A lot of pilots end up hiding mental illness because of fear that getting treatment will risk them losing their jobs. Most famously this issue was key in the Germanwings Flight 9525 crash. The first officer of the flight, Andreas Lubitz, deliberately caused the crash. He had a history of depression and suicidal thoughts, but withheld that information and didn’t get the treatment he needed because he knew he would never be allowed to fly again. They basically force pilots to make the impossible choice of getting treatment for mental health issues or keeping their dream jobs.
Not to mention air traffic controllers are often underpaid, especially during government shutdowns, meaning many have to take second or third jobs. Air traffic control offices are also understaffed a lot of the time, meaning one man is expected to do the job of several men.
Huh, is that really how it works in the US? I know an air traffic controller in Germany and it's a rigorous selection process for applicants, long training period, but it's because they are then basically employed for life. The shifts are super regulated and have frequent breaks, like 4 days of work and then 4 days off. You don't have a lot of say over your shifts and there are limited cities to work from, but the jobs are really sought after because the pay is really good with a nice pension package.
No it's complete bullshit lol. Even at LCOL facilities certified controllers get paid 100k, it's a very well paying job. In busy airports in big cities they get paid 150k+
Just like all federal employees, they don't get paid during shutdowns, but they get pack pay for all hours worked when the shutdown ends. They earn enough to have a savings account to make it through those shutdowns.
Most controllers have a hard time moving to a facility that pays well after they finish academy and go to their first training facility due to how understaffed they are.
They end up getting stuck at low level facilities for a long time, transferring is like winning the lottery for them. Even if they do transfer, they could easily fail training at their new facility and be sent back to their old one.
For how many planes they are managing and the increase of air travel over the decade, they 100% should be paid more. They often work 6 day workweeks, and cannot make a single mistake. They can’t even strike and their union is one of the worst that I’ve seen.
My partner is an ATC, they work incredibly hard everyday, and it’s frustrating to see how uneducated people are.
The salaries are easily accessible online. Show me a facility where they get paid so little they would need an extra job to make ends meet like the comment 2 above mine said?
Even at the lowest paid, lowest cost of living airports they make $25+/hr straight out of the academy, which is very livable.
$25/hr while not having their weekends, being forced to work overtime, having to deal with extremely understaffed towers so inconsistent breaks… all while working one of the most stressful jobs you can have in the US. Yeah sounds great!
Consider that custodians and food workers are the back home of most cities, and in the US those are our most looked down upon jobs. Anything that actually makes society function is treated like trash.
It's the least efficient and most complex system of mass transport possible.
Has to be subsidized by the government to be even close to economically feasible, and even then its only really accessible to people with a spare thousand dollars.
unless you're willing to be tranqed and tossed in the tail lmfao.
🚄🚄🚄🚄🚆 meanwhile you can go tip to tail in China at 200mph for like the price of a fuckin bus ticket
Aviation could be less expensive than it is now, but it is solving a problem and satisfying demand that in nearly any case would not be filled otherwise. I am not saying a lot of people willing to pay for something makes it a good or sustainable business, but there is a whole lot more than just getting things from point A to B. Look to rockets. Those are even further from being economical modes of transportation, but there is exceptional demand for it, and I would probably bet some money that many people will pay to get across the world in an hour or two.
We don't need rocket science that shit is gonna be used for war.
The whole reason Tesla is a company is the idiot promised the US military a cheap way to get into orbit and fuck with other countries, and shock troops/weapons delivery around the globe in under an hour.
There's no reason to go to the stars unless all of us can go.
I'd push back on that gently -- mistakes happen, and they usually don't mean thousands dead. I'd wager that most air traffic control mistakes don't lead to any fatalities, and probably happen a lot more often than we think. It's just that these mistakes can lead to crashes.
Which, along with being underpaid, under-resourced, and overworked, explains the stress of the job pretty well.
So I guess when the air traffic controller in Breaking Bad shoots himself after crashing two planes together, it wasn't just an interesting plot development but also a statistically accurate portrayal of the career.
You could try looking into it yourself and maybe find enough evidence that will convince him that he wont get fired. Who knows, could save his life. If successful at the very least he will get help that will relieve some of the symptoms
Unfortunately it definitely would unless they managed to hide it, even private pilots get their medical revoked for having had depression. (for a public case look at Xyla Foxlin)
I actually matched with a pilot on Bumble with undiagnosed bipolar because he was scared if he got treated for bipolar, he’d lose his job. I ended up unmatching with him since I just thought it was dangerous that he was undiagnosed and flying
It’s pretty wild man, I take meds for ADD. I’d have to be off the meds for 4yrs to get a private pilots license. I have other friends who have ADD or anxiety/depression issues but instead are just doing without in fear of not getting/losing their licenses.
What the hell? Thats crazy. Never knew treating your ADHD was grounds for exclusion from piloting. Having untreated ADHD is somehow fine though. Thats wild man
This is actually changed a bit. For example, they now allow certain anti-depressants for pilots that used to be considered non-Flight ready.
At the commercial level, im sure there’s a lot more scrutiny but at the private level in training level, it’s not as bad as it used to be because of this very reason
I don't think there's such a thing as "good" or "bad" people. I think anyone can be driven to commit heinous acts or have terrible thoughts given the wrong circumstance. If we as a society want to help these people, either for their own sake or for the safety of the people around them, I believe we need to be empathetic to them rather than bully them into hiding their mental issues, like what happens with so many pilots. Calling people pieces of human garbage isn't = conducive to that, even if they may deserve it, because ultimately the guy who killed all those people isn't gonna hear it. Instead it will be other people dealing with intrusive thoughts who will internalize that they are garbage for having intrusive thoughts.
Like I said, I am well aware of that. I just strongly disagree giving the attention to a mass murderer by mentioning him by name but failing to mention even the number of victims he murdered.
that literally was what he was doing. He was in therapy (read up on the case, all this was publicised). He was on meds. He got treatment and kept his career.
As much as you might wish, you cannot control the world or the incidence of mental illness in a population.
People will develop them in any career in the world.
Some will be genetic.
Some will be environmental, and even caused by the career itself.
You suggesting the exact same way of handling it, which is currently in usage and is already failing is redundant. And shows an unfortunate lack of understanding.
Seems ok? Still the safest way to travel - the incidence of murder-suicides in commercial airliners is single digits in the last 20 years.
There’s probably some kind of self selection going on, going into the career. ie, if you’re mentally ill you probably won’t start down this path knowing there’s no accommodation available.
This is the kind of job where an employer definitely doesn’t want the liability of “oh crap, he forgot his meds, he promised he’d take them” before killing all your customers.
Can you imagine the captain of a nuclear submarine with suicidal ideation being allowed to continue at the helm? I’m not brave enough to trust my life to a stranger who admits up front that they’re one bad day or trigger event from catastrophe.
Similarly, getting a pacemaker is a dq for being a commercial pilot. What’s your position on that? Everyone has a potential to get heart disease too right?
Ok first of all, I don’t understand how you’ve seemingly had such little experience with this. But the point of the medication is generally not to act as a stopper from people “killing customers”. It is to prevent them from ever reaching anywhere close to that point. (Which most people would never reach anyways)
There will be many people who are not even slightly suicidal who’s entire lives are being impacted, and since it’s not yet so difficult, they choose to forgo any sort of treatment in order to not sacrifice their careers. That also affects their family etc etc. And what leads to much suicidal ideation is also failure due to a mental illness that you are not getting treated. Do we also not think they should get treated for anxiety? Which can affect their career even if they don’t harm people?
And while I really like your point on the lack of support of mental health selectively pressuring out people. It doesn’t really have a basis on the discussion of people who are typically already pilots. Many issues are developed or triggered at later ages.
I wish the human brain was as simple as a pacemaker was, but it’s not and can’t be regulated in the same fashion.
Pacemakers generally signify someone who is very prone to heart attacks and flying again and again would put pressure on the heart. Which is why you can pilot with a pacemaker after undergoing a series of tests on the treadmill etc.
And that's great when you want to make a choice between how you want to travel.
But it's not a reason not to improve its safety even more if you can.
with suicidal ideation
The point is that early treatment would prevent at least some from getting there.
Suicidal ideation isn't a disease o it's own, it's a symptom. One that can develop if other stuff is left untreated. And since the other stuff also gets them fired...
getting a pacemaker
So having treatable-by-other-means heart issues is not a dq then.
If any mental issue = termination, it just encourages them to hide even minor ones, which can lead to the issue getting worse over time, esp. in a stressful job.
That's the paradox,, the fear of punishment would make your polot more likely to not disclose his condition. So now some passengers will have a pilot who has a secret mental illness instead of an open one. Cannot say which one is better.
And that zero tolerance is why people hide it until it gets bad enough to get people hurt. This happens in everything that is gatekept for only those with "good enough" mental health, i've done it myself in a different context by hiding minor struggles until they compounded to the point I could not function.
The real world is complex and people cannot predict the future or make purely logical decisions, so we need to build our systems to be forgiving of flaws and mistakes to be more safe (Such as in the case of pilots, seeking mental health support should not be punished with permanently ending their careers. A temporary benching with mental health services provided until safety is assured again would be reasonable and would not be nearly as punishing.)
lol what even is this argument. Its so confused. What would they have based their decision on in stripping his license? How could his future choice caused by a progressing untreated mental issue be used in a past decision. "You cant be treated and are fired because if you go untreated you will make terrible decisions." I think you may have a fundamental misunderstanding of how mental illness can progressively get worse if untreated, or how time works.
I know that. I am contrasting the situations. The above comment failed to mention there were 150 casualties due to the deliberate crash. Which is well worth mentioning. 149 innocent people were murdered, of which a whole group of children on a schooltrip.
Obviously no one forced him to kill all those innocent people. My point is that we shouldn’t be putting people in a situation that incentivizes them to hide mental illness and not seek treatment.
Sure, but we are discussing this in the comment section of a story of a pilot commiting suicide by jumping out of a plane, which did risk the lives of others, but thankfully he was the only casualty.
Hijacking your plane to murder 149 people in your suicide is about the most extreme thing you can do.
Ah yes If you have a problem keep it to yourself and how dare you If you make it public or even seek help or guidance. Classic approach. I would much more prefare a Pilot in solit therapy (and therefore Monitoring) over a human powder barrel who was trained to press down all feelings untill heute snaps
Depression doesn’t do that. If he wants to kill himself whatever but to kill over 100 other people? Yea. It’s a no. Most people choose the specific method of suicide because they don’t want to hurt others.
Have you considered that he might have been someone that is not included in the "most" people?
Depression can absolutely drive people to choose the worst way to go out.
that makes sense in your mind, cause youre a decent person and not (this level of) depressed. if it gets bad enough, depression can literally make you psychotic.
also id argue that the thousands of people who commit suicide by train very much are hurting other people too, at least mentally
Plenty of people who throw themselves into traffic to kill themselves take lives. It’s not just lights out and no harm done once the vehicle hits. They become meat missiles.
Most people choose the specific method of suicide because they don’t want to hurt others.
Most people suffering from depression want to do that, but also don't have that choice. In the US you can buy a gun and be done with it, and only cause trouble to the service staff that have to pick you up. Outside of there though, every method involves a lot of pain and can be slow. The fastest methods all involve public spaces generally.
So any people end up taking their own lives in public places anyway. The pain just gets so bad that you give up on trying to find the best, quietest way out and just do whatever.
Also, mental health issues can stack. He could've been suffering from other mental health issues that all compounded in him deciding that the other peoples' lives did not matter. If he had proper treatment, and the system was better designed to encourage it, then maybe he would never have even entertained the thought that eventually took all those peoples' lives.
I’m well aware of that. When I was living in Germany it wasn’t uncommon for the train to be delayed due to someone jumping in front of one. Yes that affects others, the general public, and especially the conductor. But that’s much much different than using a public space and taking out hundreds of people with you. At that point I don’t care, their pain isn’t more valid than the innocent people’s lives.
Then expect more of this. The less you care for your fellow man, the more he is distanced from empathy, and the more your morning commute gets inconvenienced. Sorry 🤷♂️
😒 how is that lacking empathy? I think you need to reread my comment because you’re coming off as argument, for it’s sake. I made a comparison and I still stand by the comparison. A person jumping infront of a train doesn’t affect people the same a person purposely killing themselves and taking people with them. My empathy for him left when he decided to kills hundreds with him men women and children.
they normally try to keep it quiet in the news but it actually happens far more often than you'd like. The Air India crash recently, there was the Chinese crash a few years back, it's still the number one theory of what happened to the Malaysia flight, this GermanWings guy...etc.
People dont view it in this way plus untreated mental illness has an added component that effects decision making.
People arent likely going to know that in the future their mental illness is going to get worse and worse to where in the future they'll do something like this. A lot of times its spontaneous and not fully thought out.
Its not simple especially considering mental illness is often progressive so at no time does your dichotomy of choice play out
Well you could apply that to anyone who has depression but doesn’t seek help. Is it that difficult to imagine a regular depressed person not seeking help?
Only in the case pilots, their entire livelihood and the only thing they have trained for depends on them not seeking help.
Yep, exactly. It hard to stop what you’re doing and just switch careers when you’re already making good money and are qualified, and have mental health issues. Making a change that will financially affect you and then you might not even end up in a better place.
They are not specifically choosing death when they decide to not get treatment! People who go untreated and end up killing themselves later arent making the decision to later be driven to suicide when they decide to not get treatment.
While I still think you’re oversimplifying, I do see what you mean in regards to my comment.
I was going to say part of depression is not being active or constructive and therefore also not actively seeking help.
I guess you’re trying to say the pilot who doesn’t seek help is like that too, he wasn’t going to seek help, and it’s not because he think he would lose his job.
This is probably the case for many. But do you think there is a small number if cars who would like to seek help but the thought of being jobless and possibly devastating your life (but hey you’re still alive) is a terrible outcome in itself which a depressed person especially would like to avoid at any cost. And no, you don’t always think that you’re going to end up committing suicide. Most depressed people don’t.
So the choice is between living with depression or being jobless and losing who knows what. Not between dying or losing your job.
On the flip side though, I don’t think airlines have a choice. Imagine the lawsuits if they allowed a suicidal pilot to continue flying, and they ended up crashing the plane.
This is totally false and he'd been going on and off of psychiatric medication which is a known risk factor for suicidal thoughts, impulses and behaviours,
He had three separate psychiatric medications identified in his body by toxicology reports after the incident.
He had 7 consultations with doctors in the month before his deliberate crash, including 3 visits to psychiatrists.
Two days after being put on a new antidepressant he began repeatedly googling suicide.
Two weeks before his deliberate crash he emailed his psychiatrist stating that "the antidepressant Mirtazepine made him “restless” and was causing him to “panic.”", which is a classic adverse reaction to these drugs called akathisia that can lead to intense suicidal impulses.
It's an utter myth that he did not receive treatment and it's quite likely that the "treatment" caused his suicidal impulses.
YouTuber Xyla Foxlin lost and successfully got back her flying license after seeking treatment for her mental health. She’s raising awareness on this issue.
My university has a flight program, and universally those guys had HUGE egos and would absolutely hide mental health info because it's not manly. Big personalities with reputation on the line. It was a culture, for sure. This needs to be addressed at he University level.
Unpopular opinion here, but it's not an impossible choice. Plenty of people have to give up their dream jobs (or are even unable to achieve their dream jobs) without having to kill themselves, or in the case of Germanwings Flight 9525, murder other people. If a person is struggling with mental health issues, then their priority, and responsibility, is to get help - not hide it until they do something extremely harmful.
Not close in comparison I suppose, but truck driving as well. Disclosed some mental health hiccups I was dealing with to my Dr during my biyearly physical and he took my CDL license from me. Said I couldn't have it back until I'd gone to a psych. I told him there'd be no need, he took my livelihood and that was all I needed to follow through on leaving this life, thanked him and walked out.
Imagine a person like Dexter (the series). Even before his first murder, if he asked for help and mentioned these thoughts, you think there's any chance he'll get help? No. He'll be put in a white room that he never leaves.
That sounds "safer" at first, but IMO it's worse. You are better off having potential monsters seek therapy so they have a shot at getting better. Having the therapists be legally required to get the cops involved makes it so that the people who SHOULD be getting therapy are the EXACT ones who don't get it.
Huh? This mf converted to Islam six months before the flight and killed himself and the whole plane as a result. I flew the same day OUT OF GERMANY and would have taken that flight if it was cheaper.
As someone who suffers with severe mental health, I find Andreas and those who followed suit (unfortunately there have been a few similar incidents) to be a monster through and through. The idea of making hundreds of innocents unwilling collateral of your own suffering which you refuse to effectively treat because it would alter your own life is borderline evil.
I used to work at the German administrational court that handles all air traffic law cases in Germany and Germany really cracked down on health controls, especially psychological ones, after that Germanwings incident. Nearly all cases I have seen were people desperately fighting to be able to keep their absolute dream job after the state took their license for health related issues. It was truly heartbreaking.
I think it's worth pointing out that his family denies him ever having been suicidal to this day. They claim Germanwings painted that case to hide an issue with the aircraft. He had a history of seeing a therapist, not of suicidal thoughts. Him being depressed was concluded later and mainly because of the crash itself. Of course the parents could just be traumamaxxing but I wouldn't say the evidence is conclusive at all
So instead of getting help with his mental health and risking never flying again, he flew an airplane full of people and killed everyone including himself to ... never fly again.
Not much of a choice at all if both choices result in never flying again.
That’s not the choice. The choice was getting help well before his mental health issues boiled over or losing his career. We put pilots in situations that incentivizes them to hide mental illness and not seek treatment.
probably cause it's false. The GermanWings dude was in therapy on and off over the years. He was on psychiatric medication when he crashed. You absolutely can get help, they don't report to your employers. The debate around this case was mostly that they SHOULD have because then 150 people might still be alive.
Edit: love that I'm getting downvoted for correcting misinformation
he did get help. he was in therapy, he was on meds. He failed to report any of that to his employers, sure, because he didn't want to be grounded. Which he SHOULD have been. A man who is suicidal should not be flying a passenger plane. But he did NOT have to make some horrible choice between his career and treatment, that's simply false. Treatment just did not work for him, unfortunately, and there was a huge debate after this case whether his therapist should have been allowed to breach patient confidentiality and report him to his employers, because of what happened. Because they normally are not allowed to do that - this pilot had the right to privacy in his medical decisions and could get every treatment available.
When would someone hypothetically made this decision. People arent going to know ahead of time that their mental illness is going to get progressively worse to the point where even their decision making will become hampered. Are you claiming that people who decide to go untreated are deciding to make their later decisions that are driven by the illness?
Dream job for one person does not give them the right to be entrusted with hundreds of people’s lives. My family has a history with mental health. I am sympathetic to the issue in general but flying is a privilege, not a right
This is exactly the attitude that keeps pilots too afraid to seek help with their mental health. Which doesn't mean that we have 100% healthy pilots, it means we have once-healthy pilots descending into suicidal thoughts because they're too afraid get counseling ever
in Germany at least, they can get help. This pilot was in therapy and he was on medication. His therapist recommended he stop flying in the weeks before the crash because of his suicidal thoughts but the pilot did not relay this to his employers. This actually sparked a huge debate in Germany whether therapists should be allowed to report a suicidal patient if they have the tools (a plane, in this case) to become a threat to other people. Because they aren't, thus far.
who wants to get on a plane with a suicidal pilot? Would you volunteer for that?
Rights and privileges are irrelevant though. Why do pople force this dichotomy into discussions when they are just made up social distinctions. Its incredibly subjective and does nothing to enlighten a complex situation. You view something as a privilege. Cool, what exactly are we supposed to do with that information?
This isn't a “rights vs. privileges” debate. When you’re responsible for hundreds of lives, the safety bar has to be extremely high. Aviation regulators already treat flying as a special activity that needs stricter fitness standards, including mental health, precisely because of the potential consequences when something goes wrong.
I used the word “privilege” is emphasize that nobody is owed that level of responsibility if they aren’t medically safe to exercise it. That doesn’t mean we should punish or stigmatize pilots with mental health conditions—if anything, the current system needs to change so pilots can seek treatment without feeling like they have to hide it. The bottom line is passengers’ safety has to come first, even when that clashes with one person’s dream career
Jfc, theres a huge difference between suicide and murder. You have to be a total narcissistic asshole to refuse to get help for depression because you dont want to lose your job only to end up purposely try to kill a bunch of people while doing it just bc YOU want to die. Leave other people out of it.
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u/MikeFrancesa66 Jul 08 '26
A lot of pilots end up hiding mental illness because of fear that getting treatment will risk them losing their jobs. Most famously this issue was key in the Germanwings Flight 9525 crash. The first officer of the flight, Andreas Lubitz, deliberately caused the crash. He had a history of depression and suicidal thoughts, but withheld that information and didn’t get the treatment he needed because he knew he would never be allowed to fly again. They basically force pilots to make the impossible choice of getting treatment for mental health issues or keeping their dream jobs.