Originally Posted by
Derfred
That is not a fact at all. That is your opinion, and I disagree.
Disagree all you want but a liar is a liar. Before coming to the U.S. for flight training the murderer/suicidal Andreas Lubitz initially falsified/lied on his first FAA Medical application about prior mental health history and treatment for severe depression including suicidal thoughts until intervention and document-changing by a medical examiner in Germany. Due to that intervention and based on German doctor's statements that he had been successfully treated, he was granted a 3rd Class Medical (essentially a Student Pilot Certificate) by the FAA. After doing so, he was under this directive from them...
"Because of your history of reactive depression, operation of aircraft is prohibited at any time new symptoms or adverse changes occur or any time medication and/or treatment is required."
In other words, he was to adhere to the regulation regarding self-evaluation and grounding if he didn't meet fit to fly medical standards, same as everyone else. He was erroneously trusted to do so at that point but, oviously, the personal ethics required to adhere to that directive literally or in spirit wasn't something he considered that important. Even a German doctor's note telling him so before his crime was found crumpled in the trash probably there while he was suiting up to go to work and purposely kill 150 people.
If someone can't do the right thing when faced with serious criminal penalties for making false statements they sign their name to, there's absolutely no reason to trust them to be forthcoming later on. Back in Germany, Lubitz continued to hide his subsequent treatments, got a job as a commercial pilot carrying passengers, and was self-medicating with prescription drugs. He also thought he was going blind. Yet still he flew, and flew, and flew with unsuspecting passengers until he decided to end it all and them because his lies and omissions were finally catching up with him.
I stand by my statement. Liars who do so in order to gain something they wouldn't have otherwise (in this case willingly making and signing false statements right from the start to obtain a Medical Cert/pursue a flying career knowing they are unfit) will continue lying to preserve it and can't be trusted. Just because it's a mental instead of physical health or criminal history issue they're lying about doesn't make them special or less likely to lie again. Having a mental health issue doesn't make someone worthy of unique consideration that allows them to magically escape the consequences of lying when it comes to falsely qualifying-for and exercising commercial pilot privileges.
Again, lying by making false statements or failure to disclose required items of any sort and putting one's name to it result in hotter water when exposed. In the case of an FAA Medical, it can result in a criminal indictment just like it says on the application, as we see here.
Mention "mental health" or "depression" no matter how tangental it is to the actual subject, however, and some people are immediately triggered. The subject is lying and making false statements, yet someone immediately tried to link that to a supposed, imaginary "witch hunt" against people with mental health issues. The only way a particular mental health issue would be pertinent to this discussion of these 4 liars is if it caused a crippling inability to tell the truth and not understand the ramifications of lying when asked a series of clear, easy-to-answer questions.