Controversial Issue - Round 3

[phd]

Two threads regarding the subject of fitness to fly have recently been removed from R&N by Mr Fyne as the information they contained was potentially defamatory and could have been traced to an individual. This is Mr Fyne's train-set and he is of course always correct in such matters. However the issue they raised is too important, for both flight safety and pilot welfare, to be glossed over and so I raise it here once again to see if a consensus can be reached.. .. .The issue is this:- what should you do as a professional pilot if you believe another pilot to be medically, physically or psychologically unfit to fly and they present a flight safety hazard? Does your company have the necessary procedures and support mechanisms to deal with such cases fairly and sympathetically to ensure the optimum outcome for the person, the company and the travelling public? Is it right to bring such problems out into the open and deal with them, or is the best policy to keep quiet and hope for the best?

[SID555]

Could you explain the nature of the problems that were talked about, obviously without printing any details of the person concerned, I did not see the threads.. .. .If you are talking about psychological problems/illnesses, you raise a very important point which I have raised many times on this forum - that a pilot with such problems who may be totally unfit to fly will conceal them and continue to fly as a danger to himself, his crew and his passengers. In answer to your final question, yes it would be 'right' to bring these problems out into the open - this would be the best way to deal with them. But in the real world because such problems are likely to cause career-long stigmatisation, the 'best' policy for the individual is to keep his mouth shut. This happens all the time and this situation is totally unacceptable. It's only a matter of time before another Silkair or Egyptair happens again, maybe next time it will happen to a well regarded British Airline........maybe then finally this issue could be addressed. The stigma has to go, but that's easier said than done.. . . . <small>[ 23 March 2002, 11:33: Message edited by: SID555 ]</small>

[phd]

SID555. .The concerns raised by another pprune poster were about a training captain who showed possible symptoms of stress/alcohol/drugs and 'scared' the poster on the flight deck. The implication was that the person presented a risk to safety on the flight deck.. .. .I completely agree with your point that in the real world the person who has a medical/physical/psychological problem is very unlikely to open up this can of worms with their own manager, let alone the personnel department of their company. This is both because of the fear of losing their medical and therefore livelihood, but also because the individual with a problem is the very last person to recognise this or admit they need help. Whilst everyone else around the individual can see the problem only too well, but will not or cannot do anything about it. . .. .My question, which I will repeat, is this :- What should the person's colleagues and peers do about such a situation - and do airline's have the right management processes in place to deal with such tricky problems before they lead to an incident? Also should one pilot be expected to report on the condition or capacity of another pilot - and would they actually do it in the interests of safety?. .. .The medical profession has been trying to tackle such difficult issues for may years - with only limited success. There have been some well publicised tragedies involving medical practitioners continuing to practice when totally unfit to do so, and yet no one acted to stop them, even when it was apparent to many that they should have been stopped and helped, rather than be ignored and continue to endanger the public. . .. .Professions such as medicine tend to close ranks when the brown stuff begins to fly but since the Bristol baby scandal and the Harold Shipman horror story, medical people have begun to realise that sometimes the whistle has to be blown for the greater good, and the individual has to be prevented from doing further harm. . .. .Therefore should companies have confidential reporting systems - similar to the health service - so that pilots and others can report the 'unprofessional' or 'unsafe' conduct of another pilot?. .. .I would like to hear from others how they think these issues should be handled - and how they actually are handled in their own companies.

[mach78]

Fishbed, aren't you taking yourself a tad too seriously? Who are you to take on others problems, or is it in fact an issue directly affecting you in person at the moment? . .. .Your comparison with Shipman is a compete non- sequitor.Shipman was a murderer who just happened to be a doctor.The Bristol baby scandal was a question of professional competence. . .. .If the individual concerned is as bad as you suggest, then management will find a way to remove that individual, perhaps for example by means of the competency check. However are we talking about personalities here, or professional incompetency?-that is the question.If it is the latter, fair enough then failure of the check would be the natural outcome.. .. .However as far as I can see, it could equally well have either party to blame in the example you quoted-i.e. one's opinion over another.We did not hear from the other party concerned who may well have had her own opinions on the co-pilot. Point is, how are we to judge?. .. .We must I think give training captains the benefit of the doubt here, and assume it is their responsibilty when they pass a pilot under examination, particularly a captain with question mark over his head. . .. .One thing I do concur with you, it is P1's train set and he was indeed correct to remove the offending thread, and I'm sure "glossing over the issue" never entered his head.

[Streamline]

Statistically everybody will encounter 3 to 4 times in his life a very difficult period.. .. .Death of his father, loss of a child, house on fire, serious accident happening to the children, divorce etc.... .. .All the above should not lead to the loss of licence, if that would be the case we would no longer be able to fill the flight deck.. .. .There is really only one answer to the problem and that is “mutual thrust.”. .. .In my airline we have a good relationship with the medical and ops department… if you feel unfit to fly...just tell them and they will help you.. .. .Basically if you managed to get trough the psychological tests, obtained an ATPL rightfully, you proved that you can handle a reasonable amount of stress the above mentioned problems should not lead to the loss of you licence.. .. .And last but not least, the chief pilots are, normally speaking, people with some life experience as well, meaning they went trough some of the above mentioned experiences themselves and should be able to help you as well.. .. .A clever manager will actually, in a discrete manner, get the message across during the flight training. .. .Remains the fact that operations in a multi crew environment are fail operational…..incapacitation calls and checks are pretty standard and are part of every days life.. .. .The real danger is when the cultural environment does not allow that these things are openly discussed between the pilot and his chief or doc.....that's were you will find the problems.

[arcniz]

FWIW, I had the experience, in my mid 20's, of having my polar reality abruptly move 90 degrees off north - over the short span of a few days. Hard to describe briefly, but the effects were profound and of long duration: I could still adequately deal with technical situations but suddenly had considerable difficulty in more subjective ones. Developed a tremor on one side and some other physical symptoms, became dyslexic... overall it brought a bunch of unexpected and unfamiliar things that netted out to a substantial loss of competence and cogency. It almost certainly came as an infection from a household pet that had been acting strangely. Either an ear or brain infection, the docs thought the former and I thought the latter, but they found neither and so just treated the symptoms. Time (6 months+) eventually made it mostly go away, but I remain somewhat lysdexic ever since.

Point of this is not to solicit sympathy (or criticism) but to share my intensely personal experience that the behavior of a seemingly healthy, rational, young person can suddenly and profoundly change due to obscure, invisible circumstances. The distance between normal and somewhat bonkers is, at best, paper thin. A person thus affected most likely will recognize something is off, but will compensate and try to conceal the effects.


My suggestion is that crew members should not be reluctant to surface their concerns about 'off' behavior by others, and managements should respond to such in a measured way by using standardized psychometric testing normally and then repeating tests 'randomly' on such occasions. That, plus a little tea-leaf reading, should be able to separate the merely weird from the ill and disabled without making too many waves in the operational envelope.