5 ms·

Can someone with aviation experience share how often pilots receive psychological evaluation? I just asked a friend who used to be a pilot for Ryan Air and he

by znt 12y ago

Can someone with aviation experience share how often pilots receive psychological evaluation? I just asked a friend who used to be a pilot for Ryan Air and he said he had never received one.

celticninja 12y ago
Ryanair may not be indicative of the wider airline industry but germanwings was a budget carrier so I reckon it would be similar to Ryanair.
- monksy 12y ago
  GermanWings is the off shoot of Lufthansa. They're cheaper .. but they aren't exactly RyanAir.
leephillips 12y ago
Are you aware of any evidence that there is any such thing as a "psychological evaluation" is any scientifically meaningful sense?
- teddyuk 12y ago
  i'm sure top gun had one so it must be true
- TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
  Actually, yes. There's the MMPI, there are standard tests for conditions like Alzheimer's, and many others. These tests have reasonable - not perfect, but useful - correlations with observable and reported behaviours. I'm not aware of any specific tests for suicidal ideation, but the FAA explicitly disqualifies pilots diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and other personality disorders are cause for concern. I don't know if carriers include other checks. IMO it would be weird if they didn't - but I'm not a carrier. My guess is that if it's aggressive suicide there will be some high-stress triggering incident in the recent past - debt, blackmail, a weird sexual history, a relationship breakup, or something of that ilk. Possibly even a very negative work review from an insane boss. If there's nothing at all, that would be very strange and unusual.
VLM 12y ago
From my memory of taking my 3rd class medical its trust based, if you don't have a written record in your med file of mental problems or tell the doc you have problems then there's no way for them to know. Also from memory a 1st class was pretty much a 3rd class with stricter limits and an electrocardiogram which is why it costs microscopically more. At least in the old days if you got a 1st after it expired, it acted like a 2nd for the remainder of the year, and a 3rd for the next year, but a 1st cost more, so I didn't bother (not expecting to achieve ATP cert within 6 months of my solo LOL) Crudely and inexactly but more or less true, you need a valid 3rd to be a general aviation pilot, a valid 2nd to haul cargo or be a bush pilot, and a valid 1st to work for an airline. Things will be slightly different in Germany but less different than you'd think... we have trust agreements to allow them to fly here and us to fly there so things are vaguely similar but it doesn't matter if my details are slightly off. http://flighttraining.aopa.org/students/presolo/special/medical.html http://flighttraining.aopa.org/students/presolo/special/medi... Finally you have to be realistic. If 25% of the population experiences a mental health issue at some point in their life or whatever ridiculously high percentage, then given the huge fraction of the population flying with issues, issues obviously almost never cause a problem, its right up there with meteor strikes. So you end up with false positive/negative issues. If you assume all men have been dumped by a girlfriend at least once that means roughly 3e9 false positive if you assume all dumped dudes are going to mass murder an entire airplane, a false positive rate of eight nines I think? That idea would be up there with banning German pilots, after all one of them apparently did kill a lot of people and the false postive rate is staggeringly lower than banning all people with mere claustrophobia or a bad attitude or whatever.
- toyg 12y ago
  Could a rise in this sort of accidents (4 in 20 years, unheard-of before) mirror the rise in number of pilots, and the parallel loss of social status? As flying becomes "just another job", you will naturally get a normalized number of whacko pilots. Rather than banning what we cannot see, maybe we should just start seriously considering scenarios where one pilot is a malicious actor.
  - mikeash 12y ago
jordigh 12y ago
I am not a pilot, but my father was and I have a brother who is. When my dad flew, up until the early '00s and past the WTC attacks, there were only yearly medical exams. No psych exams. Like many other pilots, my brother is an alcoholic, and this has given him trouble with some airlines, so he has taken jobs in the Arab world and east Asia (we're Mexican, from Mexico). As far as I know, the airlines have never offered him direct help for his alcoholism. Btw, my brother knew some details about the accident before they were public news, I assume there must be some pilot grapevine where more details about the accident must be shared. Like I imagine most other pilots must be, he's very shaken by the incident. It's a matter of professional pride amongst the pilot community, I assume. My father would sometimes be called as an expert witness for blackbox analysis. As a child, I remember him falling into deep depression whenever he had to do that, and he was always given a couple weeks' vacation time whenever that happened.
- caf 12y ago
  There's actually a forum called the Professional Pilots Rumour Network: http://www.pprune.org/ http://www.pprune.org/
  - jordigh 12y ago
    Thanks, I didn't know this. There's some fascinating speculation from two days ago about what happened in this thread: http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/558654-airbus-a320-crashed-southern-france.html http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/558654-airbus-a320-crashe...
- osullivj 12y ago
  Your brother is an alcoholic in recovery, or a 'functioning' alcoholic? Don't the airlines breathalyse pilots before they fly? An old school friend who's now a commercial pilot told me they're not allowed to drink for 24hrs before flying. I guess if there are no actual checks they can ignore the rules til they get caught...
  - jordigh 12y ago
    He's been... all kinds of alcoholic. He always was able to stop drinking two days before his flights, but I think he slipped once. I don't know if they breathalyse him. He doesn't like to tell me details about it. From what I can tell, he's doing better now. Alcoholism is very common with pilots, though. This much I know, because I met many pilots through him and my father, and boy do they enjoy their drinks. In my dad's time (he was "almost" a WW2 veteran, he was gonna fly on the second Mexican squadron, but the war ended before Mexico sent that squadron), being a pilot was comparable to being a movie star. So much prestige, so much partying. Some of that culture from the middle of the 20th century still lives on, and many pilots still, well, burn bright and burn fast.

by znt 12y ago

Can someone with aviation experience share how often pilots receive psychological evaluation? I just asked a friend who used to be a pilot for Ryan Air and he said he had never received one.

celticninja 12y ago

Ryanair may not be indicative of the wider airline industry but germanwings was a budget carrier so I reckon it would be similar to Ryanair.

monksy 12y ago
GermanWings is the off shoot of Lufthansa. They're cheaper .. but they aren't exactly RyanAir.

leephillips 12y ago

Are you aware of any evidence that there is any such thing as a "psychological evaluation" is any scientifically meaningful sense?

teddyuk 12y ago
i'm sure top gun had one so it must be true
TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
Actually, yes. There's the MMPI, there are standard tests for conditions like Alzheimer's, and many others. These tests have reasonable - not perfect, but useful - correlations with observable and reported behaviours. I'm not aware of any specific tests for suicidal ideation, but the FAA explicitly disqualifies pilots diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and other personality disorders are cause for concern. I don't know if carriers include other checks. IMO it would be weird if they didn't - but I'm not a carrier. My guess is that if it's aggressive suicide there will be some high-stress triggering incident in the recent past - debt, blackmail, a weird sexual history, a relationship breakup, or something of that ilk. Possibly even a very negative work review from an insane boss. If there's nothing at all, that would be very strange and unusual.

VLM 12y ago

From my memory of taking my 3rd class medical its trust based, if you don't have a written record in your med file of mental problems or tell the doc you have problems then there's no way for them to know. Also from memory a 1st class was pretty much a 3rd class with stricter limits and an electrocardiogram which is why it costs microscopically more. At least in the old days if you got a 1st after it expired, it acted like a 2nd for the remainder of the year, and a 3rd for the next year, but a 1st cost more, so I didn't bother (not expecting to achieve ATP cert within 6 months of my solo LOL) Crudely and inexactly but more or less true, you need a valid 3rd to be a general aviation pilot, a valid 2nd to haul cargo or be a bush pilot, and a valid 1st to work for an airline. Things will be slightly different in Germany but less different than you'd think... we have trust agreements to allow them to fly here and us to fly there so things are vaguely similar but it doesn't matter if my details are slightly off. http://flighttraining.aopa.org/students/presolo/special/medical.html http://flighttraining.aopa.org/students/presolo/special/medi... Finally you have to be realistic. If 25% of the population experiences a mental health issue at some point in their life or whatever ridiculously high percentage, then given the huge fraction of the population flying with issues, issues obviously almost never cause a problem, its right up there with meteor strikes. So you end up with false positive/negative issues. If you assume all men have been dumped by a girlfriend at least once that means roughly 3e9 false positive if you assume all dumped dudes are going to mass murder an entire airplane, a false positive rate of eight nines I think? That idea would be up there with banning German pilots, after all one of them apparently did kill a lot of people and the false postive rate is staggeringly lower than banning all people with mere claustrophobia or a bad attitude or whatever.

toyg 12y ago
Could a rise in this sort of accidents (4 in 20 years, unheard-of before) mirror the rise in number of pilots, and the parallel loss of social status? As flying becomes "just another job", you will naturally get a normalized number of whacko pilots. Rather than banning what we cannot see, maybe we should just start seriously considering scenarios where one pilot is a malicious actor.
- mikeash 12y ago

jordigh 12y ago

I am not a pilot, but my father was and I have a brother who is. When my dad flew, up until the early '00s and past the WTC attacks, there were only yearly medical exams. No psych exams. Like many other pilots, my brother is an alcoholic, and this has given him trouble with some airlines, so he has taken jobs in the Arab world and east Asia (we're Mexican, from Mexico). As far as I know, the airlines have never offered him direct help for his alcoholism. Btw, my brother knew some details about the accident before they were public news, I assume there must be some pilot grapevine where more details about the accident must be shared. Like I imagine most other pilots must be, he's very shaken by the incident. It's a matter of professional pride amongst the pilot community, I assume. My father would sometimes be called as an expert witness for blackbox analysis. As a child, I remember him falling into deep depression whenever he had to do that, and he was always given a couple weeks' vacation time whenever that happened.

caf 12y ago
There's actually a forum called the Professional Pilots Rumour Network: http://www.pprune.org/ http://www.pprune.org/
- jordigh 12y ago
  Thanks, I didn't know this. There's some fascinating speculation from two days ago about what happened in this thread: http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/558654-airbus-a320-crashed-southern-france.html http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/558654-airbus-a320-crashe...
osullivj 12y ago
Your brother is an alcoholic in recovery, or a 'functioning' alcoholic? Don't the airlines breathalyse pilots before they fly? An old school friend who's now a commercial pilot told me they're not allowed to drink for 24hrs before flying. I guess if there are no actual checks they can ignore the rules til they get caught...
- jordigh 12y ago
  He's been... all kinds of alcoholic. He always was able to stop drinking two days before his flights, but I think he slipped once. I don't know if they breathalyse him. He doesn't like to tell me details about it. From what I can tell, he's doing better now. Alcoholism is very common with pilots, though. This much I know, because I met many pilots through him and my father, and boy do they enjoy their drinks. In my dad's time (he was "almost" a WW2 veteran, he was gonna fly on the second Mexican squadron, but the war ended before Mexico sent that squadron), being a pilot was comparable to being a movie star. So much prestige, so much partying. Some of that culture from the middle of the 20th century still lives on, and many pilots still, well, burn bright and burn fast.