Germanwings Crash Calls For Change In Mental Health Protocols For Airline Pilots

“I can assure you, the kid had problems. I’ve never seen anything like it in 30 years as a teacher.” This line is from the English subtitles of an Argentinean fictional short film by Damián Szifrón’s called Relatos salvajes. The teacher is speaking of a man named Gabriel Pasternak, a mentally unstable pilot who has arranged for every person that has ever wronged him to be on the same plane. In less than a 10-minute scene, Pasternak crashes the plane, killing everyone he seeks revenge on.

This short film was released in theaters at a very hypersensitive time—just days after a supposed mentally ill Germanwings pilot crashed a plane of 149 people into the French Alps, leaving no survivors. People across the world were outraged that a pilot of a public airline would intentionally kill innocent people while on the job. The tragic crash implores that the mental health of aircraft pilots needs to be handled differently.

Being 30,000 feet in the air at the discretion of two pilots is a matter that requires trust. As ordinary people that fly on commercial flights, we need to know that we are in safe hands. That comes with trust in our pilots and trust overall in the airline.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, medical certificates are only required for pilots who want to fly solo. To get this certificate, pilots have to be examined by FAA approved examiners and the exam includes mental health standards. 

However, for Airline Transport Pilots, the pilots that fly the planes that we travel on, the current medical protocols differ by airline. 

Kyle Bailey, President of Bailey Consulting International, said that in the United States, pilots undergo a “first class medical exam” every six months. The exam encompasses a full physical including blood samples, drug tests, and checking heart rate. However, there is no psychological testing in the majority of routines. Bailey said there may be a brief psychological exam upon hiring, depending on the airline, but none following.

The airline that employed the German pilot, Andreas Lubitz, revealed that he had previously suffered from “deep depression”. An investigation disclosed that Lubitz saw a professional psychiatrist and that his psychiatrist had given him a note instructing him not to fly on the day of the crash. The note was found ripped up in his apartment and understandably so. If he was deemed too ill to fly, then he may have very likely been too ill to hold the responsibility of that note.

Instead, the responsibility should have been on the airline as the employer. There needs to be a system in place that would allow professional therapists or psychiatrists the right to reach out to employers when things become this serious with patients.

By no means, do we want our society to make the issue of mental illness any more negative than it already has. Current laws protect citizens from work place discrimination by allowing them to keep medical issues, such as mental health, private. This is necessary for equal employment opportunities, however, when issues are as grave as a person being a threat to society—such as this plane crash, an employer should be notified. This doesn’t mean that the particular unstable person should be fired and forced into a financial hardship. Instead, we as a society should take care of them through healthcare disability until they are better because getting better is possible.

The fact of the matter is mental illness is more common than society likes to admit. History of “deep depression” is not a remote condition to this one man or to the sole career of pilots, but instead to every size, shape, and color of human in any and every career. It is unfortunate that lives had to be lost in order for this issue to be brought into the limelight, but good can come from this tragedy.

In the Relatos salvajes short film, the mentally unstable pilot killed every one that had wronged him. In the Germanwings reality, the mentally unstable pilot took innocent lives. When reality becomes worse than fiction films, it’s time for change.