[esselle]

Medical disclosure………………………

[LuganoPirate]

In Switzerland crew have to give consent for your own GP to pass information if required.

[MartynSinclair]

But what happens if a pilot/aircrew has a “GP” and a Private Dr? Flying is a profession that’s “in the blood”… Whilst clearly, no one would agree agree with what Lubitz is accused of doing, I can understand why he was scared of losing his profession..

A system needs to be created to ensure Aircrew disclose ALL medical information / attending Dr’s… Even random drug testing, may put sufficient fear in Aircrew to monitor what they put in their bodies the night before duty….!

[openfly]

The Hypocratic Oath is sacrosanct and hopefully remains so. Once there are exceptions God knows what the Daily Mail will publish!

[goalie11]

This really was a tragic incident and quite rightly the authorities are exploring every avenue to ensure this can’t happen again. However, it highlights how much we, as the travelling public, put our faith in those who control the aircraft we travel on.

The focus is very much on the mental strength of the pilots and how this can be monitored properly and it got me thinking about how much this focus extends to other modes of transport.

Given that a high speed train (Pendolino) can carry 580 passengers and a coach on an alpine field trip can carry 50 schoolkids how much attention do we take of the mental well-being of the drivers of these modes given the potentially catastrophic results of a suicide attempt?

[Charles-P]

To my mind the reality is that risk is a part of society and a part of travel. We can reduce it but never eliminate it.

[TimFitzgeraldTC]

Hi Charles

Indeed – fully agreed with you. We only have to remember incidents such as the driver who committed suicide by parking his car on a level crossing an waiting for an HST to hit – killing him and several passengers on the train a few years back. Nothing is ever going to be risk free.

What we mustn’t do – and what this event is in danger of doing is stigmatizing mental health issues. I have friends / family who have had mental health issues and it is very tough for them and there friends / families. Sadly the media coverage so far would be more likely to drive people with these problems further away from being open and seeking help. It certainly isn’t creating an atmosphere which should be to try and encourage the issue of Mental Health to be more open. Considering 1 in 4 (maybe more) people have Mental Health issues of varying degrees then a bit more balanced reporting would be nice.

[Charles-P]

‘TimFitzgeraldTC’ – a good point, well made.

Mental Health issues are regretfully not always given the focus they deserve. I am involved with the Royal British Legion and its work with troops some of whom are still suffering mental issues as a result of combat stress, in one or two cases as far back as the Korean war. In the general hysteria following this tragedy it is worth considering that the man responsible was in many ways also a victim.

[rferguson]

It’s hard to think what the answer to this is. I was thinking about it yesterday with many airlines adopting a two in the flight deck at all times policy. However this would do little to stop a hell bent pilot on crashing a plane.

What I really fail to understand is that when aircraft are at such a level of tech that we know they basically fly themselves, how does it allow itself to crash into the Alps?

I mean an A320 is basically a flying computer. It knows it’s route. It knows which mountains it is flying over and what airports are nearby. It knows how high it is flying and how close the ground is to it. So we have a scenario where the A320 ‘knows’ that it is being put into a decent towards the Alps and not in the direction of an airport.

It’s awful reading the transcript with the ‘pull up pull up…terrain’ command from the Flight Management System apparently audible on the CVR. Why is the technology not there (well it IS there but it seems that pilots input will always override) for the aircrafts systems to realise that this is not right, I am being flown into the side of a mountain and to forcibly take over control of the aircraft and ascend?

I had this discussion with the other half and his view was that the pilot should always have ‘ultimate’ control over any computer. I disagree. On the balance of probability I would put my trust in a computer any day ahead of a person. History tells us this – just look at how many crashes are the result of pilot error or deliberate action of pilots versus a computer issue. And even in the scenario where it is a mechanical issue if sometimes the pilots would have allowed the computer to do what it is doing instead of overriding it catastrophe would have been averted. AF447 is a perfect example of this. Yes, the disaster was initiated by a mechanical issue. But the plane was not saved in those final minutes because of incorrect input from one of the pilots. The aircraft was telling him to do one thing, he was doing the other.

[peter19]

rferguson,
I think you have some valid and interesting points. My first reaction is the pilot must have the ‘ultimate’ control.

When a plane is fully functional i.e no mechanical issues there is that question of how can it let itself or accept a series commands/decisions by a pilot to go into the alps where clearly the terrain is dangerous.
However, if a plane suffered a genuine mechanical issue where its clear that it cannot land at destination or alternative then surely the pilot has to make a decision. Regardless of the plane knowing the surrounding terrain a pilot could clearly see and presumably make the best decision possible based on assessing the risks?

[rferguson]

Hey Peter….Agree with you. But the pilots would only know it had a mechanical issue I guess by way of the aircraft systems alerting them to the problem so the plane would know too. Even if say a plane is over the ocean and say there was a huge cargo fire and the crew deemed best chance of survival is a ditching. The plane would ‘know’ this because it would have alerted the crew in the first place about the fire.

But….in a situation like the Germanwings incident – no mechanical issues, no alerts, no systems problems, no alarms – as far as the aircraft is concerned everything is perfect. Except for that the pilot is trying to fly it into the side of a mountain.

[AnthonyDunn]

Good points gents. Thinking about the “miracle on the Hudson” and the BA38 PEK-LHR crash landing, in both instances it was the pilot rather than the onboard computer systems that made the critical decisions that saved the passengers and crews.

On BBC TV’s “Newsnight” last week, there were a couple of interesting episodes covering the Germanwings crash. The first, looking at risk

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05p6sq6/newsnight-27032015

was with Sir David Spiegelhalter, the Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk at Cambridge University. The comment made is that the riskiest thing about flying is getting to the airport. The mortality rate for cycling a mile, walking ten miles or driving to the airport are all considerably greater than getting on an aircraft. And 2014 was the safest year ever for flying with “only” 1000 deaths worldwide from air accidents whereas the UK alone experienced over 1,700 road deaths (and we’ve got a low road death rate). Interestingly, after 9/11, the road death rate increased in the USA because more people took to the roads and fewer flew.

The later episode considered the issue of mental health issues in the workplace:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05p6sq6/newsnight-27032015

But none of these hard facts can possibly lessen the gut-wrenching sense of loss being experienced by the nearest and dearest of those onboard the plane – and the understanding that the crash should never have happened.

[MrMichael]

Perhaps the answer is a combination of as rferguson suggests and earlier posts regarding remote control from the ground. I guess if the planes computers knows nothing is wrong, but it is being flown dangerously then control of the aircraft could be transferred to a remote control pilot somewhere else on earth.

Both concepts worry me to be honest. I am in the Pilot must have control at all times corner, I think this type of thing is so rare it is a risk we have to take. I am flying tomorrow, first time since this tragedy, but it has made absolutely no difference to how I feel about flying. I knew after Silk Air/Egyptair etc that the possibility of a nutcase Pilot was a possibility but the other options were even more frightening (not flying).

As has been said, whether we be on a plane, train, bus boat or taxi we rely on the person in control to want to live as much as we do, when that is not the case the chance of us or anyone else detecting it in time is pretty remote.

I think it right that airlines look to see what can be done, and 2 on the cockpit fits the bill perhaps. But ultimately even with that, if the pilot is on an approach to LHR and suddenly decides to put the plane down nose first in to Hounslow West underground station on the spur of the moment there is probably not much the other pilot or anyone else can do about.

[canucklad]

I remember when the 320 came along; I would deliberately avoid flying it because of the manufacturers programmed the software to be “cleverer” than the pilot.

And if I’m not mistaken, a 320 crashed during a demonstration flight because it decided to go land mode and refused to accept the pilots override decision to climb?
And the cynic inside me says that the fix they put in, isn’t as fixed as Airbus make out, because there have been a couple of other incidents in similar circumstances, but have ultimately been blamed on something else.

But after taking more flights than anybody would want to wish for , I’ve become a bit of a convert, and don’t have an issue with the 320 technology. Yet, if someone was to ask me, which aircraft type I’d feel safer on, my gut reaction would be a Boeing..

Getting back to this tragedy, I do wonder if airlines are going to go further than just implementing replacing a pilot with a member of crew. As I said earlier, I’m not a psychiatric expert, but it seems to me, that disconnecting pilots from other human beings has desensitized them from other human’s needs and emotions. Thus making these individuals actions easier for him to justify, whenever his trigger point was reached.
As rferguson alluded to, creating a sense of team with other crew, and maybe getting the cockpit crew to take turns welcoming passengers on-board would create a sense of responsibility to others. And just maybe, this poor tormented soul would probably and sadly still have taken his own life. But if he could put smiles and faces to his passengers and crew mates, might not have discounted their lives so easily.. But, sadly it’s all conjecture!!

[LuganoPirate]

I’m also firmly in the camp of the pilot should be in charge brigade. Anything else I find quite worrying. Trouble is psychological exams don’t always show unstable people, especially if you know how to answer.

While true bus and train drivers can also do horrific things, I think the fear with most people and airplanes is the 33,000 feet them and the ground!

[Author]

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