Germanwings raises questions about pilot suicide
The crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 in March, 2015, in the French Alps has raised new and disturbing questions about the mental health of commercial aviation pilots.
There have now been eight passenger airline crashes in the last 20 years that have been suspected murder-suicides.
Sunday Night reporter Alex Cullen interviewed an investigator who sounded the alarm on a suicide-suspected air crash closer to home. His warnings have been ignored by the industry.
"At the moment pilots are psychologically tested once, that is at the start of their career, that is to become a pilot. After that there is nothing, absolutely nothing," Cullen said.
"They are given a physical test and they are also asked questions like “are you depressed?”, “are you drinking heavily?”, “are you using drugs?”, but nothing on the scale that should be done, nothing on the scale of a psychological test that can weed out these pilots who are suffering these mental health issues."
The Germanwings flight is a high-profile example of probable pilot-suicide, crashed into the French Alps by captain Andreas Lubitz.
But in recent years a series of commercial pilots appear to have crashed their aircraft intentionally or been stopped by fellow crew members as they tried.
They were all played down, officially due to a lack of evidence, and did not lead to any major changes in the psychological monitoring of pilots.
In 1997, SilkAir flight 185 crashed in an Indonesian river, killing 104 people. It was suspected that captain Tsu Way Ming flipped the plane on its back using his skills as a former fighter pilot and drove it into the ground at supersonic speed.
Not a single complete body, body part, or limb was found, as the entire aircraft and passengers disintegrated upon impact. Only six positive identifications were later obtained
Ming had recently been demoted after a complaint about his 'cowboy' flying behavior. Investigators later learned he was millions in debt from a stock market crash and his family life was under strain. Indonesian investigators ruled out suicide, but United States investigators concluded that he had driven the plane into the ground.
Derek Ward, the father of killed NZ copilot Duncan Ward has launched his own investigation into the Silkair flight that killed his son.
"I think if the airline was capable of monitoring the flying crew properly, he wouldn't have been [flying]." Ward said.
"Unfortunately, for Singapore, for somebody to commit mass murder on this scale would have been a total loss of face for the country."
Cullen said if the airline industry had acted decisively after Silk Air Flight 185 slammed into an Indonesian River in December 1997 might the Germanwings disaster may have been prevented.
In another example, an EgyptAir Boeing 767 departing New York crashed into the Atlantic off Nantucket Island and killed 217 people just two years later. The United States National Transportation Safety Board found that the co-pilot purposely put the jetliner into a steep dive after uttering repeatedly, “I rely on God.”
Despite many reports of Lubitz's actions, the investigation into the cause of the Germanwings flight 9525 crash is ongoing and will likely not be completed until late this year.
If you or someone you know is suffering from mental health problems, contact Beyond Blue or Lifeline
Article: Philippa Lees
