so how do we treat a depressed pilot?
We treat a depressed pilot exactly as we do any other member of society, and with psychotropics if that's what is deemed best in that person's case.
But we should NOT, in my view, have that person in charge of a large dangerous machine carrying over three hundred innocent fare paying passengers.
The line has to be drawn somewhere - otherwise why are be bothering trying to determine an individual's "fitness to fly" ?
The pilot who starts having epileptic fits as a result of head injury or brain tumour - it's still only an illness, after all - so does he continue flying ?
Another whose visual acuity deteriorates dramatically as a result of glaucoma, or macular degeneration - some might query why remove a chap's means of making a living just because he gets a medical condition, it seems. After all, it's not his fault, he can't help it.
I think I'll go and cancel those Quantas tickets . . . . . . . . .
