Your loss. Kevin is one of few ATPs on this forum, his contribution actually carries certain weight, technical competence, can't say too much about multitude of various 'wannabees'.

a quick what he said, from my phone.

Well if the latest posts on pprune are to be believed (one that I read has already gone missing!) it seems that personal circumstances are what caused him to do what he did - his pregnant partner broke off their relationship the day before.

Excuse the rather scattered nature of this reply, I kept getting the dreaded 502 and it's taken multiple hours to write this response (interspersed with looking after a 2 year old - if I hear the wheels on the bus one more time...)
 

Take the relatively short and recent existence of ab initio airline programs and we already have seen two major crashes at the hands of ab initios, and I think that it just might mean something.

What it means is that there are more ab intio guys out there and using the same logic as your "most pilots were middle aged and experienced" argument, ergo they're more likely to be involved in an accident. To be fair, the training college at Hamble started training ab initio guys in the 1950's so we're 50 years or so into ab intio training/hiring, if we can only come up with 2 major crashes attributed to them in that time I think we're doing OK.

Of course, the whole subject of training and checking needs to constantly be under the microscope looking for improvements and I don't doubt there are some ab initios who's performance leaves a lot to be desired but the same can be said of all pilots at all levels of age and experience. That's the whole point of regular sim checks and multi crewed aircraft.
 

What he had was more than just the depression that the 40+ mid-life crisis people get. To do what he did requires you to have other, less common afflictions such as a bipolar disorder. This guy had much more going on than just your average depression.

 

Whoa. There most definitely was a reason for him to not be there. He was diagnosed with mental disorders. That is a reason to not be there.

We don't really know that yet but it does appear that way at the moment. The issue is how to stop medically unfit pilots from getting at the controls. In the case of mental illness (and maybe some other sorts of afflictions) it's harder for the pilot in question to impartially judge his (or her) own fitness to fly. Even if a Dr says "no", there's still nothing to stop them just turning up for work the next day and not tell anyone.

And true, he was diagnosed with mental disorders but that's a medical issue, not a flying experience or age issue.
 

Have you compared the auto insurance rates between a middle aged adult versus a teenager?

Of course, but that's assuming both young and old are of sound mind, if the old person is a loon (or going blind, etc) I would suggest they are more at risk of an accident, irrespective of the car insurance rates offered to them. Car insurance works on broad probabilities and making profit, not avoiding crashes or identifying unsafe drivers.
 

In the US, any medical or psychiatric issue needs to be reported at the medical. There are specific yes/no questions on the form. Mental disorders of any sort, depression, anxiety, suicide attempt, etc. are asked about on the form. There is no actual psychological testing.

And what if you don't? What's to stop someone who is ashamed, scared or just so mentally unfit they don't think they are, ticking the "no" box and carrying on regardless? Over here the psychological "test" is less formal and just something the Doctors consider and try and establish based on an informal chat and their own judgement during the medical. I've always thought it was pretty obvious when they do it ("So, how're things? Any problems?"), nice and open but I can't help feeling that someone is unlikely to respond with, "Well, you know, things are tough, I've been considering suicide for a few months now". Having said that, they do keep track of what we say (I've had seemingly inconsequential things thrown back at me in subsequent medicals) and they do follow it up. As an ex-engineer I can't help myself but reply truthfully and honestly when someone (particularly a fellow professional in their field) asks me a question. Both systems are deeply flawed and seem to stem from a time when if you qualified to be a pilot you were "probably OK".
 

 

Cont...
 
"As said before, time weeds out the weak pilots, the reckless pilots, and the disturbed pilots. My position is that time had been a means to weed out the unfit."

Not necessarily true, time can weed out those predisposed (or even predetermined) to flip out, time can also act as a pressure cooker to drive people to such lengths. Some of the guys I've flown with have (what I consider to be) horror stories of joining airlines, being fired for Christmas, rehired afterwards, joining a new and shiny company, paying for their type rating, then the company goes bust, finding themselves back at the company they first started with but now at the bottom of the seniority list, etc etc. Now I know you're going to say, well if they can survive that then they're obviously mentally fit, an element of which I agree with, but having their wife leave them (or other such external stressor) may just be what pushes them over the edge. They would have age, experience and still be suicidal in an airliner.
 
If the combination of stressors that caused this episode were not to occur for 30 years then he'd be a 57 year old (probably) Captain who did it. I agree that with age he stands more chance to have experienced those different combination of stressors but stressors change with age (I don't know many 27 year olds dreading retirement and I don't know many 65 year olds being driven mad by listening to the wheels on the bus 162 times in a row!).
 
"How do you liken being hired for having work experience to being born into royalty?"

Sorry, that wasn't my best analogy, what I was trying to get at was that it's incredibly hard to choose someone for an important and responsible job. Our monarchy says "Well, if your Dad did it then you can do it" and using flying hours just says "Well, you've more hours than the others, you must be better". Both are simple, quick and cheap to do but don't get the best guys.
 
"If you want to believe that the issue with this ab initio pilot is only and only about mental illness, then I believe you are just putting blinders around your eyes to keep yourself from seeing a bigger picture."

And I believe you are just making this about more than mental illness due to your unfamiliarity with ab initio pilots in airliners.

At the end of the day I just don't feel this was caused by age/experience, it was a medical problem that could conceivably happen to anyone. Any recommendations really should be addressing the shortcomings of keeping medically unfit pilots out of the flight deck.

Since reading about this terrible tragedy, and the results of 149 innocent lives having perished, I sat down the other day, and wondered...what would have been my last thoughts knowing, I was soon to lose my life as the Alps approached. No way out, no control...the Alps and the ground approaching as seen from out the cabin window...

 

Would I think of my loved ones, in that moment, or would I have thought about my regrets in Life?

 

I don't know...I honestly don't know....

 

God Bless their souls and memories.  What a horrible thing.

Since reading about this terrible tragedy, and the results of 149 innocent lives having perished, I sat down the other day, and wondered...what would have been my last thoughts knowing, I was soon to lose my life as the Alps approached. No way out, no control...the Alps and the ground approaching as seen from out the cabin window...

 

Would I think of my loved ones, in that moment, or would I have thought about my regrets in Life?

 

I don't know...I honestly don't know....

 

God Bless their souls and memories.  What a horrible thing.

 Let's hope you and everyone else, never has to find out!!

To be completely fair, how long have these MPL ab initio programs at Lufthansa, Air France, KLM, JAL, etc. been in existence? Did the graduates of Hamble go directly into the right seat of a BOAC DC-6? I call them recent developments because I can remember those ab initio schools popping up in the US while I was a CFI. And I wasn't around in the 1950s.

 

Especially with people with mental issues, time is your only way to stop them from getting to the cockpit of a big plane. They certainly cannot be counted on to self report and bow out of flying. You cannot count on the doctors to detect it. Your only hope is that they commit an act that exposes their condition to authorities and eliminate them as candidates for an airline cockpit.

 

There is nothing to stop someone from lying on their medical form. But of course, personal integrity is highly emphasized in flight training and being a pilot. Previously, most airline pilots were former military officers, for which personal integrity was expected of. The consequences once caught are severe, but there is nothing to stop someone from lying and hiding anything. But now, most come from the undisciplined civilian ranks. Which, again, is why time is important to the process of vetting out appropriate people for highly responsible positions. Lies are difficult to maintain, one slip and truth will surface like a bubble in water. Which is why a career system based on gradually increasing trust and responsibility is better than one that instantly gratifies someone.

 

Yes, you can create whatevever hypothetical scenario that ends in a 57 year old doing the same thing. But the fact of the matter is that this guy only had 625 hours. In the US, he would not have been anywhere near an A320 on the day that he decided to kill himself. In the US system, he would have either offed himself in his bedroom or gotten arrested for something that day, and been prevented from ever getting to an A320 cockpit in the future.

 

If this could have happened to anyone, then we are all in trouble. This could not have happened to anyone. This happened to someone with his combination of rare mental issues. And if he had to work his way through flight instructing and the regional airlines the way we do here, instead of instantly being placed in an A320 cockpit, he would have never had a chance to kill so so many people. Time would have outed him soon enough.

Your loss. Kevin is one of few ATPs on this forum, his contribution actually carries certain weight, technical competence, can't say too much about multitude of various 'wannabees'.

a quick what he said, from my phone.

 

We had a couple of ATP pilots in the past, Ro and Chris who used to spend a lot of time on here were excellent ambassadors to their jobs and also very transparent for who they were and who they worked for. Too bad they no longer spend time on here. 

 

It has come up that person in question is not a pilot, Doesn't matter to me either way. Just by comparison to the other two I mentioned who were not only transparent about who they were, they shared their views, and allowed others their opinions as well, this is what made them excellent ambassadors to their profession.

 

There is a saying.....there are more 'Pilots' then there are actual Pilots on the internet. In this case I believe we have a person who is very knowledgeable but is not a pilot and is very strong in their opinions that is going so far as posing as a pilot to further prove his points over others. It just got very tiring to see this.

 

Ro and Chris were really great guys and you never saw any of this type of behaviour from them. Also any ATP pilot on here should be very cautious of what they are posting as current and future employers can see these postings. This is why you saw a very different type of behaviour from both Ro and Chris.

 

Even if a Dr says "no", there's still nothing to stop them just turning up for work the next day and not tell anyone.....

 

....unless the Doctor is given the power to contact the airline in question.

In this case I believe we have a person who is very knowledgeable but is not a pilot 

You are very mistaken. 

 

Kevin is based in Cleveland. He flies Embraers for Continental Express.

You are very mistaken.

 

Kevin is based in Cleveland. He flies Embraers for Continental Express.

Thanks michal. I used to fly the coex planes. And through a comedy of mergers, coex doesn't actually exist anymore. I'm on E190s now for somebody else... Anyways I'd just as soon let it drop with ytzpilot. He can think what he wants. As long as he's got me 'ignored' I can say whatever I want and we won't bother each other.

In the US system, he would have either offed himself in his bedroom or gotten arrested for something that day, and been prevented from ever getting to an A320 cockpit in the future.

And I guess that's where we'll have to disagree.

 

I don't understand how he would have offed himself in his bedroom just because he was flying a smaller aircraft.

 

I don't understand why he would have got arrested in the US if he was flying a smaller aircraft (unless Minority Report was actually a documentary ), he went to work like he always had, had a nightstop, reported for work the next day, went through security, setup and briefed for the flight home, he did nothing out of the ordinary (or at least nothing that made people concerned) until he locked the Capt out of the flight deck and simply dived the aircraft into the ground.

 

He was 27 when he did it, there's no reason why he wouldn't have done it at 37, 47 or 57 if the right combination of stressors came around then instead of now. In this case, he was 27, yes, in the US he probably would have been in a smaller aircraft and killed less people but that doesn't mean it's wrong to put 27 year olds in an Airbus.

 

Captain Osbon (of Jetblue 191 fame) was 49, he went crazy but the FO managed to recognise it and save the day, imagine he hadn't and it crashed, would we have said that 49 year olds should be "prevented from ever getting to an A320 cockpit"? Of course not, age was not the issue, his mental state was. This is the same type of incident where tragically the aircraft did crash, why are you suddenly now calling for an age related ban on members of the flight deck? Did you call for the same three years ago?

 

If this could have happened to anyone, then we are all in trouble.

We are, indeed, we always have been, it's just that in our proceduralised, clinical, safety conscious world the travelling public are blissfully unaware that their lives were solely in the hands of the people who drive their busses, trains and planes (and probably lots of others that I can't think of right now). Due to the immense professionalism and tireless work of Doctors, training departments and pilots/drivers themselves there have been very few incidents that have highlighted this issue. I've had many people try and tell me that what I do isn't life or death, some I've convinced, others still firmly believe there is nothing I can do to either save or crash the aircraft (air traffic fly them from the ground apparently! :rolleyes: ). I've given up worrying about it and have a well practised nod and smile that seems to make them go away.

 

Time would have outed him soon enough.

Unfortunately Jetblue 191 proves that this simply isn't true. We don't understand enough about mental illness/health to be able to predict it so we're fumbling around in the dark. Bringing in blanket, sweeping, knee jerk legislation limiting access to flying work and relating it to age is both unfair and discriminatory.

 

You argue young people are more likely to do something like this, well, males are more likely to be rapists, how about we lock up every male on the grounds we can't figure out which ones are?

 

Makes no sense does it...

Well, if you're still not getting what I'm saying, maybe these articles can help explain. I don't necessarily agree 100% with these, but they mainly say that he was there too early, and that hiring time and experience helps eliminate some people that should not be there.

 

http://m.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/03/pilots-on-the-germanwings-murdersuicide/388949/?utm_source=btn-facebook-ctrl1

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/germanwings-crash-sullenberger-us-safeguards-pilot-health/

 

No weed killer is 100%. But I don't think Clayton Osborn actually had suicidal tendencies. His was not psychosis, depression, or bipolar disorder. It was a brain seizure from a childhood injury. But yes, it did slip through uncaught for a long time.

 

I'm not saying young people are going to do something like this. I'm saying that airlines should give time and experience a *chance* to weed some inappropriate people out of their applicant pool.

I think the point many are missing is that there is no perfect system.  Every approach will inevitably have pros and cons... yet to Kevin's point... as time passes, it would weed out certain types.  Same approach for school... in my undergraduate days, there was a Business 101 class that was really difficult.  It served to separate the serious from the unanchored, and those that could handle the pressure versus those that could not.  There is a reason why the saying "stood the test of time" has been used.  No, it is not a knockout argument (and I don't think anyone is claiming it is)... but to say it does not have merit is to be ignorant of an existing concept that is used quite often.

 

We can all argue all day long and make a point... followed by a counter point.  The bottom line is this should not have happened, and we need to take steps to minimize it from happening again.  Notice "minimize" instead of "eliminate." 

Lufthansa now confirming they knew about Lubitz mental issues since 2009... ouch

Lufthansa now confirming they knew about Lubitz mental issues since 2009... ouch

I would be divesting myself of Lufthansa stock right now....while Lufty still has money reserves.....