a person like this isn’t driven by fear, or reacts to fear in the ways most people do, so he will react well under pressure. He and people who are emotionally neutral simply have a different emotional make-up. It can be good or it can be bad. It can have different manifestations.
Someone who is emotionally neutral may experience life on a very even-keel, or they could experience a void–a lack of feeling emotions all together–where they are checked out and removed–apathetic. There can be various reasons for this. Both would lead to different personalities. I’d need more information to see how it could affect Lubitz.
I also see a gullibility in his face, and perhaps a lack in his sense of self.
When I saw that, it stopped me dead in my tracks. What that could mean caused my heart to stop.
Someone who is gullible could fall under the manipulation of someone sinister, right?
It can’t be ruled out. I am not saying this did or did not happen, but it has to be considered.
Was there some undercurrent in Lubitz life that people are unaware of? I would certainly want to investigate it.
Predators prey on people’s weaknesses. Psychopaths are notorious for spotting people’s weaknesses instantaneously.
Have we ever thought about testing pilots, in today’s age, for gullibility? I mean we could have an outstanding and technically skilled pilot, but what if in other areas of his life he was unsure and susceptible to outside influence? This is a vulnerability. I don’t think the prevalence would be high, but it could have some statistically significant where we might not want to ignore it.
I am not saying that is what happened here, but it is a possibility.
What other things can you think of that would have caused this man to drive a plane into a mountain and kill everyone including himself?
We have to assume he underwent regular mental health check-ups that would spot obvious signs of mental illness. I wonder when his last mental health check was?
Feel free to discuss this below. This blog is about understanding human behavior and deception, which appears to be very applicable to this sad story.
from the very little i’ve read the crew there wasn’t subjected to ongoing mental health evaluations, only medical.
I suppose Ill also add I still think it was a mental stresser opposed to an outside stresser.
This story devastated me on the way into work today. The news that the flight recorder recorded passengers screaming broke my heart and made me feel nauseated. Those poor people! A person would have to either be so completely oblivious to the other souls on board because of his own internal need to kill himself, OR he was intent on murdering them. Whatever the reason, he didn’t want to leave any clues on the recording. I wonder what else we’ll find out. If he wanted it to remain a mystery or if he left the world a clue. Wouldn’t a mass murderer need to tell the world why?
I don’t think it’s likely he was merely suicidal and oblivious of the passengers because if he just wanted to kill himself he could have done it before the flight in many other ways, ways that didn’t involve murdering innocent people.
Most mass murderers do want the credit, according to Dr. Michael Wehlner. They want the sensationalism of killing a lot of people in a horrible way. They want to be one of the most well-known killers. This man may have been different, however.
Maybe a rambling manifesto will be found in his home or apartment.
Great insight on the topic of gullability. Too bad no general mental health screening has that component. Thank you Eyes. 🙂
I have to politely and strongly disagree here – I don’t think the evidence supports that he was suggestible and that’s what caused the plane to crash. If that did happen, that’s a very clear case of terrorism, and some group would have taken “credit” by now. I do not see any evidence of any terror organization taking any “credit” in any way. They probably would have done additional damage in some populated area, not fly a plane into a mountain.
Gullible is a general term, the concept that is testable and measurable is suggestible. Absolutely everyone is suggestible at some level. There are ways in counseling to measure suggestibility. I’m not aware of any ways to measure gullibility. Anyone feel free to post if there are ways to measure that trait.
Vasty more likely is some type of mental health illness. Even though I’m a counselor (specialization in vocational counseling) I do not do diagnoses at all. Ever. That’s beyond my master’s degree level of training, and I respect the limits of my training. I would hypothesize that there were some extremely serious mental health issues in this person’s life, and that a good clinician would have caught them, but that’s not guaranteed. I completely agree that people in such positions of responsibility should be screened by a professional (or team of professionals) for the safety of those in their care.
Eyes wrote, “perhaps a lack in his sense of self”. There’s no perhaps about it. This is a “lack of sense of self”, and I’m sure that mental health condition (whatever it was) was the leading cause of the deaths of all of these people.
This isn’t suicide in the common sense of the act, there is much more to this type of event. Hopefully more evidence will become public and shed light on this person and what caused him to do this act. In short, I strongly believe this is a complex mental health issue, not one of gullibility. I’m very interested in what others have to say about this.
I feel misunderstood. Forgive me, Russ. I am not saying there is any evidence here that is suggestible in any way. I am saying his facial features support he may have these personality tendencies, and so we should explore that it is something that could happen, albeit unlikely. The potential exists.
Eyes, why was my comment deleted? I posted my opinion on what I thought could have possibly lead to this man’s behavior as this is what you asked us to do?
Did you not like my question?
As this seems unfair as this is a blog about discussing an understanding people’s behaviour.
Vienna — Forgive me, it was an accident. I was responding to your comment, had to go, went to delete my comment because I didn’t have time to finish it, and got yours instead which ended up deleting everything. You are welcome to re-submit your comment. I apologize.
If it was a case of mental illness I doubt better screening would be of any use. People will just lie on whatever tests and in any kind of evaluation. People with any kind of license, but especially airline pilots, have zero to gain and absolutely everything to lose. If he gets flagged in an evaluation and made to see a doctor that wants to put him on any kind of medication his livelihood could be over.
I wrote on another blog that this was giving me a painful case of cognitive dissonance trying to work this out… suicidal people generally are self isolating, not wishing to harm others, while this man is actively engaged in hostility toward others he doesn’t know in his mission. I couldn’t come to terms with this juxtaposition. Upon more reflection, I think he has some major revenge toward humanity in general. Probably has felt unjustly persecuted/ treated for a long time. The whole thing reminds me of James Holmes. It is possible that this man had more serious issues than garden-variety depression, i.e., schizophrenia or some persecutory delusional disorder.
Aside from the need for a more interwoven mental health screening/follow up algorithm within the pilot license eligibility/medical eligibility system, it would be incredible if more research into how certain mental states effect brainwave patterns and some specialized EEG screening could be developed for use in the future.
Annnnd there it is…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/28/andreas-lubitz-germanwings-crash_n_6960804.htm
Hello Eyes,
I love reading your blog posts because I always can see what you see…*after* you point it out. This case is no exception. The neutrality, the gullibility, the lack of sense of self.
Here’s my two cents:
When I first saw his face I thought he was maybe gay. Underneath his neutrality, I see despair. Or maybe it’s just the sense that something profound is missing. I guess this is the lack of self? Lastly, his pose in front of the Golden Gate Bridge: he’s not taking up much space. To me it seems boyish, closed, protective. Like he hasn’t grown up all the way.
Called it. He browser history had gay porn.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3018160/Killer-pilot-Andreas-Lubitz-treated-suicidal-tendencies-years-Alps-crash-trawling-gay-porn-websites-doomed-flight-prosecutors-reveal.html
Denying your sexuality to yourself and others for your entire life, living a lie, subverting a core aspect of self can make one suicidal, enraged & depressed. This was at least one factor to his horrifying act.
I was going to say earlier, how can you really tell by looking at someone if they are gay? I know lots of people guess people’s sexuality but from what I know sexual preference can be different from sexual identity and therefore it’s not so easy to do. Most people I know that guess are incorrect. Having said that if I talk to someone a bit I think I have a good idea of their sexual preference 🙂
Hi Brent! They are starting to study this! Here’s a few articles that summarize recent findings.
http://www.livescience.com/20360-sexual-orientation-visible-face.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/07/gay-straight-face-shape_n_4232987.html
My theory is that humans have this ability to aid in sexual selection. I think it is sharpened through experience – aka seeing many faces of people who identify as gay and adding them to your brain’s internal database. Similar distinguishing more and ever subtler varieties of color. It just requires seeing and recognizing and comparing and putting it in the internal database. Of course, some people are naturally gifted and others learn through experience! 🙂
Thanks for sharing this. On my facial profiling page, I have research displayed there too which says the same thing — people can do this and are accurate!
Facial profiling, however, cannot identify mental illness in many cases (only a select few).
https://www.eyesforlies.com/services/the-science-of-facial-profiling/
Hi Tracker, thanks.
You could say we have this ability to aid in sexual de-selection (harmless joke intended).
Interesting reading. It also explains why people I know get it wrong, the correct assessment seems about 60%.
As I’ve mentioned before, I find facial profiling problematic for one important reason: it fails in outlying cases, and those are exactly the cases you’re likely to see more of on this blog. Not many have suicided in this manner, so he’s already rare.
David — You may not find value in it, but I can assure you it is part of my ability and what I use every day.
I find it very useful for everyday people, much less useful for exceptional people.
What do you mean by exceptional people david? How do you decide if facial profiling will work on someone or not?
I showed Eyes a photo of two autistics and a psychopath without mentioning they were unusual and she mischaracterised them. Look at Amanda Knox – her appearance reveals nothing. I think that not only is facial profiling useful but that people do it subconsciously all the time, and it’s a big part of why manipulative people find so much success.
I cannot typically identify mental illness by facial profiling, David. That is unfair to judge me on that. I am at least 80% accurate.
You’re missing the point. Facial profiling simply doesn’t work in outlying cases, *and* those cases will appear disproportionately often on these pages.
I disagree completely.
Amanda Knox’s basic appearance revealed nothing, right? You had to see inconsistencies before you could judge. If you ask me that’s probably a big part of how she gets away with it.
If we’re talking about normal people who got into extreme circumstances then yeah, you could quickly judge who they are and how events likely played out. I skip most of the posts about those types of people because they don’t interest me, so perhaps they’re more common than I think.
David — You don’t understand profiling at all, which is clear by your response. I use this every day in my life in every single interaction with people I don’t know. I look at people, and decide in seconds if someone has a higher than average propensity to be deceptive by looking at their face, and use that as my base–my starting point. From there, I watch them based on that initial opinion. What I do then is compare what I can identify in their face as attributes and see if their behavior matches it. That’s what makes me accurate at deception and accurate in seconds to minutes. I just don’t teach it! Dr. Maureen O’Sullivan even addressed this in her research comments — that the experts have templates of people that they use. She got it.
Amanda’s face revealed a lot about her personality and I used that immediately to see if her actions matched her personality, and they did not. She acted as one person but was an entirely different one the inside. By simple words, I could see she wasn’t portraying herself as she was and then I knew I had a liar, and I waited to point out her lies as they came. It gives me a huge edge. That is how I can sniff out liars way faster than the average person.
You seem to think you understand what I do, but clearly you do not.
Sometimes I simply share personality attributes of a person, like Lubitz. That’s all. I don’t take it any further. I may not be 100% but I am way above average without question and know my information can really help people tremendously.
You are unaware that I have tested my ability to read people from photos and identify their personality by analyzing over 100 strangers, and they scored my ability as 89% accurate. I was able to identify by photos alone a salesman, a wanna-be flight attendant, a vegan, nurses, skeptics of my process before I ever spoke to them, strongly religious people, a serial dater, A-type personalities, people passions, and even flaws. People told me I knew them better than their own mother. I can pick introverts and extraverts, fear-based people versus fearless, etc. The list in long.
Not to brag, but I astounded people, David. It was an informal project I did with a professor.
I’m not attacking you, so you don’t need to be defensive. You already said that Knox’s appearance revealed nothing. You needed to find inconsistencies later. It would be possible, given her appearance alone, for her to be the character she is presenting, don’t you agree? Watching this video – http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/jan/30/amanda-knox-exclusive-video-interview-guilty-video – you would say the character she is presenting would be more believable coming from her friend, but not because of their respective physical appearances, but because Knox is clearly dominant. Either of them could be that character, until you see them together.
Because, as I’m trying to explain, facial profiling fails in outlying cases of unusual personalities. And if you think about it, it’s bound to, it’s virtually a truism.
“facial profiling fails in outlying cases of unusual personalities”
Can you link to a scientific study backing up your assertion?
I don’t think there’s been much study of it, it was too linked to phrenology.
There are many studies on personality identification at zero acquaintance aka what I call personality profiling. See my website page services and look for science.
Knox’s appearance did reveal a lot, but you don’t understand it, so I am going to leave it at that.
I asked a few months ago and you said you couldn’t tell if she was a psychopath, which is clearly her most relevant feature, but not one that’s amenable to facial profiling. I’d love to understand if you want to explain.
I don’t see why unusual personalities would necessarily lead to incorrect facial profiling. Eyes must have a number of ‘unusual personality’ templates in her mental database after commenting on them for so long.
They don’t look unusual.
Their unusual personality or mental illness may be highly relevant for explaining why they did something, but for detecting deception I think facial profiling would remain useful.
Ok thanks. How do manipulative people find success through this? Do you mean they size up a person based on their face and so know how to manipulate them?
I mean that they know they’re being judged by appearance, so they act into the character they look like. As Homer Simpson said, it takes two to lie: one to lie, and one to listen. Manipulative people rarely work hard to maintain an image, their dupes are making it easy for them by shortcircuiting the analysis process (I suspect this is biological, and the shortcircuiting only doesn’t happen in odd cases).
I heard on the news that he stopped his pilot training and took some time off. Upon returning he underwent some psychological testing. It was unclear if he just got burned out, or if he had some kind of mental break, at that point. There was also a break-up of a relationship, recently. I am suspicious that there may be more to this than we are being told, but I feel that I could be influenced by all of the bad reports on the news. I don’t know if he could have been under the influence of a terrorist organization, but just listening to all of the bad reports, lately, can cause some to despair. I do see an expression in this picture that looks a little tentative. I don’t see a happy or content expression. I feel a sadness when I look at his face.
I really don’t think all of the facts have come out, but we may know more in the days to come. As Russ said, someone will take credit, if it is terrorism. At the very least, he must have been a very angry, disturbed man to have killed all of those people. He could have just committed suicide without taking other people’s lives.
I would be very interested in knowing what the quarrel between the pilots was about. If he was already in a bad state of mind, a quarrel could have pushed him over the line. He, also, may have gotten more intense as they reached the cruise level, because he was waiting for his chance to crash the plane.
This is really very easy to figure out. This pilot was a Muslim (Islam) convert.
Google the gateway pundit for an example article. It is all over the news however.
In this pic, his joy doesn’t seem so authentically gleeful and he seems withheld, kind of like an introvert.
Though resolution is preventing close scrutiny, it doesn’t look like an open and genuine smile.
Terrorism seems remote at this point.
This might clear things up a little. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/Germanwings-co-pilot-told-ex-girlfriend-everyone-will-know-my-name/articleshow/46726021.cms
I find a few things strange first in the cockpit he never said anything and was not crying apparently his breathing was normal I would not expect that if he was committing suicide. Second he was an avid jogger, I don’t know many seriously depressed people who jog. Btw always enjoy your blog
Still, why didn’t he open the door to the captain if he was normal.
He wasn’t normal or healthy. That’s apparent. I think he was despondent. They may call that clinically depressed. I’m not an expert in depression, but truly depressed people don’t walk around crying. They actually give up hope and become numb, or dead to the world. They check out. Some may hide it on their job successfully. They may cry, but its not constant. It may only be in private.
Seeing more and more come out, I think he felt held back, taunted and teased a lot in life, and took the ultimate revenge. People who are victimized by society (or feel they are) are the ones most likely to lash out like this.
I don’t see this as suicide at all. This was mass murder.
That’s right Eyes, from what I remember if a person is suffering from depression it’s not that they’re more sad, they’re actually less happy. The sun doesn’t shine in them or on events that happen to them. What would usually bring a person joy brings them nothing.
Profound psychopathy. A gaping abyss in the place where empathy should have resided.
Germanwings co-pilot reported depression during training
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/03/31/europe/france-germanwings-plane-crash-main/