Originally Posted by
Deep and fast
Companies are heartless bar stardians that why I made this comment.
If more compassion existed in business there would be less fatigue, less mental health issues, less divorce, less etc etc.
But the heartless kings, the accountants are running the show now.
What do you want the companies to do? Have an annual psych eval for pilots? The unions would be up in arms. This issue is combination of protectionism from the unions where their mantra is "no pilot needs to be psych tested regularly " to the companies not wanting to push the issues lest we find out publicly that a large % of pilots have been flying with mental issues bad enough to ground them. That would look smashing the Daily Mail and New York Post headlines.
I have sat next to guys that would keep a team of psychiatrists busy for a week. Ask them if they've considered getting help and they insist they don't have a problem, everyone else in the world is the problem. Have a quick chat with the office and while they know very well the person in question they don't want to take the first step to intervene. Pro standards sees the same people over and over,yet they only want a group hug. It is the elephant in the room up until they show up in civvies and flip flops and crater their career.
The Southwest Captain that took the plane from the FO below 200' and collapsed the nose gear was reported in the NTSB investigation to have been one of the most highly "avoid pairing with" Captains at Southwest. The company had the data but chose not to engage. Her peers were speaking with their bids and directly to the office but it fell on deaf ears.
Unions and management need to advocate adding psychological screening added to the medical. There are far too many future cases out there to keep sweeping mental health under the rug.