The news of shamed Germanwings pilot Andreas Lubitz is all the media will talk about at the moment. Since the story broke on Tuesday 24th March that a plane containing 150 people, including the pilot, had crashed into the French Alps, killing everyone on board instantly, at first everyone speculated as to how it could have happened. The weather was acceptable for flying, the location wasn’t relevant as they were too high for it to be a factor, and the airline had a great record. But not long after, it was revealed that the pilot had deliberately crashed the plane.
Understandably, the world reacted in fury, questioning why the pilot had been allowed to fly that day. At the same time, the media floodgates opened, the pilot’s life and history pried open for everyone to see. Everything was monitored through a magnifying glass – his girlfriend revealed that she thought he may have been planning something for some time and that he wasn’t himself, there were rumours that Lubitz had eyesight problems, there were even videos of him during his first flight training. But the most prominent message that the media want us all to understand? Lubitz was suffering from depression.
The gaudy headlines that have been splashed across our tabloids have been nothing short of sickening. ‘Why on Earth was he allowed to fly?’ The Daily Mail screamed out. ‘Killer pilot suffered from depression’, bellowed The Daily Mirror. And my personal favourite by The Sun – ‘Madman in cockpit’. Lovely. I know we shouldn’t expect quality journalism from such publications these days, but even with the tabloids’ reputation of not letting the truth get in front of a good mass panic campaign, it’s still rather horrific.
What I find most frustrating about this is the fact that people are failing to realise that there is no connection between depression and murder. After reading quite a few news reports – and they’re absolutely terrifying to read – it’s apparent that this man was a pretty disturbed individual. But the media are latching onto his mental health like a lifeline, looking for any kind of reason to comprehend why he did it. Well, allow me to make things perfectly clear: there isn’t one.
I get that people want absolution, certainty, closure, whatever you want to call it, especially the families of the tragic fallen, whom I can’t imagine the pain they’re going through, but riling up a lynch mob into blaming a mental illness that one in four people will suffer from in our lifetime isn’t acceptable and shouldn’t be happening. I’m not saying that Andreas Lubitz shouldn’t be held accountable for what he did. In fact, I’m saying the exact opposite. What he did was reprehensible, it was sickening, and it was wrong. But don’t bring his mental illness into it. There is no correlation between a mental illness and madness.
No one can decipher why this man decided to do what he did, and blaming his depression, or whatever he was suffering from, is utterly heinous and stigmatises mental health even further. It’s no wonder people don’t want to talk about it or admit to it if this is the kind of light we’re portrayed in in the media.
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