Who Would You Rather Fly With?
Who would you rather fly with?
Pilot 1: A pilot who has an old but significant mental health history, has been completely honest about it and upfront with CASA at all times (regardless of the grief and hell they put you through for it). Has received adequate treatment, recovered completely and stable for a number of years
or
Pilot 2: A current type rated airline pilot flying RPT who has over 10,000 hours flying experience and no previous mental health history at all. Although, one day they suffer a traumatic experience (car crash, mayday situation in the air etc) and through no fault of their own slowly overtime develop symptoms of mental illness PTSD, Depression etc. Yet out of fear for losing their medical certificates, the associated stigma and CASA taking an unreasonably harsh position in relation to them they decide to not get treatment at all and continue to fly untreated
It is a serious question and no doubt this topic has been bought up before. However, I remember reading an article back in the January edition of Australian flying about this and recently came across it again which lead me to asking this question.