Psych Evaluation and Background Check for First Class Medical?

N918KT

N918KT

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In light of the Germanwings crash, my former aviation professor posted on Facebook of a possible research topic for his Government in Aviation course and asked others on Facebook for their thoughts, so I thought I would want to share this with you all to discuss.

"The First Class Medical Certificate Examination for Professional Pilots Should Include a Psychological Evaluation and Background Check"

Thoughts or comments on this?
 
Except psychevals are prohibitively expensive, and background checks have proven to be an awful indicator of someone about to go psycho.

I'd be willing to bet the guy didn't have any convictions.

And in the US, mental issues dont show up on a background check unless you are declared incompetent / mentally defective by a court.
 
Actually many of the Major Airlines used to require applicants complete the MMPI. Really nothing new about all that.
 
an MMPI isn't as in depth as a psych eval. I don't think requiring that test is too excruciating
 
This incident could have been prevented by the two person in the cock pit rule which U.S. carriers already use.
 
Unregistered said:
This incident could have been prevented by the two person in the cock pit rule which U.S. carriers already use.
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I agree unreg. A two person in the cockpit rule would be a quick and easy fix to the problem. It might be enough to remedy this situation. No need for more regulations.

I'm not so sure why other airlines around the world did not implement this solution right away.
 
N918KT said:
I agree unreg. A two person in the cockpit rule would be a quick and easy fix to the problem. It might be enough to remedy this situation. No need for more regulations.

I'm not so sure why other airlines around the world did not implement this solution right away.
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Except, of course, for the fact that since 9/11 at least some pilots carry a handgun in the cockpit which can be used to make sure that the other person can't interfere.

The key to solving this problem is to continue to make it clear to pilots that the only acceptable method to deal with mental disturbances is denial. :rolleyes:
 
There are more than enough rules and hoops in place, there is absolutely no way to prevent a nut job from sprouting up once in a while. Should we surrender more liberties and personal freedoms to try compel right thinking behavior? It won't work!
 
Pilawt said:
[snip]

Fix is simple ... only eunuchs can be airline pilots.

:rolleyes2:
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Finally! A workable solution. And I suspect the pilot supply will go down meaning wages should recover somewhat...
 
jsstevens said:
Finally! A workable solution. And I suspect the pilot supply will go down meaning wages should recover somewhat...
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Yabut it puts the guy that sez, "I'd give my left nut to fly..." in the cockpit.

And what about equal opportunity? No ovaries for the ladies or do they have to sew it shut?
 
Meh. Just a bunch of soccer moms and hand-wringing crybabies who've been brainwashed by the nanny state into believing that utopia is possible if only we enact enough laws.

Rich
 
STUPID

So now I'll have to look at ink blots and have my privacy invaded during my medicals :rolleyes2:

And it won't prevent anything.

Just as the TSA checks wouldn't have stopped the 9/11 attacks.

Bad things happen, that's life, sad but true.
 
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Unregistered said:
This incident could have been prevented by the two person in the cock pit rule which U.S. carriers already use.
Click to expand...

But that doesn't work - no blinking lights . . . no consultants. No legions of bureaucrats checking boxes on forms. We cannot have simple effective solutions that cost nothing - we must have make work.
 
Honestly I doubt anyhing really comes from this, wasn't the first time this has happened, and just because you have mental Evals doesn't mean a pilot who is fit to fly won't snap
 
I'm rather skeptical of the idea that the science of psychiatry is up to the task.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
...
The key to solving this problem is to continue to make it clear to pilots that the only acceptable method to deal with mental disturbances is denial. :rolleyes:
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You're right of course, but please keep in mind that the FAA Doctors are really busy chasing down all those fat guys who might or might not have OSA.
 
Problem is that there is no definitive test for someone with mild mental problems. It is all subjective to a point...and with the "guilty until proven innocent" culture, no wonder pilots try and hide issues and not seek help or self disclose.

We need to fix that culture first.

Although will be hard to prove, my prediction is that this turns out to be a reaction to the meds that were found in his apartment that he was on rather than just a depressed psyco killer.
 
Since it is subjective and the evaluation relies heavily on statements from the person being examined, wouldn't it be fairly easy for someone who was rational but depressed to fake their way through tests like this?
 
Shawn said:
Problem is that there is no definitive test for someone with mild mental problems. It is all subjective to a point...and with the "guilty until proven innocent" culture, no wonder pilots try and hide issues and not seek help or self disclose.

We need to fix that culture first.
Click to expand...

Don't hold your breath. It's a product of the zero-risk, zero-tolerance, zero-brains society that has bought into the delusion that we can create a perfect world if only we enact enough rules.

Rich
 
Unregistered said:
This incident could have been prevented by the two person in the cock pit rule which U.S. carriers already use.
Click to expand...

N918KT said:
I agree unreg. A two person in the cockpit rule would be a quick and easy fix to the problem. It might be enough to remedy this situation. No need for more regulations.

I'm not so sure why other airlines around the world did not implement this solution right away.
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This is a rather simplistic opinion. What exactly would the presence of a 120 lb female flight attendant have had on the situation? If Lubitz so desired he could easily have overpowered a FA.

I suggest a simple math exercise...divide the number of safely completed air transport flights in the last fifty years by the number of pilot suicide incidents during the same period.

The resulting answer will be an exceedingly small number, and illustrate how ridiculous the demands to "do something" really are.
 
N918KT said:
In light of the Germanwings crash, my former aviation professor posted on Facebook of a possible research topic for his Government in Aviation course and asked others on Facebook for their thoughts, so I thought I would want to share this with you all to discuss.

"The First Class Medical Certificate Examination for Professional Pilots Should Include a Psychological Evaluation and Background Check"

Thoughts or comments on this?
Click to expand...

I think that should fall on the 135 and 121 operators, and should be established through the union, not only a pre hire screening, but also a monthly 'stress/life counseling session.
 
3393RP said:
This is a rather simplistic opinion. What exactly would the presence of a 120 lb female flight attendant have had on the situation? If Lubitz so desired he could easily have overpowered a FA.
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It has been alleged in some thread or another that suicidal pilots aren't usually prone to aggression in the presence of another person, which is why they seem to generally wait until they are alone in the cockpit.
 
3393RP said:
This is a rather simplistic opinion. What exactly would the presence of a 120 lb female flight attendant have had on the situation? If Lubitz so desired he could easily have overpowered a FA.

I suggest a simple math exercise...divide the number of safely completed air transport flights in the last fifty years by the number of pilot suicide incidents during the same period.

The resulting answer will be an exceedingly small number, and illustrate how ridiculous the demands to "do something" really are.
Click to expand...

120? Yeah right. I think I may have seen one flight attendant ever that weighed 120. It was like seeing Sasquatch, or a unicorn.
 
DavidWhite said:
120? Yeah right. I think I may have seen one flight attendant ever that weighed 120. It was like seeing Sasquatch, or a unicorn.
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:rofl::rofl::rofl: That is because you are a young American and have never experienced what an airline used to be like. Hop on a Cathay Pacific or Singapore Airlines flight. You won't find one over 95lbs and they all score an 8.5 on looks and a 10 on service.

FA used to be a 10 year job, now it's a life career.
 
Since this thread was academically oriented for discussion, I'll weigh in with a couple of sub-topics.

1. The eval, like any other part of the test/exam is only valid at the moment it's given. If an ATP passes the flight phys with psych eval on Jan 2nd, his next exam isn't until Jun 30th of that year. A lot can happen in half a year making the test invalid.

2. Standardizing psych exams is very, very hard. Taking into account different psychological profiles which may have issues, however minor and yet be competent to fly, are some of the hardest things in the world to evaluate. It's called the Caine Mutiny problem. Although a person in command may have psychological imperfections, getting an accurate bar on where to draw the incompetent line is not remotely an exact science like saying 'your vision in your right eye has been measured at 20-40, you must wear corrective lenses'. There is limited metric for psychiatric intervention, but there have been improvements over the past 30 years.

3. Most people with depressive events are not continuously psychologically unfit. We call them mood swings for a reason and every human goes through them. How to accurately gauge when a depressive event coincides with a pilots flight schedule? And once you do that, how to determine what depression is mild enough to work through, and what becomes debilitating? Is an airline going to be told it must accommodate a pilot who is suffering from depression enough today that he's off schedule, but they put him back on again when he's chipper? Yikes.

4. If a pilot 'fails' a psych eval, what do you do with them? Vision is correctable with a lens. Are we to fit the pilot with some kind of nutcase metering device? Do we counsel? If so, how do you know when counseling is effective? If there is drug intervention, this opens a whole new can of worms. The Germanwings guy was already medicated. Do we have someone check that he takes his pill every day?

5. Suppose all this comes to pass, and we get a situation where in a fleet of pilots, there are six who are being actively treated for some depression/psych issue. Eventually, by the luck of the draw, two of these six are going to be on a flight together. Does the scheduler have the ability to keep all these six people from flying together? Should they?

There's more, but that should keep the class occupied for a while.
 
Agreed. That's why it needs to be a continued evaluation system. The best results will come when the FAA encourages monthly stress counselling and the airline unions provide the service in the Health and Welfare department. This not only provides the ability to monitor people's condition, it provides the opportunity to help the people manage their issues before the conditions reach a critical level. Prevent the incidents by preventing the cause is always the best way to go about solving a problem.
 
Henning said:
Nope, just overpowered the controls IIRC.
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I doubt that there is ever a solution to any problem that is effective 100% of the time, but the overpowering on the controls apparently took place after the emergency was well underway. The Egyptair CVR and FDR indicate that the FO's misbehavior began no more than a minute after the captain excused himself to go to the lavatory. This is consistent with the claim made previously, that suicidal pilots usually wait to be alone before doing the deed. So if the two-person rule had been in effect on that flight, it's possible that it could have made a difference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990#Flight_recorders
 
Palmpilot said:
I doubt that there is ever a solution to any problem that is effective 100% of the time, but the overpowering on the controls apparently took place after the emergency was well underway. The Egyptair CVR and FDR indicate that the FO's misbehavior began no more than a minute after the captain excused himself to go to the lavatory. This is consistent with the claim made previously, that suicidal pilots usually wait to be alone before doing the deed. So if the two-person rule had been in effect on that flight, it's possible that it could have made a difference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990#Flight_recorders
Click to expand...

It's more effective to make a difference by dealing with the predicate condition than trying to manage the results of ignoring and hiding it.
 
Monthly "stress" checks? Obviously most of you don't fly for a living and live in a a land of unicorns when it comes to dealing with the FAA. The company I fly for would use this in a punitive way within 24 hours and the FAA (who walk around with company ID cards) would go along.
ACTUAL SENARIO - happened at my airline three times already.

"I just didn't feel normal"
" I had noise in my head and realized that God made a mistake with me"

How would YOU handle these comments?
I now fly with two former males that are now females and the FAA, the company and the courts back them up....BUT if I were to "lose it" and ask a scheduler "WTF over?" I will be disciplined and possibly be required to undergo medical evaluation.
But at least I didn't cut off my ....
 
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