That's just selection bias. Airline travel has been getting safer and safer over the past few decades and while I'm not certain what the overall stats for the past 2 years are, four is certainly not a very large number of crashes. You just think it is because of all the news coverage -- which is partially due to their uniqueness.blue_leaf77 said:Four lethal accidents during an international flight in only one year. That's quite something in the history of aviation. Not to mention some of the accidents' cause remain a mistery up to now. Given seemingly various different causes, it does leave me in doubt as to whether to keep trusting aerial transportations like I used to.
Health Information Privacy
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However, if your employer asks your health care provider directly for information about you, your provider cannot disclose the information in response without your authorization.
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German Privacy Laws Let Pilot ‘Hide’ His Illness From Employers
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That is because privacy protections in Germany are among the most stringent in the world. Under their provisions, an airline has to rely on the truthfulness of its pilots in learning about their medical histories, and it has no legal means of checking the information the pilots provide.
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magneticnorth said:The doors to the cockpit are a good idea , they were not the problem . The absence of a third party a.k.a. Flight Engineer IS the problem .Get them back on board ,even if it's a glorified aero-mechanic in a uniform , or follow the U.S. practice of atleast bringing one of the flight crew in the cockpit when one of the two pilots is absent . People have fooled Psychologists with ease . So the third party in the cockpit is the most reasonable solution .People bent on suicide are usually successful , and I don't think it really matters to them whether they take anyone with them . It's all a matter of circumstance and opportunity . Given this circumstance is why I find it almost ludicrous that the reporting of mental illness and it's diagnosis would remain soley in the hands of the person diagnosed .
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In the wake of Tuesday’s air disaster, however, Germany may have to reconsider the way it balances privacy against security, at least in allowing airlines the ability to screen their pilots more thoroughly. Even a week ago, data protection authorities in Germany would likely have objected to a request from Germanwings asking doctors to reveal the details of their pilots’ mental health, says Runte. “But if you ask the same question today, I think the answer could be different.”
HIPAA does not apply in cases where the person is a danger to himself or others. The doctor in this case is going to have to answer questions about why he didn't contact the police instead of/in addition to giving the pilot a note. (Caveat on if their laws are different.)OmCheeto said:Here in the US, we have a set of rules, HIPAA, that prevent employers from getting the specific details of an employee's medical condition, without the permission from the employee.
It appears that Germany has similar laws.
You wouldn't necessarily know all the details of the background check, however I remember specifically that the Navy aviation aptitude exam included a section of psychological questions. They seemed geared toward finding risk takers/adventurers who stopped short of stupid/crazy.Lastly, regarding a couple of earlier comments regarding the US Submarine force.
I don't recall any psychological fitness testing on any of the nuclear power plant personnel.
magneticnorth said:... Add to that the knowledge on the part of Lufthansa that this pilot had a history of mental problems . ...
I think I emphasized international flights.russ_watters said:That's just selection bias. Airline travel has been getting safer and safer over the past few decades and while I'm not certain what the overall stats for the past 2 years are, four is certainly not a very large number of crashes. You just think it is because of all the news coverage -- which is partially due to their uniqueness.
If we both are referring to that missing Malaysia airlines, I believe it was a few days and a year ago.russ_watters said:the first was just over a year ago
What exactly do you mean by "international"? Do you mean non-American or just any flight going between two countries? If the former, the stats are what I gave (zero American crashes for several years) and if the latter, I don't know about the stats on that(and I suspect neither do you), but given how small Europe is, I'd think a large fraction of European flights go between countries. In either case, as safe as the 2014 was overall (by number of crashes) I'm not willing to blind-guess it was unsafe by a measure that doesn't seem very useful anyway.blue_leaf77 said:I think I emphasized international flights.
Weeks, but either way it is bad practice to manipulate statistics to try to make them look worse than they really are. You're just scaring yourself for no reason.If we both are referring to that missing Malaysia airlines, I believe it was a few days and a year ago.
If the patient stated to the doctor that he felt he was to crash a plane, or stated that he wanted to hurt himself or another, or others, ( which I doubt happened due to the guy keeping everything secret ) then yes, the disclosure should have happened.russ_watters said:HIPAA does not apply in cases where the person is a danger to himself or others. The doctor in this case is going to have to answer questions about why he didn't contact the police instead of/in addition to giving the pilot a note. (Caveat on if their laws are different.)
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"The concern that we have today is we have people who are either self-medicating or not seeking a diagnosis. Either of those is unacceptable," Babbitt said. "This change ... will allow those people to get the treatment, allow us to monitor and return them to the cockpit [as] safer, better pilots."
Commercial pilots under the age of 40 are required to undergo a medical exam by an FAA-certified physician every year; those over 40, every six months. But the examination focuses largely on the pilots' physical health, and there is no formal assessment of the pilots' http://www.cnn.com/topics/mental_health .
But the FAA concedes pilots aren't always forthcoming, especially if honesty could cost them their job.
"We know that there are people out there who are not taking antidepressants because they know they would be grounded if they are. We know there are people out there who are taking them and lying to us about that," said Dr. Fred Tilton, the FAA's federal air surgeon.
"We think it's safer to [make sure pilots are treated for depression] than to continue to drive it underground," he said.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/30/opinions/schmitz-suicide-germanwings/index.htmlOpinion: Let's be Honest about What this Was
Suicide has made the news again, even though we won't call it that. Andreas Lubitz deliberately crashed a plane into the Alps, taking his own life and the lives of 149 others.
Authorities have ruled out terrorism and other nefarious motivations for this horrible action. But for some reason, although suicide appears evident at this time, some are refusing to call it that.
True, but earlier in the article:Aside from the setting and location, the suicide of Andreas Lubitz is not significantly different from the suicide bomber last week during rush hour in Kabul, Afghanistan, who killed seven people and injured an additional 36. Lubitz is also not significantly different from Adam Lanza, the Newtown, Connecticut, shooter who killed his mother and 26 people, mostly children, at Sandy Hook Elementary School, before killing himself. While these tragedies were all very public, and extremely painful to larger communities, they were still suicides.
"Collateral damage" is accidental deaths of bystanders. In murder-suicide, the murders are on purpose: the murderer is depressed because he's angry at other people and wants to "go out with a bang" by taking people with them. Someone who is merely suicidal wants to hurt only themselves. Someone who is angry wants to hurt other people. The difference could not be more plain. The examples roughly match this event, but none of them can accurately be described as "collateral damage"....we must first be able to call it what it is: another tragic suicide with horrifying collateral damage.
russ_watters said:Someone who is merely suicidal wants to hurt only themselves. Someone who is angry wants to hurt other people.
russ_watters said:...someone who is on a suicide hotline mentions that the vast majority of suidical people express clearly that they only want their own pain to stop and choose methods of suicide purposely designed not to harm others.
256bits said:It is interesting that the FAA is aware of the problem of pilots flying while depressed.
So they have changed a decades long policy.
This article sums up their change in policy.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/04/02/pilots.depression/index.html
...Glaringly standing out are the terms lying, self-medication, grounded ( as in lose their pilots license and job ), underground.
FAA officials said that they do not know the extent of depression among pilots but that pilots are probably representative of the larger population, in which 10 percent are believed to suffer from depression.