Germanwings 4U9525 dissapears over the Alps

[michal 44]

An interesting contribution to this discussion is ex JetBlue pilot Clayton Osbon who in 2012 went nuts while at the controls of A320 over Texas. Fortunately his sane copilot saved everyone (an interesting mirror image of the Germanwings case - here it was a bad pilot that was kept out of cockpit). But now Clayton is suing JetBlue for $15 mln that they failed to recognize his mental condition and allowed him to fly ...

 

http://nypost.com/2015/03/27/jetblue-pilot-who-had-midair-meltdown-sues-airline/

[mgh 89]

 

 

I don't believe the Lufthansa Flight Academy forced him to boot camp and to send all the clothes he came with back to mother.

 

I know the Royal Air Force didn't force him either.

[dazz 69]

Truth is looking back, most if not all airline suicidal pilots were very experienced and 40 plus Y.O.

Also, mental illness doesn't necessarily have to be a factor.

 

I don't think there's a silver bullet for a case like this. Preventing unexperienced pilots from flying complex airliners (1500 hours rule) is probably a good idea, I don't know, but I doubt it will help prevent or even mitigate suicidal breakdowns.

 

Then there's the 2 in the cockpit rule. It may work in case the one pilot that's left passes out, but would it be effective in a suicidal event? 

Who do you let in the cockpit when one of the pilots needs to go to the loo?

Someone who can subdue a rogue pilot? What if the steward is the one who goes nuts then?

How many hours does a steward need to log before he/she qualifies to be in a cockpit? Is it ok to have someone who may be just out of a 15 days training course and new to the profession in a flying deck?

 

Doesn't look like an easy problem to solve to me

[Polar 30]

Dude quite playing cat n mouse, just say what you want to say

 

you posted this

 

"the issue is how does a pilot who takes leave for mental problems get back into a jet"

 

my reply

 

Your suggestion that if a pilot develops mental problems eg depression which is the most common would be never allowed back into a jet is quite frankly ridiculous

 

Well dude, there are 150 correction, 149 people who would call you ridiculous,   and you sir should understand a few things. Good day

[mganz121 159]

To put in something FS-related into the discussion, I noticed that someone has uploaded a repaint of D-AIPX to the library, in remembrance of the crash. Does this seem a little morbid to anyone else? I mean, I can understand having a repaint whose real-world counterpart has crashed, and despite finding this out you keep flying it, but to consciously download a repaint because you know the aircraft crashed? I honestly wouldn't do it, but it would be nice to hear everyone else's opinions. I know that it's not a real plane, just pixels on a screen, but still...

 

In my years here I have seen it many times, including online "tribute" remembrance flights. Morbid? I personally find it sickening and certainly of "poor" taste. Why do you think the airlines never use the same flight number again?

 

An interesting contribution to this discussion is ex JetBlue pilot Clayton Osbon who in 2012 went nuts while at the controls of A320 over Texas. Fortunately his sane copilot saved everyone (an interesting mirror image of the Germanwings case - here it was a bad pilot that was kept out of cockpit). But now Clayton is suing JetBlue for $15 mln that they failed to recognize his mental condition and allowed him to fly ...

 

http://nypost.com/2015/03/27/jetblue-pilot-who-had-midair-meltdown-sues-airline/

 

Not sure who is worst, the pilot or the lawyer.

[vololiberista 205]

I don't it is at all wrong to do a repaint of an aircraft that has crashed. For example 5N-ABD Nigeria Airways VC10 Lagos 1969. It states "This repaint is a tribute to those whole lost their lives in the tragic accident at Lagos in 1969."
 

[Matthew Kane 1,343]

Everyone has different reactions to tragedies. Some will recreate events in flight sim to try and understand it better. Some will download an accurate repaint to make videos to recreate the accident for YouTube etc

 

I am one who will not take part in any of that including watching the YouTube videos. etc. It is my view that understanding the events leading up to the incident is important to learn from it and put preventative measures in place. The fallout of the accident is difficult for me.

 

I did live in Nova Scotia during SwissAir flight 111 and when they brought the wreckage up from the ocean floor they brought it to Shearwater which was visible from my front porch. I would never want to see something like that again. 

 

I do appreciate the show Mayday as it goes in depth into these accidents but I will always find the aftermath difficult. 

[Paul K 1,327]

A repaint of a crashed airliner within a piece of entertainment software is a tribute ? My goodness, how the bereaved must be comforted by it.

 

Utterly facile and thoughtless.

[iwebber 207]

Yes, nobody deserves to die. But imagine if Marvin Renslow spun a 777 into the ground instead of a Dash 8. At least there are 230 families that did not have to suffer that night.

 

Scant consolation for the families of the 50 people that died.

 

Experience isn't fair and it is discriminatory but I agree it's used as a way of assessing the "risk" or hiring a pilot. It's not a very good way (and I liken it to our monarchys way of choosing the next monarch, i.e. if your Mum or Dad did it) to choose people that are any good but it's quick, cheap and easy. It does discriminate against young people though.

 

Ab initio courses may well work like that where you're from but most that I saw over the last 20 years or so have been either partial sponsership (i.e. the student still has to come up with a hefty sum of money) or just access to a loan (and then bonded to the airline) that is paid back after a set period. In both cases, if you read the small print you're not actually employed by the airline until a certain point (pass the intial course, pass the type rating or get on the line). Airlines need a way of dropping people that don't make the grade or anyone, should a crisis (Gulf War, 11/9, etc) occur, quickly and cheaply. Any student pilot shuold know this and will feel the stress right up to his line check.

 

At the end of the day, there is no sure fire way of predicting whether someone will do something like this and age is irrelevant to that consideration. It seems like an older pilot will be less risk but they really aren't. I know that's what many airlines use but equally lots of the more forward thinking ones will hire from a range of backgrounds to ensure they have a good spread of knowledge and experience in the ranks. Pilots straight from flight school are an important, if minor, part of this. It also gives the younger generation of pilots a chance to build relevant experience flying jet airliners.

 

This guy held the correct licence with the correct ratings for the job he was doing, there was no reason for him not to be there whether he was 18 or 65. Unfortunately what he also had (and this is where I think the investigation does need to focus and make recommendations on) is a history of mental issues which were unresolved and ultimately led to a medically unfit pilot at the controls. Those mental issues are not linked to his age.

[dazz 69]

In a TV show here, a pilot said that in Europe, there used to be a mandatory psychological test for pilots along the physical test every year or 6 months depending on age, but 4 years ago the regulation was changed and the psychological test was removed. This pilot complained they're never asked when decisions like this are made by the authorities. Food for thought

[klamal 282]

An interesting contribution to this discussion is ex JetBlue pilot Clayton Osbon who in 2012 went nuts while at the controls of A320 over Texas. Fortunately his sane copilot saved everyone (an interesting mirror image of the Germanwings case - here it was a bad pilot that was kept out of cockpit). But now Clayton is suing JetBlue for $15 mln that they failed to recognize his mental condition and allowed him to fly ...

 

http://nypost.com/2015/03/27/jetblue-pilot-who-had-midair-meltdown-sues-airline/

This is yet another one of those "most ridiculous things you could ever hear" type scenarios.  I cannot believe our legal system even listens to this.  What a complete and total joke.  Everything is always someone else's fault in this country and it's always legally possible to prove that in some crazy totally non-common sense way.  Spill hot coffee on yourself = $10million from McDonalds.  Go crazy on an airline flight as one of the pilots = $15 million from JetBlue.  The fact that either of these stand a chance in court is TOTALLY CRAZY in and of itself!!!!  How is it McDonalds or JetBlue's fault????  Stupid!!!!!

[avgaskoolaid 292]

 Spill hot coffee on yourself = $10million from McDonalds.  

Actually, that incident is greatly misunderstood. It's often used to mock the sue-happy nature of americans, when in fact the coffee was indeed brewed far, far too hot. When you spill normally brewed coffee all over youself, you'll get some skin redness and it'll probably hurt for a couple hours. The woman in the McDonald's case got 3rd degree burns on 6% of her skin. Have you ever seen a picture of a 3rd degree burn? The skin gets damaged/destroyed all the way down to the underlying tissue. I encourage you to look up some pictures of 3rd degree burns to understand how damaging they are. As for the JetBlue case, I have not read much about it yet, but I believe that there is logic behind the idea that an airline should have screening measures in place to prevent pilots with detectable psychological problems from flying their planes. Whether or not the pilot in question's problem was detectable is for trained psychologists to determine.  

[KevinAu 441]

This guy held the correct licence with the correct ratings for the job he was doing, there was no reason for him not to be there whether he was 18 or 65. Unfortunately what he also had (and this is where I think the investigation does need to focus and make recommendations on) is a history of mental issues which were unresolved and ultimately led to a medically unfit pilot at the controls. Those mental issues are not linked to his age.

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. If it was not for Lufthansa's ab initio, he would have had time in life to experience things like being dumped by his fiance while still only flying small planes. So that if some event like that does push him over the edge, he would have had to find some other way to off himself or do something to get arrested. Either way, he would not have put those 150 people at risk and he would never end up in a position to put 150 people at risk because his suicide by self inflicted gunshot or arrest would have put paid any chance of him getting an airline job. Age and time would have taken a person like him out of the running to be an airline pilot.

 

An older person is most definitely less of a risk of doing something unprefictable, stupid or risky. Have you compared the auto insurance rates between a middle aged adult versus a teenager?

 

Airlines hire from backgrounds that they think are a good fit for their company. Some prefer military backgrounds for their dependability. Some prefer previous airline experience for their ease of training. Some prefer corporate pilots for their attention to customers. Some prefer ab initio for ease of supply. An airline is not a charity or school to give youngsters work experience. The only advantage to hiring inexperienced young versus experienced old is to prevent large waves of retirements at the same time. That is the main reason to spread out the ages.

 

The airlines here in the US do not use the ab initios. What I described there was gleaned from the Lufthansa academy.

 

I just can't quite comprehend your take on the world. Choosing by experience is as diametrically opposed to choosing from genetics that your monarchy does. How do you liken being hired for having work experience to being born into royalty?

[dazz 69]

An older person is most definitely less of a risk of doing something unprefictable, stupid or risky. Have you compared the auto insurance rates between a middle aged adult versus a teenager?

 

What do car insurance rates have to do with mental disease incidence Kevin?

 

A quick google search shows that depression is much more prevalent in people aged 45 to 64

 

http://www.healthline.com/health/depression/statistics-infographic

 

Then you have past events of suicidal pilots. All of them were far from young and unexperienced (LAM, SilkAir, EgyptAir...)

 

I'm not saying ab initio doesn't pose risks, but I question it's relevance in this particular case.

 

What's the regulation re: pshycological / psychiatric tests in the US BTW? 

[KevinAu 441]

What do car insurance rates have to do with mental disease incidence Kevin?

 

A quick google search shows that depression is much more prevalent in people aged 45 to 64

 

http://www.healthline.com/health/depression/statistics-infographic

 

Then you have past events of suicidal pilots. All of them were far from young and unexperienced (LAM, SilkAir, EgyptAir...)

 

I'm not saying ab initio doesn't pose risks, but I question it's relevance in this particular case.

 

What's the regulation re: pshycological / psychiatric tests in the US BTW?

Car insurance has nothing to do with mental illness. But everything to do with age versus risk.

 

This is not just about mental illness. 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. Mentally ill pilots are but just one of the risks that time can weed out. If you are going to create a system to fill airliner cockpits that no longer uses time as a gatekeeper, then you need to have another means to keep out the unfit, be they weak, reckless or disturbed. Lufthansa's 4 days of tests, and 250 hours of flight training apparently is not adequate for that.

 

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. Companies can do psychological testing for applicants. I believe that depression medications are allowed by the FAA here. So it is not career ending to have an issue as long as one is being treated and it is reported.