OK. Yes, I’m straying dangerously away from the reservation on this one. No, I have yet to begin drinking… “yet” is operative. Soon… very soon…
Typically I dismiss reported “increases” of tragic events such as small aircraft accidents and shark attacks. Usually the only increased occurence is that some editor decided to give a story prominence and subsequently other news room editors follow suit for a number of days or weeks… simply reporting what otherwise would go unnoticed.
However, I feel differently in regard to the second member of a flight crew “flipping out”. This event would never go unnoticed and given the proximity in time I find it more than a coincidence.
I’m going to float a very unqualified theory. We, as the rest of the world, have been experimenting with pro-psychotic drugs for years. This has been done for various reasons… some savory, some un-savory. Iomazenil is one of a number of such drugs.
The questions I will pose are; If you want to bring down airplanes and can’t get aboard anymore, how would you do it? How do you get into a locked cockpit? How do you create terror on an airplane that cannot be detected quickly and stopped?
Drug the flight crew.
The drug would have to be slow acting and turn an otherwise trustworthy individual into a psychotic mess. The terrorist would have to have access to the crew at a time that they would be consuming something… anything… that such a drug (in an appropriate dosage) could be administered without them being aware of it.
The flight would need to be long enough to allow the drug time to take effect.
Iomazenil, or something in this class could be the answer. The below link will take you to a study utilizing Iomazenil.
http://www.nature.com/npp/journal/v36/n3/full/npp2010198a.html
While Iomazenil seems to only affect those pre-disposed to schizophrenia, who knows what it could do in higher doses or for that matter to those individuals who might have a very mild pre-disposition diagnosed as something else like Bi-Polar disorder or Depression.
Could this be a new approach by the bad actors?
OK doc’s… I know you are out there and I’m ready for you all to let me have it. Given that this is not my area of expertise… or anywhere close to it… I welcome you all calling me crazy – just tell me why.
If I were in charge of the investigations I might be interested in tox-screens to start, and then tracing back the crews immediate where-abouts prior to the flight. I would also be interested in other members of the crew as Iomazenil apparently has little or no effect on those without some type/level of schizophrenia. In other words they may have also been dosed with no ill effect.
Keep in mind, this is only for “fun” as I have very little understanding of these things… so this could all be creative writing. Probably way too many spy novels!
I look forward to your responses.
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