Originally Posted by
Clinton McKenzie
But you did say this:Someone of your claimed experience should be able to provide a long list of maintenance / airworthiness issues of which you are aware, first-hand, that have created safety risks. That list will be much longer than the list of aviation accidents and incidents of which you are aware, first-hand, caused by the sudden incapacitation of the pilot.
I could fill an entire thread with details of the various creative ways in which LAMEs have made attempts on my life - inadvertently I hope - over the last four decades. Accidents or incidents of which I am aware caused by sudden incapacitation of the pilot? None first-hand. I know of a couple of holders of Class 1 medical certificates who died suddenly of undiagnosed medical conditions, but not in circumstances that caused an aviation accident or incident.
The most infamous would have to be Captain Key, and BEA flight 548, but that was related to an accident many years ago. Whilst there was no way to understand how much of an impact his incapacitation had on the situation it does also prove having an additional 3 crew in the cockpit didn't alter the outcome. There has been a number of incidents of incapacitation of commercial pilots in two crew scenarios of recent history, but not accidents. There has been many cases of mental health issues leading to crashes, probably more than incapacitation leading to accidents. I think there are a number of events in the US each year, but small in context. PS AvMed will have all the US data anyway, so it's nothing new to them.
Comparing the list to catastrophic structural/mechanical failures is probably similar, the chance of catastrophic failure of the airframe leading to loss of an aircraft is very rare. Most crashes are pilot error these days, that is loss of control or CFIT, a reasonably serviceable airplane flown into the ground. I would include mishandling basic failures, like engine or instrument failure as pilot error, unless again it caused something catastrophic to occur.
In this case we see something that happened very fast and caused the aircraft to lose height very rapidly and impact the ground at high speed. Could be severe airframe failure, could be incapacitation (that includes a bird/drone hitting the plane/pilot), could have been severe miss handling. Who knows, ATSB may never find the key evidence or they might, there might be witnesses, camera evidence and so on. It might just end in an educated guess by the ATSB as to what happened here. At least any extreme medical episode should show in postmortem examination, and structural failure should leave clues.
BTW most incapacitation I'm aware of in commercial operations have not been traditional things that will ground you, mostly food/gut related, severe cramps/pain one at least was an un-diagnosed diabetic. I know of several pilots that have had cardiac events a few in flight, they were all able to land and seek help.
The sad thing is that diagnosed individuals that are managing the condition are the least risk, but tend to get put through the hoops every medical. It's the hidden cases that are threats, or those poorly managing it, like the Daylesford driver that's up for a lot of legal pain. It would be better handled if it was just required that you give notice to your health professionals that youa re a pilot, and only if they consider you a risk should they have to contact AvMed.