Wiggy, I would guess the chance would be nil from a lot of employers. Loss of licence insurance is very expensive to employers and those airlines that do retain it have been watering down the cover for many years.

4.3 Mitigation of the consequences of loss of licence

The co-pilot was aware of the decrease in his own medical fitness and of the potential impact of his medication. However, he did not seek any advice from an AME, nor did
he inform his employer. One of the explanations lays in the financial consequences he would have faced in case of the loss of his licence. His limited Loss of License
insurance could not cover his loss of income resulting from unfitness to fly. More generally, the principle of self-declaration in case of a decrease in medical fitness is
weakened when the negative consequences for a pilot of self-declaration, in terms of career, financial consequences, and loss of self-esteem, are higher than the perceived
impact on safety that failing to declare would have.Organisations, especially airlines, can reinforce self-declaration of a decrease in medical fitness of their staff, by acting on some of the consequences of unfitness, by
offering motivating alternative positions and by limiting the financial consequences of a loss of licence, for example through extending loss of licence coverage.
Consequently the BEA recommends that:
€
EASA ensure that European operators include in their Management Systems measures to mitigate socio-economic risks related
to a loss of licence by one of their pilots for medical reasons.


IATA encourage its Member Airlines to implement measures to mitigate the socio-economic risks related to pilots’ loss of licence for medical
reasons.

Tubby

Yep, aware of that, nevertheless I was quite interested that the provision (or not) of LOL featured quite so prominently in the Board's comments (as HH has posted) .....then again they're French and so perhaps not surprisingly have a interesting view on Employers' obligations ....

So it looks to me like this comes down to, in any other country, the pilot would have been reported by the medical professionals and grounded until his treatment was completed.

The Royal Aeronautical Society is holding a conference on aircrew mental health and well-being on 9 May in London. The link here shows that there is a considerable problem that needs to be discussed and treated properly - no knee jerk reactions - but a serious investigation as to how to deal with this issue in a fair way:- Royal Aeronautical Society | Insight Blog | Aircrew mental health and well-being: 2015 to 2040

Read the link and take note of the statistics!

akaSylvia

I suspect the German medical privacy laws are a result of the happenings before and during WWII and the euthansia program T4 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_T4) in which doctors were 'implicated and even forced to disclose medical confdences' to the state authorities.

Any change to these laws are going to have to be debated in the German Parliament and any form of international legislation will be invalid as German state law is supreme.

So would German State law be supreme over EU law?:confused:

Parkfell,

Yes it is. Any law from an outside 'state' would have to go befoe the German Constitutional Court. This was put in place post 1945 to stop the state implementing things like the T4 programme.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federa...urt_of_Germany

Wiggy,
The practice of pay to fly entry for new entrants to the industry places a huge burden on the junior pilot to stay healthy so that their financial investment can be repaid, I cannot imagine how much of a burden this would be to a young pilot who thinks that they may be in danger of losing their career for medical reasons. Perhaps rather than a loss of licence policy the employer could cancel the training debt.
The press conference mentioned that in other industries employees were offered alternative employment at similar renumeration if they experienced medical problems ,but I have never heard of any similar offer to a pilot.

Are we missing the point?
 

Surely all this talk about breaching Germany's strict privacy laws is missing the point. It seems to me the physician(s) who examined Lubitz and had serious misgivings as to his health should have refused to clear him for flying duty. Any resulting repercussions would have been kept confidential between the physician(s) and Germanwings/Lufthansa.

Rockhound

tubby

I agree 100%. I'll have another look at the text of the interview but I know one of the employers who will shift people to desk jobs was SNCF, the other was the French Nuclear Industry - I guess one of the advantages of working for an (effectively) nationalised company in a country heavy on social legislation. That said I don't think it's widespread workers right, even in France.

Where I work I can think of perhaps only a single individual I work who ended up behind a desk having lost his licence, but I believe even that wasn't a permanent position and he eventually left the company.

So how many will seek medical help, (for anything)If they know the doc may report them?
So how will the authorities react to a call from an estranged partner or some other mal content.

Only way is to legislate descent Loss of Licence insurance.
(Granted that too could be inappropriately used, but at least the innocents may be protected.)

Actually, the privacy law is the whole point. Doctors are not allowed to contact the employer, if they even know who that is. Yes, the AME does know, but has it even easier by informing the LBA (german CAA) and they will pull his license, just takes about six weeks. But any normal MD does not need to know the employer, the profession or anything else about his patient, and cannot contact any other third party except in case of a direct threat to others. Which apparently none of his doctors saw. There is absolutely no direct link between employer and MD.

You've not read the report. German law does allow revealing medical data to protect others. The doctor however also did not cooperate with the BEA and no doubt is fearing a massive legal action.

Depression is a common enough illness, and can be generally managed well. Like any other illness it does depend on the patient wanting to get well, and cooperating, despite the understandable effect of mental illness. Lubitz still had responsibility for himself. He chose to disregard this. Now suicide tends to be a complex thing and many at the point of suicide tend to think logically but in ways which do not take into account any consequence after the act itself. Think of the many people who have chosen "death by cop" - Its planned and logical, however horrific the consequences.

However, it remains Lubitz own responsibility to state that he is not well and request that he is taken out of service for a while. It is not entirely the doctor's fault in failure to report, even if it were legal. Lubitz may well have been evasive in his responses to the doctors, who may have suspected things may be badly wrong but do not know or could not imagine what he would do.

I feel that the scenario with the healthcare professionals would be something like - Are you feeling suicidal? Yes. Have you any plans? No. Now what do you do about that? Even though the body language may be telling you that the patient is lying, what do you do?

Equally interesting is that Lubitz was prescribed antidepressants only 8 days before his suicide. For someone with a long term health condition that is quite recent. If it was the first time he was prescribed antidepressants (which I doubt) then it would certainly have been irresponsible to have gone to work. If it was a change of antidepressants, it would be interesting to know which one, as some of them in the first few days can amplify suicidal feelings. In any case, 8 days after taking an antidepressant, it would have been unwise to fly an aircraft and I am sure that the prescriber would have said so.

I can assure you that for someone suffering some sort of mental illness, the fact that your DR will be able to report you to your employer will just mean people won't seek help.

In his state of mind he could have thought he was doing everyone a favour, giving them the gift of avoiding their eventual end. No death from cancer, no grief from a child's death and so on.

Yeah because that would have completely nullified the sounds of the screams in the cabin and the frantic shouting and hammering of the captain on the flightdeck door. Don't make excuses for him, anyone who is able to ignore that and carry out such an act is a psychopath. He may have had depression but a clear lack of empathy and remorse makes him a psychopath and so does carrying out mass murder. Depressed people don't tend to take 150 innocent people with them.

after reading the final report we can say the captain requested the cockpit entry via the normal access code one time , after that he tried the intercom 4 times but he has never tried the emergency access code.

of course it could be denied from the cockpit so the outcome would be the same , but its a fact he never tried it.

It's not a case of making excuses. It happened. It has to be understood.