I was on this flight, I sat in the back and did not witness the initial events however I heard the pilot say we were diverting the flight to PDX and shortly after the jumpseat pilot was led to back of the plane.
I thought he was having a heart attack, or possibly diabetic because the flight attendants were telling him it was "going to be okay" and to "take deep breaths", the guy was acting scared and non-violent.
The flight attendant later announced it was a "medical emergency" which I thought it was weird because they never asked if there was a doctor on board. The pilot later explained that there was a "disturbance in the cockpit and we will likely board a new plane". Finally after we landed he was escorted by police.
Honestly I kind of feel bad for the guy. He didn’t put up much of a fight and he sounded very shocked and sad at what he did. Now his career is over and as he’s a plane hijacker as far as the law is concerned.
If he really wanted to crash the plane I imagine he would have succeeded.
How do you fix the mental health issue with pilots? My understanding is that as soon as you self report you’ve basically jeopardised your career and you’re grounded for a minimum of 6 months while you wait for FAA physicians.
One option would be to just treat everyone. Every commercial pilot could have to complete 20 hours of therapy a year, with strict confidentiality so they can be open without jeopardizing their career. Or two mandatory hours per month with a psychologist, or whatever scheme works best.
> eight-session DBT skills-training intervention (‘WISE Teens) (n = 563) or class-as-per-usual (n = 508). On average, the ‘WISE Teens’ intervention did not improve outcomes with significant deteriorations or null effects observed across outcomes relative to class-as-per-usual immediately post-intervention. The largest deteriorations were observed for depressive (d = −0.22; 95% CI = −0.35, −0.08) and anxiety symptoms (d = −0.28; 95%CI - = −0.41, −0.14
It's an option, but nobody will be excited about it. There's already a pilot shortage. (20 hours of paid time not flying a plane) x (all the pilots who fly) = a substantial loss of pilot availability. Plus some number of the majority of pilots who are mentally healthy would resent being "forced" to sit through mandatory therapy. They already have to do medicals often enough.
I've seen meta studies that suggest talk therapy reduces suicide risk by about 25-percent.
That's obviously significant, especially in terms of the cost of a down airliner, but I'm also a bit dubious that it's the most effective here. It seems like screening could be more effective in preventing needless death, even if there are some controversial false positives.
> with strict confidentiality so they can be open without jeopardizing their career.
I'd go a step farther, make it anonymous by design so that real name and identity are never disclosed. That way it builds the confidentiality into the system instead of just giving the illusion of it
but... this is probably never going to happen (at least at scale), it isn't profitable enough
but a good historical analogy would be those confession booths in churches. except, instead of going to the local one the confessor goes to one that's far away enough
We need some kind of screening for these high-stress PTSD inducing roles ... a Voight-Kampff test. Or limit the number of years one can be in these roles.
Holy crap, ADHD is disqualifying? That's a little surprising, given it's a relatively common diagnosis. Is that due to a side-effect of medication, or simply an inability to juggle the mental demands of being a pilot?
How do you get anyone to take an action that jeopardizes their career? By making their survival not depend upon their career.
That may sound glib, but I don't mean it to be. If there's a pilot that is hiding their mental health issues because they'll otherwise risk destitution, that's a problem that's solved by a social safety net. Such a safety net would also solve many other social ills, like people stuck with abusive employers, and so on.
A lot of pilots like flying planes. A lot of pilots also enjoy ancillary aspects of their career like seeing the world or, notoriously, sex with flight attendants. Telling pilots that, if they open up to a therapist, they can just live on the dole afterwards, is cold comfort.
If you're competent enough to be a pilot you're competent enough to make money other ways so it's not destitution. The issue is losing the level of income they make (more than any safety net could pay) and a loss of purpose since most commercial pilots are pilots to the core. Not to mention status and social standing.
I'm grounded for life by the FAA due to a history of mental illness.
Here's what I would accept: a stipulation/restriction on my medical regarding how often I go to therapy, when, and maybe even giving the therapist power to ground me temporarily.
But it would have to apply to only people like me with that restriction.
And that's for a history of depression. I don't really deal with clinical depression now.
Instead, the FAA wanted me on antidepressants, with all of their side effects, and I could not justify that. My wife has never known me on antidepressants (we met over a year after I got off), and I don't know how it would affect my marriage.
But constant therapy and checks? Yeah, I would take that in a heartbeat. I even grounded myself one day after a night where I had to deal with external problems; I wanted to be safe.
IOW, the FAA treats me like a problem; I would love if they treated me as a professional, and I would respond in kind, by being the kind of professional they want.
Ultimately this is the consistent problem with the way we deal with mental health problems in general. The solution is to not let it get to crisis levels by proactively addressing problems the same way we deal with physical issues. Imagine if when someone sprained their ankle we demanded they keep walking on it until it rips, and only then do we try to do something about it (ineptly, of course).
You can't even get treatment with drugs for mental health – even for a PPL. e.g. There's only three old depression drugs that are even considered and those come with all kinds FAA caveats and conditions. IMO, there's the stigma, and then there's the FAA discouraging treatment and reporting entirely.
It's changing, though. There was an FAA rep at OSH'23 that held a forum and admitted they're not prepared to handle an entire generation of young pilots that were exposed to ADHD medications as children. He's working to change the system but it's going to be a while.
There have been some small changes here and there. One example is the fast-track change to ADHD history. From first glances you can skip the CogscreenAE if you've been off the meds for 4 years and pass some other criteria.
As it happens, this is very close to the original Catch 22: only crazy pilots would voluntarily fly missions during war, and crazy pilots are not allowed to fly, but if you realize that it's crazy to fly, you're obviously not crazy and thus have to fly.
The problem pilots face as pointed out by OP is that pilots facing minor depression who seek treatment face massive repercussions to their career/income, potentially completely losing their career, so instead of treating minor mental health issues they go un-treated (or self medicated) until they're massive mental health issues.
> A pilot's access to a plane feels relevant to suicide (because it's an obvious way to kill yourself) but there's lots of ways to kill yourself that don't involve mass murder: a pilot is able to put a bullet in their head
You've given me a shitty idea that might work some of the time: We give every airline pilot a pistol. This way if they ever feel the urge to kill themselves they can do it in a hotel room instead of with the airplane. It ensures that the most convenient way for a pilot to die isn't crashing their plane. It will probably slightly increase the number of pilots who kill themselves, but decrease the number who do it by crashing their plane.
In the abstract that's right, but pilot suicide is a well-documented cause of some fatal passenger plane crashes. I doubt the impetus is unique to pilots, but the means is.
The FAA’s regulations require airline pilots to undergo a medical exam with an Aviation Medical Examiner (AME) every six months to five years, depending on the type of flying they do and their age.
From what I understand as an observer the FAA rules make it basically impossible for a working pilot to seek mental health care (even for an acute issue like a death in the family), because the potential cost to their career is so high. Isolation and self medication at the hotel bar, here we come.
Are these easy to cheat? I've found that most diagnoses are easy to produce by first reading the DSM-V criteria and then matching them appropriately to questions asked by doctors. In this case, however, you're trying to avoid diagnosis, which is a slightly different game and seems harder to fake.
If you're getting your Adderall not from prescription, they're not going to know till you tell them, but I wonder if they try anything interesting to find you out. I know at least one person who flew but used Adderall daily for work which means that this sort of thing isn't super rigorous.
> How do you fix the mental health issue with pilots?
Have the ability for someone on the ground to take over if there is a suspicion of this. Remove the pilot’s ability to disable key systems like in the past examples.
The Seattle Times adds a detail that isn't in other articles: the off duty pilot had successfully shut off fuel flow using the same handles:
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To activate they must reach up and pull the handle down and turn it to lock it in place. Pulling the handle cuts electrical and hydraulic power to the engine and closes the fuel line.
Turning the handle then releases a pressurized bottle of fire-suppressing halon gas.
Alaska Air spokesperson Alexa Rudin said via email that “fortunately some residual fuel remains in the line, and the quick reaction of our crew to reset the handles restored fuel flow and prevented fuel starvation.”
I'm not surprised he was successful (in pulling the fire handle -- not in taking down the aircraft). They are designed to be quick (but deliberate), because, if you're pulling one (or god forbid two) you're already in a serious situation where you have 50 other things going on. He probably was done before they even realized what he was doing.
Fortunate that they were able to restore fuel flow before the engine was starved for fuel, but, it would have very unlikely been a catastrophic situation had they lost both engines. Modern airliners are designed to restart their engines in flight through various means and can glide for many many miles from cruise altitude giving the crew ample time to do an orderly restart. See: Gimli Glider.
I say this not to excuse or minimize his actions but to emphasize to nervous flyers (like myself) exactly how redundant and safe modern aircraft are and how well trained modern crews are.
There are quite a few of these instances, a Germanwings pilot, this one and MH370 is suspected to be a suicide case as well, and many more (see Wikipedia page linked below). There may well be more than that where the truth will never come out.
Pilots are not immune to suicidal ideation, the problem is that they have a unique combination of responsibility, means and opportunity. Roughly 4% of all adults consider suicide at some point in their lives and this isn't any different for pilots.
Holy crap just reading the wikipedia page has my heart pounding. The sheer evil of planning to murder three of your co-workers so your ex-wife can pocket the insurance money.
As a European pilot I'm always so surprised by the unprofessional incident handling of American ATC. Seriously, this crew is shaken up, someone in the cockpit interfered with the flight. Now they're making an unplanned approach and landing. Meaning lots of work, briefing, checklists, communicating with the company. They're busy. Why is ATC asking them three times what gate they're going to. Never heard that in Europe. Let ground figure it out, direct them to an available gate that works for law enforcement...
And even crazier to ask two times what the previous threat level has been, "for our report", what?? Write your report when we're on the ground. Figure it out yourself. Absolutely no need for those questions during flight.
The fact that these pilots always (seemingly) remain cool as a cucumber, despite the fact that someone just tried to murder them and 82 other people, always amazes me.
They probably got the shakes after they landed. When your life depends on getting a job done, adrenaline kicks in and you get it done. Plus flying is a very standardized, checklist-oriented task. They can fall back to their routines as a distraction from what just happened.
After seeing where those handles were, how in the hell did the crazy pilot fail to pull them before getting kicked out of the cockpit by pilots who were presumably strapped in when he officially flew off the handle? Did he do the old "in 30 seconds I'm going to execute my evil master plan" villain announcement trope from the movies while twirling his mustache?
> "There's not much we can do for them apart from say 'thank you'," says Sarandrea. "We send them a certificate of appreciation every five years. When they retire, we give them a memento."
You could... pay them more for the extra risk they take? Very American brain movr, don't pay more for higher risk, and then proudly state it. Patriotism at its finest.
After the Germanwings disaster[0] and the near miss here, I wonder if it is time to re-evaluate the reinforced cockpit doors. Basically, every single passenger on an airplane knows that if someone is trying to attack the doors or otherwise hijack the plane, you have to stop them no matter what. Even if the hijackers have guns or knives, you still have a better chance trying to fight them.
On the other hand, a single pilot behind a reinforced cockpit door can bring down the entire aircraft.
Even without reinforced doors, blowing the fire bottles on all engines or nose-downing the aircraft at the end of the runway will bring down an aircraft if a pilot is intent on suicide, despite there being another pilot right next to you.
Unlike Germanwings, this incident thankfully didn’t involve a single pilot behind a cockpit door. Most airlines banned such a scenario after Germanwings. Here, the flight deck was occupied fully and the two on-duty pilots were able to overpower the assailant successfully.
The point being, there is no perfect trade off, but that this one is much better than the alternative. In this case, I think most airlines have moved to the incrementally better trade off of ensuring at least two people in the cockpit at all times.
> After the Germanwings disaster[0] and the near miss here, I wonder if it is time to re-evaluate the reinforced cockpit doors.
And while we're at it, a host of other aviation "security" rules as well, particularly the liquids rule, the insanity of confiscating nail clippers, or the power-trips that TSA or its sometimes just as nuts European counterparts pull off.
Depending on details they also can rock if they don't have direct flights.
My local airport only has 2 direct flight destinations, both of which are major hubs. So almost all trips have a layover. We're located a 2-4 hour drive from 4 much larger airports. By the time you factor in our tiny airport never having a security wait and the 10 minute drive to get there, it takes a lot of layover time to match driving to a bigger city and arriving there 2 hours early. By the time you factor in gas, parking, etc - the price is about the same too (that is tickets cost more, but overall trip cost is equalish).
Definitely worth it for everyone to look at though - just because the flight itself may be cheaper from a bigger airport doesn't mean the overall trip cost will be less, and the small airport experience is generally much nicer than the large airport one for ticketing and security.
Cheap flights, expensive parking. Paine Field doesn’t have massive garages like SeaTac. I’ve taken the flight from the article and my airfare was lower than my parking costs for just a weekend trip.
Ubers are expensive but only ~20% more than SeaTac with a Cap Hill starting point.
All things considered, Paine Field is my first choice airport for the area.
There's a bus from the free park and ride. It's quick and easy, especially with an Orca card. There's a little bit of walk from the bus station but you're about to sit for a bunch of time so it's probably a bonus.
Readit News
I thought he was having a heart attack, or possibly diabetic because the flight attendants were telling him it was "going to be okay" and to "take deep breaths", the guy was acting scared and non-violent.
The flight attendant later announced it was a "medical emergency" which I thought it was weird because they never asked if there was a doctor on board. The pilot later explained that there was a "disturbance in the cockpit and we will likely board a new plane". Finally after we landed he was escorted by police.
If he really wanted to crash the plane I imagine he would have succeeded.
I presume you did end up boarding a new plane with a new crew? How long did that take?
Dead Comment
Was anyone, filming? I can't wait to see it as another example of "shapeshifting" on my "For you" tab in Twitter.
> eight-session DBT skills-training intervention (‘WISE Teens) (n = 563) or class-as-per-usual (n = 508). On average, the ‘WISE Teens’ intervention did not improve outcomes with significant deteriorations or null effects observed across outcomes relative to class-as-per-usual immediately post-intervention. The largest deteriorations were observed for depressive (d = −0.22; 95% CI = −0.35, −0.08) and anxiety symptoms (d = −0.28; 95%CI - = −0.41, −0.14
That's obviously significant, especially in terms of the cost of a down airliner, but I'm also a bit dubious that it's the most effective here. It seems like screening could be more effective in preventing needless death, even if there are some controversial false positives.
I'd go a step farther, make it anonymous by design so that real name and identity are never disclosed. That way it builds the confidentiality into the system instead of just giving the illusion of it
but... this is probably never going to happen (at least at scale), it isn't profitable enough
but a good historical analogy would be those confession booths in churches. except, instead of going to the local one the confessor goes to one that's far away enough
That's best case scenario.
For mild depression, you will probably only be out of a job for only several months.
For ADHD, you will be out of a job forever. (Commercial airlines, banner towing, freight on Alaskan puddle jumpers...anything)
- Yours truly, the Good Guys at the FAA
That may sound glib, but I don't mean it to be. If there's a pilot that is hiding their mental health issues because they'll otherwise risk destitution, that's a problem that's solved by a social safety net. Such a safety net would also solve many other social ills, like people stuck with abusive employers, and so on.
Here's what I would accept: a stipulation/restriction on my medical regarding how often I go to therapy, when, and maybe even giving the therapist power to ground me temporarily.
But it would have to apply to only people like me with that restriction.
And that's for a history of depression. I don't really deal with clinical depression now.
Instead, the FAA wanted me on antidepressants, with all of their side effects, and I could not justify that. My wife has never known me on antidepressants (we met over a year after I got off), and I don't know how it would affect my marriage.
But constant therapy and checks? Yeah, I would take that in a heartbeat. I even grounded myself one day after a night where I had to deal with external problems; I wanted to be safe.
IOW, the FAA treats me like a problem; I would love if they treated me as a professional, and I would respond in kind, by being the kind of professional they want.
Deleted Comment
There have been some small changes here and there. One example is the fast-track change to ADHD history. From first glances you can skip the CogscreenAE if you've been off the meds for 4 years and pass some other criteria.
https://www.faa.gov/ame_guide/media/ADHD_fast_track_eval_gen...
This is not a recipe for a mentally healthy subpopulation.
Could be worse, like waiting on the FWS.
> need to be in hospital
It clearly is a mental health issue.
Whether it's a disqualifying, treatable, etc is a valid argument but it is certainly a mental health issue.
You've given me a shitty idea that might work some of the time: We give every airline pilot a pistol. This way if they ever feel the urge to kill themselves they can do it in a hotel room instead of with the airplane. It ensures that the most convenient way for a pilot to die isn't crashing their plane. It will probably slightly increase the number of pilots who kill themselves, but decrease the number who do it by crashing their plane.
...hey, I did say it was a shitty idea.
https://www.faa.gov/pilot-mental-fitness
The FAA’s regulations require airline pilots to undergo a medical exam with an Aviation Medical Examiner (AME) every six months to five years, depending on the type of flying they do and their age.
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-D...
Mental standards for a first-class airman medical certificate are:
These appear to be what they're looking for https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-D...
If you're getting your Adderall not from prescription, they're not going to know till you tell them, but I wonder if they try anything interesting to find you out. I know at least one person who flew but used Adderall daily for work which means that this sort of thing isn't super rigorous.
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Dead Comment
Have the ability for someone on the ground to take over if there is a suspicion of this. Remove the pilot’s ability to disable key systems like in the past examples.
----
To activate they must reach up and pull the handle down and turn it to lock it in place. Pulling the handle cuts electrical and hydraulic power to the engine and closes the fuel line.
Turning the handle then releases a pressurized bottle of fire-suppressing halon gas.
Alaska Air spokesperson Alexa Rudin said via email that “fortunately some residual fuel remains in the line, and the quick reaction of our crew to reset the handles restored fuel flow and prevented fuel starvation.”
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/alask...
Fortunate that they were able to restore fuel flow before the engine was starved for fuel, but, it would have very unlikely been a catastrophic situation had they lost both engines. Modern airliners are designed to restart their engines in flight through various means and can glide for many many miles from cruise altitude giving the crew ample time to do an orderly restart. See: Gimli Glider.
I say this not to excuse or minimize his actions but to emphasize to nervous flyers (like myself) exactly how redundant and safe modern aircraft are and how well trained modern crews are.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZWjSUDTpOg
Pilots are not immune to suicidal ideation, the problem is that they have a unique combination of responsibility, means and opportunity. Roughly 4% of all adults consider suicide at some point in their lives and this isn't any different for pilots.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_by_pilot
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Express_Flight_705
The story, in particular the Mayday episode of it, is really harrowing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxDxwXE_Tv0
And even crazier to ask two times what the previous threat level has been, "for our report", what?? Write your report when we're on the ground. Figure it out yourself. Absolutely no need for those questions during flight.
They should have better methods of obtaining that information, but, I doubt they do.
They did need that information and I don't think it's a poor reflection of that controller.
I wasn't familiar with this scale so I looked it up, it's from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO):
The guy never breached the cockpit, he was already IN the cockpit!
Scary stuff, fortunately he was both deranged and incompetent.
You can listen to pilots moments before they are about to die and they are nearly universally calm and collected.
I like to remember that when things are figuratively on fire.
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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43377461
Deleted Comment
> "There's not much we can do for them apart from say 'thank you'," says Sarandrea. "We send them a certificate of appreciation every five years. When they retire, we give them a memento."
You could... pay them more for the extra risk they take? Very American brain movr, don't pay more for higher risk, and then proudly state it. Patriotism at its finest.
On the other hand, a single pilot behind a reinforced cockpit door can bring down the entire aircraft.
0.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525
The point being, there is no perfect trade off, but that this one is much better than the alternative. In this case, I think most airlines have moved to the incrementally better trade off of ensuring at least two people in the cockpit at all times.
And while we're at it, a host of other aviation "security" rules as well, particularly the liquids rule, the insanity of confiscating nail clippers, or the power-trips that TSA or its sometimes just as nuts European counterparts pull off.
I fly with those all the time, never had them confiscated.
Small airports rock if they fly direct to where you want to go.
My local airport only has 2 direct flight destinations, both of which are major hubs. So almost all trips have a layover. We're located a 2-4 hour drive from 4 much larger airports. By the time you factor in our tiny airport never having a security wait and the 10 minute drive to get there, it takes a lot of layover time to match driving to a bigger city and arriving there 2 hours early. By the time you factor in gas, parking, etc - the price is about the same too (that is tickets cost more, but overall trip cost is equalish).
Definitely worth it for everyone to look at though - just because the flight itself may be cheaper from a bigger airport doesn't mean the overall trip cost will be less, and the small airport experience is generally much nicer than the large airport one for ticketing and security.
Ubers are expensive but only ~20% more than SeaTac with a Cap Hill starting point.
All things considered, Paine Field is my first choice airport for the area.