house. why evangelicals may be more important than ever in choosing the next republican nominee. and speaking of republican presidential candidates, why is one courting the survivalist crowd by suggesting it is time to stock up and hoard supplies? i m chuck todd. joining me for insight and analysis are nbc s joe scarborough, hillary clinton s former policy director, neera tanden, kathleen parker of the washington post and sam stein of the huffington post. welcome to sunday. it s meet the press. this is meet the press with chuck todd. good morning. we will start with a topic that is dominating conversation around the world. the news that a plane crashed into the alps with 150 people on board was horrific enough. but the story took a bizarre and even more disturbing turn when it became clear that the co-pilot had deliberately slammed it into the mountain, turning it into a mass murder. we re learning more about that pilot andreas lubitz every day and a picture i
welcome to you both. tom, following up on this report this morning, you hear an ax. there are axes on airplanes? there is an ax, we know for sure in the cockpit, that s standard procedure. but there is also according to lufthansa, they have one hidden in the passenger compartment, and only the crew members know where that ax might be. so we were a little surprised by that as well to find there is an ax somewhere hidden in the cabin, but apparently there is. now, we can t confirm the bild s reporting that the pilot was using an ax to try to get through the door. but in theory, there is an ax in the cabin. we re having a larger conversation about mental health and mental fitness of pilots. i think we re finding out that there isn t a lot of mental health checks done of pilots. is that right, erin? right. the psychological assessments that are available for use, typically at the time of new hire for airline pilots, are not the types of tools that would detect mental illness.
passengers scream. this is being reported by a newspaper out here. nbc news has not been able to verify it. but if it is true, it is chilling details of the final moments. they re also reporting a lot on his medical condition. the new york times reports that he had eye issues that would have prevented him from flying in the future. there are also reports there was depression involved here. so far nbc news hasn t been able to verify that either. but the prosecutors office did find doctors notes, torn up doctors notes inside the home, before the day of the crash, that were in the given to lufthansa, ones that would have excused him from work. they re looking into all of this now and trying to piece together exactly what was going on inside his mind at the time of the crash. chuck? katy tur, thank you very much. i know you ll keep reporting and building a profile of this pilot. i m joined by nbc s aviation correspondent, tom costello and erin bowen, an aviation psychology expert from
cockpit for a year, if you get that help and you can come back and be in the cockpit and be on some antidepressants, for example, including zoloft, then that s all right. if you function well, if you re cleared by a doctor. you have to self-report. you have to self-report. there is an incentive to self-reporting. if you don t self-report, and those meds show up in your yearly blood work, then you re talking about suspension or fines. so there is an incentive. erin, we should be relieved here in this country, mr. lubitz would have never qualified to be an airline pilot in this country, right? not according to the restrictive atp requirements. you need 1500 hours of flight time or a thousand hours from a qualified approved school in order to be a co-pilot. there is no way this guy could have been a pilot here. i find this almost egregious that somebody who has lufthansa, this is not like this is the gold standard for airlines around the world, and since 2013, this guy had