More pilots than you might think have had suicidal thoughts

How would you feel about getting on a flight knowing that the pilot had been having suicidal thoughts? If you’re a regular passenger, you’ve probably already done it. Few things in aviation evoke greater horror than the prospect of a pilot who deliberately flies a plane into the ground. That’s what happened, notoriously, with Germanwings Flight 9525 in 2015, when 150 were killed after the first officer locked the captain out of the cockpit and steered the plane into an Alpine mountain. It’s such an alarming prospect that some suspected pilot suicides remain hotly disputed, as with the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990 soon after departure from New York in 1999. Intentional crashing is among the theories posited for the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in 2014, though no conclusion has been made. Now that possibility hangs over the fate of China Eastern Airlines Flight 5735, which may have had its controls pushed into a deliberate nosedive ahead of its crash on March 21, The Wall Street Journal reports. For all the understandable alarm that such incidents attract, the solution is almost certainly to be more open about mental health, not more restrictive. Of about a billion commercial aircraft trips carried out since the 1970s, pilot suicide has only been suggested in eight crashes. The far greater risk is that the culture of aviation is preventing pilots from being honest about their state of mind and thus allowing depression and other disorders to fester without sufferers seeking the treatment they need. Commercial pilots are among the few professionals who must pass medical tests, typically taken once a year, to certify their ongoing fitness for work. They’ll include physical checks of eyesight and hearing, as well as asking if pilots have experienced mental health issues or seen a psychologist. Story has more.<br/>