ExKiwilass

one of our neighbours is a commercial pilot for a major airline. all i know is that at one point, when he was having marriage difficulties, he was signed off work.

I actually think having 2 people in the cockpit could solve this potential problem, rather than more screening of mental illness.

FWIW, I'm also suffering from mental illness and have the medication to prove it. You can be functional and self-aware and still be mentally ill. (I just got promoted!) There is no one answer.

bats

Quite so. I'm concerned about what is getting to be a blanket condemnation of anyone with mental illness. There are such a wide variety of mental and physical illnesses. I know from a friend's violent psychotic episode that it often can't be predicted, in my friends case he harmed himself. We don't know what happened and our desire for answers means the press reports too much too soon, let the whole picture develop before we blame.

scrubbedexpat091

Yes. Anything that is done needs to be on a case by case basis and not a blanket to cover everyone since every illness is different person to person.

There are people with my diagnoses (although my diagnoses pretty much means not flying and many other jobs regardless.) who are very successful and have mild manageable symptoms, and others who can barely function day to day and everything in between.

For me the symptoms come and go very quickly but without much warning and there isn't a medication that can manage them, so it makes sense for someone like me to not be a pilot.

But someone else may be symptom free for years and never relapse and mange successfully.

Same with my wife, she is bipolar and some folks with it manage very well, others struggle with most basic of things. She is well managed by medication and shows no symptoms and has very stable all around, someone like her should not be banned simply for being bipolar.

I've been a victim of blanket bans because of mental health stuff and jobs. I don't agree with those sorts of bans, although I have no issue with safety sensitive jobs doing psychiatric/mental screening and doing each on an individual basis and decisions on an individual basis.

(I've been suicidal in the past, but never once has it ever crossed my mind to harm others, and I don't understand why suicidal folks take others with them when they do.)

magnumpi

CNN are blaming Bin Laden. Yup. They said if it was not for him then the door would have been open.

I blame the Wright Brothers myself !!

caretaker

"CNN would make breaking news out of a pile of dog poop" - Jann Arden

magnumpi

I know, ass holes. I sat down and had a quick lookee see at the CNN marathon plane crash channel and almost spat my tea out when he said that.

scrubbedexpat091

Reading some articles about the first officer this morning, and this guy really should not have been flying airplanes, seems he had some issues beyond just depression if the reports are true.

BristolUK

Not trying to make a joke of it but imagine the looks one pilot might give the other if invited to go for a pee.

SchnookoLoly

My husband was reading this article yesterday - Andreas Lubitz urged captain to leave cockpit so he could crash Germanwings jet, recording reveals | National Post

It says in there that the co-pilot actively encouraged the captain to leave the cockpit, and was quite dismissive when the captain was discussing landing procedures for Dusseldorf, saying stuff like "we'll see" and "hopefully".

It's chilling.

If anyone has the same sick fascination with this stuff, there's a documentary on Netflix called Air Disasters, it profiles 10 plane crashes and the reasons why. I watched it last week, horrifying and fascinating.

http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70299552

Shard

There's actually a whole TV series on air disasters. Forget the names but it spends about an hour an episode going into the subsequent investigation. I find it fascinating too.

Zoe Bell

aircrash investigation ( also airs as Mayday) on discovery channel
"seconds from disaster" covers some aircrashes

"why planes crash" also airs on Smithsonian channel

SchnookoLoly

If you can find the name, that'd be cool. I found the Netflix series (10 1hr episodes) really, really interesting - and it's exactly as you describe, starts with the crash, then goes into the investigation. A mix of crashes were profiled on the Netflix series as well (which I believe was originally done by The Smithsonian Channel) - included the Air India bombing, then an Air Canada plane that was loaded with fuel in imperial instead of metric and ran out halfway into its flight, then the US flight that crashed in the Everglades and how that happened... all really, really interesting. Tough to watch at some points, but still fascinating.

Edit: Thanks Zoe! Off to Youtube/other streaming now to try to find these!

Zoe Bell

the air canada one was "the Gimli Glider"

SchnookoLoly

Yes! That episode in particular was fascinating. One of the ones I remember the most!

Shard

On a similarly macabre note, I found the opening crash sequence in "Castaway" (Tom Hanks film) particularly realistic. Well, so I assume.