I'd like to better understand this position. If this airman, who seems to have been suffering from clinical depression, hadn't feared the FAA taking his medical away, would he have been more likely to have sought treatment and likely a diagnosis? Would the FAA then ignore that diagnosis and allow a clinically depressed airline pilot to continue flying? What if the treatment included psychoactive medication, as it often does, would the FAA need to ignore that as well?
I guess what I'm really asking is, what does an FAA that's less scary when it comes to mental illness actually look like? Because when I hear that mentally ill pilots (as this one clearly was) shouldn't fear the FAA taking away their medical, what I hear is that the FAA shouldn't take away mental ill pilots' medicals.
I don't think that's what you're advocating. But if the FAA continues taking away mentally ill pilots' medicals then mentally ill pilots will continue to fear the FAA taking away their medicals....