“That sounds easy enough, doesn’t it?”
Yes, it sounds easy - but I know it’s not. Doesn’t stop people from saying it all the time regardless of what one’s job is.
“Yes, it sounds easy - but I know it’s not. Doesn’t stop people from saying it all the time regardless of what one’s job is”"
Well, I suppose there are some jobs where it’s not that difficult. For example, my son just quit his very good job so he would have time to apply for others. He’s got a list of over twenty companies that he’s talking to, and when the offers come in, he’s going to be able to weigh them and have them compete against each other. I’m hoping he has choices. But in aviation, the more time and experience you have with your company, the more difficult it is to leave, no matter the conditions. It’s a different new world out there in some occupations, but I doubt that most occupations have that flexibility.
Only one thing is unsettling about it.
In my state, if I have anything that could cause an “impairment or loss of motor function”, my doctor is REQUIRED BY LAW to tell our division of motor vehicles so they can suspend my license.
HOW can doctors get away with not doing the same thing for commercial pilots, driver, and train engineers? If there was a doctor’s note that the guy tore up, WHY is there not an immediate system for him to BAN the guy from flying indefinitely until cleared?
At best, I could take out myself and maybe a few more. This guy took out over a hundred because he was having a “break”. BUT he was under a doctor’s care!!!
Emily and bus- I feel like I am in a different universe. You two usually come down on different sides of that discussion
Tom, I can assure you are not in a different universe. 
It’s a stressful job, and it wreaks havoc with family life, being away so much.
“It’s a stressful job, and it wreaks havoc with family life, being away so much.”
Easy in the sense of quitting your job as a pilot - not that the job is easy.
But that being said, many jobs are stressful and wreck havoc with family life.
That’s what I don’t get.
Like, people meet, people get married. Most people already have their careers decided for better or worse by then - do you think there are 30 year olds who never flew who suddenly want to be an airline pilot?
If you love someone AND you don’t mind being away from them, if you have kids, they will not see that parent that much. If you don’t have kids, you won’t see them that much. It’s a choice. If you are looking for a one-in-a-million spouse, you’ve got 7,000 people to choose from…
My spouse and I have both changed jobs for each other, and moved for each other. Neither of us was interested in a lot of travel, and both of us have done some with our jobs. About the only “havoc” that gets wreaked is when he is so busy that he is asked to work 20+ hours of overtime per week (paid thank goodness) and each time this happened for a few months, “coincidentally” he ended up with health issues. The other “havoc” is that we both have had to work night shifts on occasion, being asked to or forced to, which is difficult when switching from day shift plus overlap and child care issues.
I feel that being an airline pilot is a calling, like the military or being a cop or firefighter. Anyone who goes into it with another idea truly is going the wrong way. I do think that people can lose their “calling”, just like the stereotypical priest or minister who loses his calling. But in both cases, it can be very hard to let go when there is still the “dream” of what the calling was supposed to be.
Not many jobs involve spending half the year away staying in hotels w hot flight attendants. Not a good dynamic for insecure spouses.
Busdriver can chime in here but from what I understand, flying is a passion so giving up a job and finding something else because the one you have is not paying well may not be an option. Also, you cannot easily just leave one airline for another without dropping in seniority and all that it entails e.g bidding for flights, not to mention pay.
“Not many jobs involve spending half the year away staying in hotels w hot flight attendants. Not a good dynamic for insecure spouses”
I don’t know, have you taken a good look at the flight attendants lately? Seniority = getting older and fatter, for pilots and flight attendants. Good thing worse vision comes along with aging! 
“I feel that being an airline pilot is a calling, like the military or being a cop or firefighter. Anyone who goes into it with another idea truly is going the wrong way. I do think that people can lose their “calling”, just like the stereotypical priest or minister who loses his calling. But in both cases, it can be very hard to let go when there is still the “dream” of what the calling was supposed to be.”
Yes, I think it is a calling. At least it starts out that way, and often turns into just a job, but still your identity. Most pilots cannot imagine doing anything else. As far as being away from your family, it is variable. I see some guys with multiple divorces, who are working all the time, trying to make the big bucks (I guess to pay for their ex wives). I see others who work as little as possible, have long term marriages, and their neighbors think they are unemployed, because they are always around. I am fortunate enough to work for a company that lets us work as little or as much as we choose, much of the time. Most people work extra, but me and my husband have both worked about 2/3 of a schedule for years, doing opposite schedules for 21 years so there was always someone at home. My husband had far more time with the kids than most dads with full time jobs had. It’s weird with the kids gone, actually working at the same time. It depends a lot upon where you work, where you choose to live, and how much income you want.
I guess the spouse doesn’t have to worry about flight attendants if the spouse knows who really is the one who has married up. 
But that’s the topic of another thread…
Getting back to the topic of this thread, it is being reported that the co-pilot was indeed suffering from some sort of mental illness which he hid from his employer. http://www.cnbc.com/id/102541932
Apparently, he received recent treatment for vision problems: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/29/world/europe/pilot-andreas-lubitz-sought-treatment-for-vision-problems-before-germanwings-crash-authorities-say.html
Pure speculation, but maybe it was something neurological that affected thinking, vision, etc?
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar
From another thread, just quit and join Goldman Sachs, at least if you have an Ivy league degree.
^ shaking head
“Pure speculation, but maybe it was something neurological that affected thinking, vision, etc?”
As GMTplus7 said, maybe a cigar is just a cigar. Perhaps he just needed glasses. Then again, the tabloids are saying it was something more serious. Speculation, or truth?
His psychological background is indeed damning. If the medication they found was some sort of anti-depressants and he was flying while taking them, there are almost no anti-depressants that are approved by the FAA that you can fly with. I’m assuming that the Europeans would have similar rules. From what I’ve read, there is an occasional single use anti-depressant you can get approved for, but it’s very difficult. You would have to be grounded while taking any of these medications. If he popped a bunch of relaxants during the flight that made him barely conscious, that would explain the regular breathing all the way to the ground, while people were screaming. Does make you wonder if there is any liability involved, with a doctor prescribing that kind of medication to a pilot, and not reporting it…if that’s the case.
However, I still can’t get over the flight crew’s lack of entering the emergency access code. If I wasn’t getting a response from the first officer, my assumption would be that he was incapacitated, not purposefully ignoring me. All the knocking and yelling in the world isn’t going to get you through that door. But since the investigation isn’t complete, perhaps the code was entered and overridden, and that has not been released yet. Or perhaps they panicked. We’ll have to wait for the details, I suppose.
If the door is manually locked from the inside disabling the codes (which I think I read somewhere) perhaps the buzzer doesn’t go off.
If that is correct, that would be the most incredibly stupid design ever, and nothing like the design on our Airbus doors. You always need to be able to emergency access from outside the cockpit door, in case the person left in the cockpit is incapacitated.