Originally Posted by
Turkey Brain
... there’s a chance that the relevant airline now have a tick box exercise,
BOX “ are the crew sane...
How do you measure that: with a dip stick?
It is an easy subject, all we have to decide is “ is my or another’s mental health in an acceptable range ? “
No, it isn't.
I am (due to the policies of my employer) subjected to suicide prevention and awareness training about once per year.
The professionals in that field of mental health would be aghast at your assertion.
About 30 years ago, when I was still in the Navy, there was a burst of suicides among sailors on the West Coast that got the attention of higher command, which led (in our airwing) to a great many hours of meetings, briefings and teachings for the officers and senior NCOs on how to improve our suicide prevention efforts.
Here's a clue for you: that Easy Button that you propose wasn't the approach.
Elements of attempts at successful suicide prevention include (1) get to know your people (2) care about your people (3) know what is going on in their lives, and when they are under stress get them help sooner, not later, and (4) be on a constant lookout for life change events that typically cause stress. In an aviation squadron that kind of approach could be implemented if sufficient emphasis were put on it, but that still was no guarantee (the mental health pros were most emphatic about this) that someone would not slip in under the social safety net radar that one would try and put into place.
The bottom line is NOT that this is an easy subject, but is infact a very complex subject thanks to human nature and human behavior, emotions, etc.
As I've had two members of my extended family take their own lives, and a third attempt it but fail, I find your cavalier attitude toward suicidal tendencies or motivations, and suicide prevention, to be risible.
Originally Posted by Clop_Clop
Now if the medical community are unable to accurately identify who belongs in the suicidal group accurately, how can anyone expect anyone else to identify the miniscule subset of that group. The ones that are capable of doing it in the air with people onboard.
Well said.
