Not really. That was part of his statemen

unless he pushed the Pilot out of the cockpit at a certain planned time, he did not know when he would be able to start the descend, so any intention to hit a certain point is unlikely.

"mercurydancer:

No. SSRIs do not cause suicidal ideation except in one notorious drug which is no longer available. Seroxat was quite dangerous and many had severe effects from it. Not possible that this pilot was on Seroxat."

Wrong! mercurydancer must be a drug company lobbyist. Prozac especially is known for causing certain people to become simultaneously homicidal and suicidal. Picturing in their mind killing "random, faceless people"(I actually overheard a patient of my Dad's say those very words to my Dad, back in the '90's, when he told him why he wanted to stop taking Prozac. Prozac and drugs like it, have helped millions of people, but, the problem is, there not a way to tell who that "certain" otherwise normal person is, that it will affect in the homicidal and suicidal way. I do know it shouldn't be given to paranoid schizophrenics, but it's given to them all the time. Like I mentioned before, my father has over 60 years dispensing psychotropic drugs from back when the only choices were Thorazine or Whiskey. Of course, maybe Lubitz was just trying to quit smoking on Chantix, but it doesn't seem that someone running foot races would be a smoker in this day and age, even in Europe.

On the other side of the coin and in the name of full security as demanded here by numerous SLF, why don't we lock the passengers in their seats for the duration of the flight and give them portable potties . Full protection from kooks and eliminates the need for the door . Might be good for them to provide a full psych profile , medical cert prior to boarding .

Unless you have suffered form something like depression/anxiety/stress you can not imagine what it is like….. and they can't control it. We will never know what went through his mind, but it will be like you can't imagine and he won't have had control over it.

Obviously everyone feels for the families involved, but if the FO was depressed, thats very different to a rational person deciding to crash a plane.

I'm sure we would agree that people who are ill should be prevented from endangering the public. The question is does a 'need to know' policy increase the danger to the public or lessen it. It is my contenton that, on average, it will increase the danger because the threat of losing ones career and livelihood will cause people (especially the most ill) not to seek medical assistance. If I am right, we need to find ways to encourage people along the right path. I really think in this case the carrot will be more effective than the stick.

Re: Treatment for mental illness
 

Just this from a native speaker: The Düsseldorf hospital has specifically denied that the co-pilot "has been treated for depressionin in our facility".

This is what us journalists call an "overly specific denial". It is not a confirmation that he has not been in treatment for depression or that he suffered from a physical condition. The hospital is just saying they didn't treat him for depression.

Not it is not. 100% not. If your daughter has just been murdered, it matters not if the murderer was sane or mad - your daughter is still dead. And the murderer is still evil.

The only difference with the madman, is there may well be secondary culpability. If the madman was supposed to be locked up, and some ass of a do-gooder let him out, then a large part of the blame resides with the supposedly sane person who made the insane decision. And that is why a thorough investigation is necessary here. If there is secondary culpability we need to root it out and expose it - especially if evil has been committed in the name of being nice.

keepitflying: Sorry, I should also have said that I really admire your honesty, and I'm sorry that it did not work out that way you had hoped. I think you did the right thing and for that you deserve everyone's respect.

fyrefli, SSRI's and other antidepressants do not cause suicidal thoughts/tendencies. But in people with suicidal tendencies, they can increase risk of suicide.
If sucidal thoughts are associated with depression, the lack of motivation caused by depression will prevent that person to commit a suicide. During the initial phase of threatment, Antidepressants will give that person the motivation and energy he needs, with depression and suicidal thoughs still there... Becouse of that, it's recommended for patients with suicidal thoughts to be monitored closely during the first month on antidepressants.
just wanted to clarify this

Wall Street journal reporting that the doctor who signed him off is a neuropsychologist. Note, not a neurologist. A neuropsychologist. And BTW while the Dusseldorf Univ. hospital has said he was not treated being treated for depression there, only for a diagnostic evaluation, but that is NOT the same as saying he is not being treated for depression ANYWHERE ELSE. That we do not know, but IF it is a neuropsychologist treating him, you may well draw a conclusion from that. Also, despite a couple of reports on this thread, they have NOT said he was being treated for a PHYSICAL illness -they have only said, as I repeat, he was not being treated for depression there. They have made NO COMMENT on the nature of his illness for which they have diagnostically evaluated him. These differences need to be noted and understood.

I'm with Pace all the way on this one - thought for the victims must surely be at the top of the agenda, rather than sympathy for this man. (However depressed he was).

I was reading up about some of the aircraft passengers earlier, the one Pace mentioned, the two young opera singers, the newly married couple - and obviously, the 14 teenage girls and 2 teenage boys on the exchange visit, plus numerous others. Possibly the worst, was the teenager who had forgotten her passport, but somebody got it to her in time ....

I find myself constantly thinking about this awful event, and how completely needless it was, so sorry if my sympathies are not with this man.

One other repercussion of this, is that I believe the CAA were on the brink of relaxing slightly the rules regarding getting back/holding, a medical if someone had previously been diagnosed and treated for depression in the past. Can't believe that that will happen any time now.

Yes, I think I have a reasonable insight into depression, after witnessing the suicide attempt of my best friend years ago. (And no, she didn't display any outward signs either - it all came out after - but she didn't attempt to take another 150 people with her.....

'Some of the postings here are quite sickening! why not discuss the mental state of the father and husband of that wife and child he murdered?'


Pace, for me the point is not to try to empathise with this man but to try and understand why a human being might act this way, so that people can then try to ensure it does not happen so easily again.


Having your medical and mental status probed by millions is not a privilege. None of the victims asked to be put in the limelight to be examined by strangers and I doubt they would want to.


I take your point however that he is getting a lot of attention, but that is inevitable, and almost all of it is negative.


We MUST try to understand in order to prevent this happening again.

Over many years I have treated in the ER, patients from (obviously) many walks of life. It's been my privilege to have treated a not-insignificant number of ill and injured airline pilots coming through a metropolitan ER in that time. Professional pilots, especially those over 35, have always impressed me as people who understand their limitations and in the vast majority - 99.99+% - of cases will not operate if they don't feel they can do their job properly.

Rather like younger doctors, it's more often the younger pilots (and I appreciate this is completely a generalization; but sometimes the plural of anecdote is indeed data…) tend to want to push the envelope and operate even when by the appropriately strict FAA medical guidelines, they should not. It's been my direct professional experience that for a lot of reasons which seem convincing to them, they think their specific situation is different. Again, something we see in many of our younger medical colleagues. Something which I well remember doing myself when I was in my 20s.

It is in this context that the very prolonged medical apprenticeship which follows after being trained during medical school, which lasts into your early 30s before you become a consultant, while extremely frustrating at the time does stop many younger doctors again including myself, from doing things we simply shouldn't have because we didn't think the consequences through and we lacked the experience that comes with situational seniority. And so as someone who is absolutely nowhere near being a professional pilot (only a hang-glider pilot and low-time PPL), I wonder why someone with such low hours relatively speaking, can be left in sole charge of an aircraft with so many souls on board?

I think there are two other differences in the medical profession from the pilot profession which bear keeping in mind. Although this is not universally applicable, i.e. depends on the medical jurisdiction by country, doctors are obliged to both self-report and report colleagues who are putting patients in hazard, because of the doctor's own medical problems (medical obviously including psychiatric problems). Secondly, unless you are Harold Shipman, doctors can't kill a couple of hundred patients at a time even when we go rogue. Even Harold Shipman could only kill one patient at a time… Every profession has their bad eggs. (Actually, bad eggs is insufficient. Evil people is more appropriate).

So I do wonder why there is so much resistance to cockpit video recording and real-time GPS monitoring. Video recording will not stop an event like this, but will very quickly allow everybody to know exactly what happened. Also, I'm sufficiently prehistoric that I well remember when it was first proposed that there would be real time event monitoring with paper printouts during operations so the anaesthetist's actions and reactions could be judged minute by minute; similarly, for the surgeons, over the shoulder video monitoring of particular procedures. At the time a lot of people (waaaay older people, in other words, older than I was then… and probably the age I am now…) said ‘no way no how’ / 'over my dead body' and so forth. Guess what. These days it is common. The patients expect it, our professional organisations expect it, our insurers expect it, our employers expect it and we comply. It's a condition of the privilege to practice medicine. Similarly, being video-monitored during flight operations may become a condition of the privilege to be an passenger airline pilot.

rantanplaneMy knowledge of mental disorders is limited to that required for part of my work but, as far as I'm aware, narcissistic personality disorder does not include the sort of behaviour you describe.
I am, of course, open to correction by a psychiatrist or psychologist

People with NPD swing between seeing themselves as special and fearing they are worthless. Outwardly, they may act as though they have an inflated sense of their own importance but behind that image lies fragile self-esteem that is vulnerable to the slightest criticism or rejection. They may act as if they don't care what people think of them but they actually need people to look up to them to maintain their inflated self-view. Symptoms include exaggerating their own achievements and abilities, thinking they are entitled to be treated better than other people, exploiting other people for personal gain, lacking empathy for other people's weaknesses, looking down on people they feel are 'beneath' them while feeling deeply envious of people they see as being 'above' them.
Someone suffering from NPD may have another mental disorder or disorders which may lead them to behave in such a manner as you describe but, as far as I'm aware, NPD alone would not.


PaceOnly to those who have no knowledge of, nor interest in learning about, mental disorders.

It’s very easy to see somebody as either a perpetrator or a victim. It’s much more difficult to understand that somebody might be both.

Probably because this is an aviation forum and people are discussing factors that may have led directly and/or indirectly to this tragedy and, if so, what can be learnt to minimise the risk of a repetition.
Are you suggesting that they don't feel sorry for those who were killed or are unsympathetic to their families?


I have no idea whether the FO's mental health, whatever it was, has any relevance to the tragedy. I'm merely responding to some specific points.

Pace.

You misunderstood my posting. I was responding to and quoted part of another post which stated that He choose the best opportunity to take as much people with him as he possibly ever could'. He didn't. He flew into a sparsely populated area, and although Mary Meagher also seems to have misunderstood my post, her explanation for the decision to fly on towards the Alps is more likely.

I can't see how these observations amount to an expression of sympathy for the FO.

There was mention, some days back, about some "event" on the Southbound flight (assumedly, I thought, from something on the CVR from the previous flight ) any further on that ?


Once the initial shock/horror has died down, I hope the BEA are actually able to do their job without unfair bias. If this was a Murder trial, it has been nullified already by dint of the amount & nature of the information leaked (if we are to believe the rumours , initially by the French military ) into the public domain.

It appears the Public Prosecutor in Marseille wanted another moment of "glory" & there we went. (or to be charitable, he was trying to prevent ever more outlandish speculation :hmm: )

Massive breach of trust in the "system" here, which IFALPA have tried to publicise, but, not surprisingly seen their pleas for "correctness" smothered by the baying popular press.

Whilst agreeing that the "worst" looks the most likely, this has assuredly been a shameful episode which has tarnished what has hitherto usually (except where Airbus's or Concordes were involved ) been a procedure that has attempted to be both professional & dispassionate in their investigation of any accident that has happened.

I believe most "professionals" harbour at least some small amount of doubt in a hastily derived conclusion which (to the benefit of all parties except the poor F0 & perhaps the Medics/Luftie up to a point ) seems to get all the "Big Fish" conveniently off the hook.

Cockpit monitoring of flight crew......


Every called a company and heard "this call may be monitored for training purposes, so we can improve our customer service".


Why should the professionals whom we trust the most with our lives be exempt such 'monitoring'.


CCTV and audio recordings from the cockpit should be routinely evaluated by an organisation outside the airline.

In many professions and situations, we have to deal with facts which are never solid. So you'll forgive/excuse those of us who (need to) operate in ambiguity.

I can certainly find out what is wrong with a patient if I subject them to an autopsy with the detailed histological and toxicological and other examinations which are usually reserved post-mortem... but my patients would like intervention before they reach room temperature (excuse the flippancy, black humour).

So I think it's perfectly reasonable for we travelling Self Loading Freight customers to want to know what happened even when everybody is not 100% certain of all available information. And as we would I think all acknowledge, 100% certain available information is hardly ever released in sufficient or conclusive detail even when the air accident investigation is concluded. For example : SilkAir / Egypt Air.

Hi OdysseusYou say that, but I can see where (s)he is coming from.

The root cause of this accident, assuming the facts are as stated, an ill pilot on the Flight Deck. End Of. The authorities therefore need to assess "how" that came about, and "what" they can do to prevent further occurrences. Bearing in mind pilots have extensive medical and employment checks.

Cabin Crew have far less stringent employment checks, and zero recurrent medical checks. It therefore seems illogical to add them to the Flight Deck equation, and guarantee them an "option" they previously did not have? Secondly, there is now a large security breach, in that it is "known" CC must regularly attend the Flight Deck with an opportunity - previously even for those airlines who did have this policy, it was not such public knowledge.

If the authorities decide they cannot prevent the ill pilot scenario, they have a big problem. And an even bigger one when they apply that to the CC chaperone aspect... as I posted days ago, do passengers and the airlines really want to bear the cost and disruption of frequent and invasive psychological checks? A good proportion of us will probably fail :(

Many years ago we were guided to suspect about the luggage...decades later we were taught to suspect about the passengers...nowadays we are doomed to suspect about the pilots...who was won after all?
Terrorism...:rolleyes: