Pilots and Depressions - Trend or Isolated Incident?

On March, 24^th co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, when on a standard flight from Barcelona to Duesseldorf, crashed an Airbus A320 into the French Alps. This was caused by an early decent made by the co-pilot prior to locking the captain out of the cockpit while he had left for the bathroom. Lubitz, who deliberately crashed the plane into the French Alps, was in therapy for suicidal tendencies before getting his pilot's license, Germany's state prosecutor has told Press Association (Sawer, Montabau, & Akkoc, 2015). It ‘s hard to tell if there were any issues that were a result of his mental condition but the cause may have been the fact that his girlfriend that he had lived with had broken up with him recently and he had a deteriorating eye condition that could have caused him to lose his job (Sawer et al., 2015).

In another case, a plane crash in Mozambique in 2013 killed all 33 people on board, was intentionally crashed by the pilot (Capon, 2015). The same situation that had happened to the Germanwings happened here, except the roles had been reversed. The co-pilot had left the cockpit to go to the bathroom and was locked out by the captain. The pilot had been "very depressed" in the months leading to the crash, due to marital problems (Capon, 2015).

Pilots only undergo their normal physical each year or twice in a year depending on their age. A mental screening is done, but it is not done in a professional manor so it is hard for some mental illnesses to be caught by the physician administering the test. I personally do not think that this is a good enough method to test for such illnesses, I feel that there is a need for reform. There should be mandatory mental health screening for every ATP rated pilot, and should be done by a properly licensed professional. These screenings should be done each time a pilot has a physical for the pilot to stay current.

Obviously there will be challenges for the FAA and airlines to implement this much attention to a pilot’s mental health. There would be additional costs for airlines to pay for these licensed professionals to screen or even treat a pilot’s mental health. The FAA would need to create a certification for physiatrists deeming them suitable to properly screen pilots for mental illnesses. In the long run it would make it easier to catch these illnesses before they become another sad news story on television.

References

Sawer, P., Montabau, & Akkoc, R. (2015, May 6). Andreas Lubitz: everything we know about germanwings plane crash co-pilot. The Telegraph. Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ worldnews/europe/france/11496066/Andreas-Lubitz-Everything-we-know-about-Germanwings-plane-crash-co-pilot.html

Capon, F. (2015, March 27). ‘Murder-suicide’ plane crashes have killed over 600. Newsweek. Retrieved from http://europe.newsweek.com/ murder-suicide-plane-crashes-have-killed-over-600-317236