That’s interesting, @jym626, what have you concluded? Do you mean mental evaluations ordered by the FAA, or do you mean that you are reading info from FAA evaluators?
Mental health and/or cognitive evaluations for pilots that have had any of a variety of issues (eg a DUI, stroke, etc) and are trying to get their medical certificate back.
Ah, that’s interesting. We’ve had a couple of medical evaluations ordered for pilots by my company that haven’t gone so well for them (thankfully). I think you have to be pretty far out there, before a mental health evaluation is ordered by a company or the FAA.
Its varied. Some have been related to a past history of having been on meds for ADHD. Why they would they not want a pilot who had attention problems to hot take his/her meds?? The issue is obvious. They donn’t want pilots who can’t attend. But because pilots want their med clearance, they aren’t always forthright about this. Do they still restrict pilots who need corrective lenses?
Well, the only restriction for corrective lenses, is that on your medical certificate, it mentions it. And when you fly, you need to bring a pair of glasses, and a backup pair. My husband has that on his medical certificate, and has for years, as many pilots do, but it’s not a big deal. I had that on my certificate last year, but this year at the vision exam, I squinted, and passed the vision exam without glasses. As we get older, most of us need something to help us see!
Haven’t heard about anyone who had to take meds for ADHD yet. Though I know people tend to hide everything from their FAA medical examiner. If you mention something one time, you have to address it every single time you have a physical, they really nitnoid you. I have to mention that I was admitted to the hospital for normal childbirth 24 years ago, every single time.
Bd, I listened to the press conference. Telling certain facts is not that the same at all as “admitting culpability”.
But hayden, are you certain that they said they knew BEFORE the crash that he had problems? As I have not heard that one single time, they merely defend that they knew nothing until afterwards. It seems to be a completely different issue to have known before the fact that he had mental and physical problems that would have disqualified him for his job, as opposed to learning that information afterwards. Knowing before the crash seems to be admitting total culpability to me. I can’t believe that they knew he was medically illegal to fly, didn’t stop it, and actually admitted it.
Doctors are supposed to alert the DMV when elderly or others with driver’s licenses should not be driving. Why not an unfit pilot? It seems the privacy laws (world-wide) are conflicting with safety. His doctor said he should not be flying. The doctor should have been able to relay this information to Lufthansa or Germanwings for the safety of the flying publc. That doctor must feel so frustrated that he could have prevented this but was unable to blow the whistle on this first officer before it was too late.
I’ve been to plenty of medical clinics where I didn’t have to identify my occupation. And at the clinics that did ask, I could have easily penciled in “pastry chef”.
Busdriver, I can’t link to a televised press conference, but I do remember specifically one thing. Lutfthansa stopped his pilot training for “burnout”. How many trainees in any profession burn out during training? And what symptoms do you manifest to be pulled from training for burnout? How do you define burnout in a trainee pilot too young and inexperienced to have actually been on the job?
That was a big red flag to me too. I would think that basically someone would just wash out (be dropped) from a program like that if they couldn’t make it through in the specified time. I’d like to find out a little about that program, it sounds like the ab initio pilot training, I know Lufthansa does it, but it really sounds like a mistake to me. I could see being able to take a long break from a program if it was something you were self funding, because you’re paying for it, so they would be flexible. But if the airline was paying for it, and you couldn’t hack it? Why would they keep you on? I would like to hear more about that. It sounds like his excuse was burnout, not depression. But they are saying now that he was 100% qualified, no issues. I understand how people can get burnt out during a really tough training program, I saw it in the military. However, they just suck up the large washout rate, and if you can’t make it, you’re gone. They put additional pressure on people for that purpose.
“Edited to add, I just listened to CNN one minute ago, which reported that Lufthansa said they had no indication that he had any medical or mental conditions. Where did you hear differently?”
I don’t recall the CEO having said that about burnout/mental illness issues at the present time - but only that it was apparent already when he gave his presser that the FO deliberately crashed the plane.
I believe the reference the CEO made regarding his burnout during training had been several years before.They did not know he was having issues at the time of the crash. That wasn’t known until the next day when the slashed notes and medications were found in his house.
I believe the CEO had heard the cockpit voice recorder and knew the transponder data indicated the autopilot had been deliberately changed by the FO after Captain left the cockpit before he gave his press conference - thus ruling out equipment malfunction/mid-air explosion and/or sudden decompression rendering pilots unconscious.
@busdriver11, I feel your pain on the media reporting. I’m not familiar with this particular model aircraft cockpit door, but I understand that the more technical knowledge you have about a situation, the more incompetent the reporting always looks. Some reports have released some details, but if you really want to know what the exact door configuration was and what the exact sounds were on the tape, not just somebody’s top level interpretation, you’re going to have to wait for the final report. The journalists just don’t understand what details an expert would need to understand exactly what happened, and the experts aren’t giving televised interviews.
Good point. I go crazy when I see news stories talking about hospitals threatening to withdraw life support from “comatose” patients against family wishes when the patients are BRAIN DEAD, or talking about miracles of brain dead patients “waking up” when the patients were actually COMATOSE. Such a huge distinction there.
I don’t really “go crazy”, but it’s so frustrating because these stories actually worsen the difficulties of patients and HCW in these critical situations. It’s hard to educate people when they are bombarded with all of these incorrect tales in the media.
Here in DC, we are right now observing what should be the textbook case of how wrong your initial impressions can be when you here the first basic facts: two armed men dressed as women shot after trying to ram the gate at the NSA.
"Here in DC, we are right now observing what should be the textbook case of how wrong your initial impressions can be when you here the first basic facts: two armed men dressed as women shot after trying to ram the gate at the NSA. "
I don’t think you can compare the two cases or you would have to believe the CEO of Lufthansa didn’t have the information that proved the FO deliberately crashed the plane when he gave the presser the day after the crash - even if the motive for doing so was unknown.
" Some reports have released some details, but if you really want to know what the exact door configuration was and what the exact sounds were on the tape, not just somebody’s top level interpretation, you’re going to have to wait for the final report. "
True, MomofJandL, just going to have to wait. I guess I could listen to the tape of the cockpit voice recorder to clear up some questions I have (though it might be in Getman) but I can’t bear to hear the passengers screaming, All those kids. It is horrifying and unbelievable that someone leaked the recording. You’d probably get arrested for doing that over here, as they wait till the investigation is complete and just release parts of it. Terrible.
@busdriver, did they leak the recording or the transcript?
Somebody told me they’d leaked the entire recording, but perhaps they were incorrect, if you hadn’t heard that. I really hope it’s not true.
I believe only the transcript was leaked, not the actual recording.