Black boxes. Another failure.

[Sean Hayden]

-self medicating, physician paid out of pocket

[mistermack]

-self medicating, physician paid out of pocket

That could work, but would it show in the regular blood test? If so it's not an option.

[Sean Hayden]

Depending on company policies it may not be a permanent option.

[cronus]

Common sense. These are the rules, and this is what the spirit of the times asks - see unwritten small print? Not magic, common sense.

[mistermack]

Of course, if lie detectors were anything other than woo bollocks, there wouldn't be a problem.

You could just ask pilots if they were ok.

[Rum]

Severe and acute depression, if that is what it was, can involve psychosis. It is possible he was suffering from delusions or paranoia of some sort. Possible.

[cronus]

Severe and acute depression, if that is what it was, can involve psychosis. It is possible he was suffering from delusions or paranoia of some sort. Possible.

He thought he saw a route through the mountain, a narrow route.

[Svartalf]

Dunno, whenever I got head meds that made my depression worse, let alone make me suicidal, I stopped them on the spot and told the shrink to change the prescription... any sensible sufferer would do the same.

[Brian Peacock]

It'd be interesting to see if meds for depression were involved? A well known side effect of anti-depressent usages is suicidal thinking during 'recovery' stage. The most dangerous time for a depressive is in the initial stages of recovery when meds give the lift whilst thinking might still be rather bleak. If it's med induced suicide then the prescribing doctors are in part culpable for not alerting the airline of the medical situation directly.

Nah. Doctors are responsible to their patients and employees are responsible to their employers. Doctors have a responsibility to maintain patient confidentiality and employees have a responsibility to tell their employer if something is effecting their ability to do the job. The consideration for doctors is whether a patient's illness presents a danger to the patient or others, and as some have already pointed out a mental health diagnosis does not mean someone is automatically a danger to themselves or others.

The German clinic he recently attended denies treating him for depression anyway.

A German hospital confirmed he had been a patient recently but denied reports he had been treated for depression.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32087203

[Rum]

The doctor would not be culpable unless he/she estimated that the guy was a danger to himself and/or others and did nothing about it. That would not, as the law stands (in the UK), include anticipating potential medication side effects. (I was a mental health wallah many years ago).

[Svartalf]

Well, if the doctor had foreseen the possibility of such a side effect, it's obvious a different medication would have been prescribed.
Assuming this IS suicide due to med induced worsening of his depressive state, of course.

[mistermack]

Well, if the doctor had foreseen the possibility of such a side effect, it's obvious a different medication would have been prescribed.
Assuming this IS suicide due to med induced worsening of his depressive state, of course.

I would imagine that they will be able to test his remains for traces of drugs.
I should think identifying his body parts is a priority up there, and the cold should preserve the evidence.

I doubt if he was taking any drugs though, my guess is that it was a lack of proper treatment that pushed him into it.
But whatever, it's obvious he shouldn't have been flying, and they need to somehow remove the need to hide mental problems.

[Rum]

He was in the cockpit. I doubt there will be much of him left anywhere to test..

[Seth]

What this shows up is a nasty dilemma that any pilot faces, if they suffer from any depression, or similar mental problem.
If you own up, you're probably destroying any chance of future employment. If you don't, you could just get worse and worse, without effective treatment.
And being caught in that impossible trap, in a vulnerable state, could lead to homicidal resentment.

Correct. The same thing applies to many other occupations, including specifically police officers, where admitting you have a problem gets you labeled as a pussy by your comrades.

Of course, the right thing to do would be to notify everyone straight away, get treated, and take the consequences.
But I can't see myself doing that. Not if I knew very well that I would never work as a pilot again.
I would do my best to fight it on my own. Or maybe find some medic who would guarantee my anonymity, if that's possible.
But of course, a blood test would probably show up any drugs that were in my system, so that might be a non-starter.

Not to mention the fact that it's a criminal offense to fail to report ALL drug use, including over-the-counter medications, during your annual flight physical.

I don't know what the best answer would be. Can you give a guarantee to any pilot that they will be re-employed, once they have been successfully treated? I can't see that happening.
But anything short of that will push any pilot with a mental health issue into the same corner, with very possibly the same result.

So it looks like pilots will carry on facing the same impossible dilemma, any time they get any kind of depression or mental problem. And most will decline treatment, or hide it, or a bit of both like this guy did.

It's kind of like missile officers in nuclear missile silos. They each carry a pistol so they can shoot the other one to prevent an unauthorized launch.

Even if a crew member is in the cockpit there is still the potential for the deranged pilot to overwhelm the crew member (particularly if it's a woman) and do the same thing.

There is no real answer to this sort of thing. We just have to trust that our pilots are not deranged. Sometimes you die, that's just the way it is.

Actually, there is a technological solution, which is remote control of the aircraft from the ground, which is possible but which pilots and airlines have been resisting. However, in this case what I would recommend is that the autopilot be programmed (as it already is) to keep track of the minimum safe altitude for the aircraft's location and not allow the aircraft to be programmed to descend below that altitude without some external authorization such as an encrypted digital command sent by ATC to permit descent for landing or in an emergency.

The system could also be programmed to open the cabin door if the autopilot senses an unsafe programming command or condition to which the pilot or pilots do not respond. This would allow a crew member into the cockpit even if the door lock system has been deliberately overridden and the aircraft placed in danger.

[Brian Peacock]

We're still presuming a mental health diagnosis, but something like epilepsy would keep him out of the cockpit, as would the side effects of strong chemo.