Easyjet FO anxiety attack
de minimus non curat lex
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de minimus non curat lex
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Reverserbucket post at 1650 yesterday concerning Matthew Guest v. Flybe Limited at an employment tribunal for unfair dismissal describes in detail the emotional issues which can occur. Definitely worth a read for those interested in mental health flying issues. Allow yourself two hours.
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I've always been a believer in giving people a second chance, but in my own opinion this is not the time and place. He should have been weeded out earlier (or at least played cards then). Most non-LLC passengers wouldn't expect anything less, but I guess it's just simply another case of you get what you pay for.
CP
Last edited by CaptainProp; 14th Sep 2019 at 17:36.
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Sympathy
Huge sympathy to the FO. Been here myself but with the right treatment they will recover and come out the other side. We don’t know the full facts but anxiety is a manifestation of depression, which anyone can suffer, and recover from. Most unlikely that being low houred had anything to do with it, could happen to someone with 10,000 hours if they are ill.
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Huge sympathy to the FO. Been here myself but with the right treatment they will recover and come out the other side. We don’t know the full facts but anxiety is a manifestation of depression, which anyone can suffer, and recover from. Most unlikely that being low houred had anything to do with it, could happen to someone with 10,000 hours if they are ill.
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The selection programs that others have referred to aimed, in part, to weed out those candidates who "appeared" to show a higher tendency to stress. Might be "cobblers" to you "Beardy" but the results were pretty good. Hamble had a 500 questionnaire followed by interview with a fully qualified Psychologist. Many thought one test was a co-ordination exerrcise. It wasn't. It looked hard at how candidates might re-act once placed in a high stress situation. Might be "cobblers" to you "Beardy" but I know who I'd rather be sitting behind ; someone who passed formal selection or someone who falls apart at selection questions, like, "What is a half divided by a half" when asked in a stress environment. Amazing how many go red in the face and bleat out " A quarter!".
The selection programs that others have referred to aimed, in part, to weed out those candidates who "appeared" to show a higher tendency to stress. Might be "cobblers" to you "Beardy" but the results were pretty good. Hamble had a 500 questionnaire followed by interview with a fully qualified Psychologist. Many thought one test was a co-ordination exerrcise. It wasn't. It looked hard at how candidates might re-act once placed in a high stress situation. Might be "cobblers" to you "Beardy" but I know who I'd rather be sitting behind ; someone who passed formal selection or someone who falls apart at selection questions, like, "What is a half divided by a half" when asked in a stress environment. Amazing how many go red in the face and bleat out " A quarter!".
Stress is not the same as this young man's mental health problems.
Last week in Hereford a former hooligan committed suicide. His selection, discipline and training were of little use.
I hope you never have to have recourse to the few resources there are for mental health issues.
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Beardy, there was never an attempt to predict future mental health problems. Those who displayed problems while under stress were weeded out because airline pilots are supposed to be able to handle highly stressful events calmly and efficiently. The young man referred to appears to have had an "event" when placed in a stressful situation. Stress is often the trigger and those who cope well under stress are unlikely to have a triggered event. Hardly archaic beliefs going on here.
Messing up an approach so the captain takes over is one thing, getting locked out of the cockpit for the remaining flight is something else. With all respect to stress and mental issues I think we don't have the full picture. If it was just some limited personal high stress situation -like family trouble, broken love or similar- I hope he can return. If not I'm more strict since that certain german FO back then. Who had been permitted to return.
All the other medical limits for pilots are super strict like eyesight and such. Many good pilots are blocked from a career because of very minor imperfections. However mental health issues suddenly get that extra bonus for softer limits. Why is that?
All the other medical limits for pilots are super strict like eyesight and such. Many good pilots are blocked from a career because of very minor imperfections. However mental health issues suddenly get that extra bonus for softer limits. Why is that?
Last edited by Less Hair; 15th Sep 2019 at 10:31.
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The selection programs that others have referred to aimed, in part, to weed out those candidates who "appeared" to show a higher tendency to stress. Might be "cobblers" to you "Beardy" but the results were pretty good. Hamble had a 500 questionnaire followed by interview with a fully qualified Psychologist. Many thought one test was a co-ordination exerrcise. It wasn't. It looked hard at how candidates might re-act once placed in a high stress situation. Might be "cobblers" to you "Beardy" but I know who I'd rather be sitting behind ; someone who passed formal selection or someone who falls apart at selection questions, like, "What is a half divided by a half" when asked in a stress environment. Amazing how many go red in the face and bleat out " A quarter!".
I will freely admit that from my totally unstressed chair this morning I did not see the "trap". I think that might be because my brain was long ago trained to be able to answer much more rigorously set mathematical problems. But I have today learned a little bit about potential miscommunication in a cockpit if this is how aviators question each other in 2019 and expect to weed out weakness in others by waiting for mistakes to arise out of sloppiness in their own written or spoken words.
Again if it is a real selection question, at best one would hope the selectors might be looking for an instant retort as a safety check such as "do you mean half of a half or do you mean point 5 divided by point 5?", but in practice what are they really going to get from a control group of even the most unstressed expert mathematicians or engineers?
I Have Control
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Messing up an approach so the captain takes over is one thing, getting locked out of the cockpit for the remaining flight is something else. With all respect to stress and mental issues I think we don't have the full picture. If it was just some limited personal high stress situation -like family trouble, broken love or similar- I hope he can return. If not I'm more strict since that certain german FO back then. Who had been permitted to return.
All the other medical limits for pilots are super strict like eyesight and such. Many good pilots are blocked from a career because of very minor imperfections. However mental health issues suddenly get that extra bonus for softer limits. Why is that?
All the other medical limits for pilots are super strict like eyesight and such. Many good pilots are blocked from a career because of very minor imperfections. However mental health issues suddenly get that extra bonus for softer limits. Why is that?
Agreed. We do not have the full picture. Therefore judgements are not in order. Investigation and possible retraining of the FO are required. Retraining does not automatically mean a return to the flight deck.
Fine if he is a trapeze artiste or a tight rope walker but I wouldn't want this character flying my family or any other , I do sympathise and wish him well in some other career.
Stress can be very insidious. I know from personal experience that one can be extremely stressed by events without feeling stressed or showing any outward signs of it. Then an event occurs that, on top of everything else, causes the individual to run out of “stress capacity” and their performance suddenly drops dramatically. They are not mentally ill, just overloaded.
It seems odd for a modern trainee pilot to be stressed by current airline flying or training to the extent that they leave the cockpit during landing (!), so maybe a career change is required. Having said that, who knows what other events were happening in their life? Possibly relocation, maybe first time living away from home, first time finding somewhere to live, difficult training course or nowhere quiet to study, not able to sleep fully, applying for airside security passes etc, etc, can be a heavy stress load.
.
It seems odd for a modern trainee pilot to be stressed by current airline flying or training to the extent that they leave the cockpit during landing (!), so maybe a career change is required. Having said that, who knows what other events were happening in their life? Possibly relocation, maybe first time living away from home, first time finding somewhere to live, difficult training course or nowhere quiet to study, not able to sleep fully, applying for airside security passes etc, etc, can be a heavy stress load.
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Last edited by Uplinker; 15th Sep 2019 at 11:10.
There are some commentators here who seem to be that this young person's problem was an inability to make correct decisions whilst stressed. And that behaviour can be predicted.
It seems to me that the problem was a breakdown of behaviour, not of decision making. That points to a mental health problem. I posit that this is not predictable and is not looked for in any current nor in any past selection process.
It seems to me that the problem was a breakdown of behaviour, not of decision making. That points to a mental health problem. I posit that this is not predictable and is not looked for in any current nor in any past selection process.
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There are some commentators here who seem to be that this young person's problem was an inability to make correct decisions whilst stressed. And that behaviour can be predicted.
It seems to me that the problem was a breakdown of behaviour, not of decision making. That points to a mental health problem. I posit that this is not predictable and is not looked for in any current nor in any past selection process.
It seems to me that the problem was a breakdown of behaviour, not of decision making. That points to a mental health problem. I posit that this is not predictable and is not looked for in any current nor in any past selection process.
Exactly. I think calm behaviour under stress is being confused with mental illness by some of the above.
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There are some safety-critical industries which recruit heavily from those with military and/or emergency services backgrounds. Whilst I'm aware that there are people from these backgrounds who could have developed various psychological conditions related to trauma, I'd be surprised if more than a few applied for a safety-critical role and if selected, passed the medical.
If the airlines recruited forty-somethings with a couple of decades of non-flying military experience or emergency services experience, would it be less likely for an airline to find itself in this sort of position? Any airline recruiting such people would probably need to fund training, it's expensive enough without a family to feed.
If the airlines recruited forty-somethings with a couple of decades of non-flying military experience or emergency services experience, would it be less likely for an airline to find itself in this sort of position? Any airline recruiting such people would probably need to fund training, it's expensive enough without a family to feed.
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As has been suggested, there is a difference to be recognised between a possible inability to function well under stress and mental impairment or illness. I think it important to determine which applies here but we have nothing like sufficient knowledge to enable an informed judgement.
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Mental impairment vs capacity under stress is not discussed in the AAIB report of course, but the facts remain that the F/O stated that he was "afraid" that he might touch down on the runway edge while floating in the flare, and that his impression of the go-around being a "frightening and serious event" were reinforced - in fact, there are several references to the co-pilot feeling frightened in his stated comments, which to my mind, is not a function of dwindling capacity leading to the anxiety attack but rather some underlying issue. These were not extraordinary events but normal procedures that he should have been exposed to many times in basic and type-training. He left the cockpit during a critical phase of flight - this is the serious issue in my view and I find it hard to imagine a scenario beyond physical incapacitation where this could be deemed professionally acceptable.
Last edited by Reverserbucket; 16th Sep 2019 at 13:40.
