The difference between suicide and homicide

AS THE Germanwings plane crash filled us all with horror, hearing that the co-pilot deliberately flew the plane into the side of a mountain doubled that horror.

It rendered us speechless. It did not, however, stop newspapers from running screamy headlines: words like ‘madman’, ‘suicide’ and ‘depression’ were hurled onto the front page with little thought for their impact. Once again, it was not the actions of a lone homicidal individual held up for scrutiny, but the actions of a mass condition, a common illness. A mental illness.

First, we read of the co-pilot’s ‘suicide’. But this man did not commit suicide — he committed mass homicide. Suicide is when you end only one life — your own. Just one person dies. Taking a plane load of strangers with you is something else entirely.