Page Links: First Previous 1 2 3 4 Last Index Page
B2N2
July 15, 2025, 23:50:00 GMT permalink Post: 11923351 |
What we do know is that it\x92s less likely for the PF than it is for the PM to manipulate FCO switches. For the simple fact that the PF is rather busy and concentrated on other things like doing pilot stuff and the PM is well\x85.monitoring. Would you as CA and PM not even try to stop the PF from throwing the second switch? Versus the PF who may detect motion in his periferal vision but is concentrating on rotation and looking through the HUD? The CA had taken bereavement leave 3 years ago and according to Indian sources leave for mental health reasons? How would you suggest we connect the dots? https://liveandletsfly.com/air-india-flight-171-pilots/ https://www.ibtimes.sg/was-air-india...g-probed-80758 |
Mrshed
July 16, 2025, 06:03:00 GMT permalink Post: 11923446 |
It was your suggestion that the pilot here potentially had been allowed to retire rather than being sacked that I think is a little far in speculation given no evidence behind it. |
JustusW
July 16, 2025, 10:23:00 GMT permalink Post: 11923614 |
Attention, Wall of Text incoming. Take appropriate precautions and fasten your seatbelts!
I will say that in reading your earlier post, I came away thinking you were arguing for the unlikelihood of suicide in this case, at least in part because it is unlikely in the world of commercial aviation as a historical fact. If that's not the case, I apologize. But I will add I think other commentary here has fallen into this trap, as discussed in my referenced post.
There have been many accidents where unindicated or even counter indicated action was taken by one or more pilots involved. As discussed in the first and second thread extensively many pilots could report incidents where they observed someone retracting flaps instead of gear. There have been major fatal accidents with pilots shutting down healthy engines instead of surging or burning ones. There's good reason the 787 has extensive takeoff configuration warnings, because we have had accidents and incidents with unsafe configurations taken to takeoff, beyond and sometimes even into a crash. Humans make mistakes. It is the goal of Safety Culture to prevent those mistakes from causing harm.
But TL;DR - I'd posit that the rate of truly experienced mental health issues experienced in pilots is higher than whatever rate almost anyone is thinking.
Around 12% of people globally have a mental health issue at any given time - even being incredibly conservative, the rate in pilots is clearly going to be at least in single whole figure percentages (which is far from rare). Obviously the majority of these issues are not going to be those with severe outcomes, but some will. And almost all mental health issues tend to affect cognitive ability to at least some level. Slowness in action and fatigue are diagnostic criteria for many of the most common mental health conditions for example. Currently 12.6% of pilots meet the medical threshold for depression, with a slight but below average difference between males (12.8%) and females (11.4%), with 4.1% of all pilots experiencing recent suicidal thoughts. https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/...940-016-0200-6 It should be noted that the utilized test (PHQ-9) is considered insufficient to assess suicide risk. Depending on scoring these values could be about average, or significantly below average. Based on their wording I would expect the latter, because their methodology does not specify severity.*1 Results of 0-4 points suggest no intervention necessary, 5-9 (classified as mild) simply suggest retaking the test after a few weeks. Research shows that for the general public Major Depressive Episodes have a prevalence of ~5-10%, with the prevalence of minor depression being less studied but significantly higher than major depression. There is also significant symptomatic overlap of mild depression with stress related conditions such as "Burnout" (if you know, please don't, this conversation is already complex enough without bringing that in). Considering the prevalence of stress in the industry I am actually surprised the numbers here are not higher. The lesser delta between males and females could be indicative of just such an issue, meaning that based on the data available the number of pilots actually suffering from depression could be less than even the comparably low number reported here. The actual suicide risk is usually orders of magnitude below even that but not easily covered in this data context due to the test used. Cognitive impact is highly variable depending on the individual, actual symptoms and severity. It would be wrong to assess that 12.6% of pilots are a risk factor from this data. Quite the opposite, in fact. After the Germanwings crash the topic was discussed and has reached the awareness threshold for many. Mild cases usually require little to no intervention beyond raising awareness and helping the brain fix its chemistry through positive reinforcement. This can be as simple as taking PTO, reducing work hours, or focusing on social or physical activities. In the past 10 years these kinds of low impact measures have been made more readily available, most notably during the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting turmoil. Further political activity has lead to some positive action as well. I already mentioned the recent success of the Pilot Mental Health Campaign getting legislation through Congress for improvements of the outdated FAA guidelines on mental health in an earlier post. Similar efforts are underway globally, be that internal review within regulatory bodies, or political movements.
As a critical care physician (with AVMED background), these last few years we seeing unprecedented rates of self-reported stress, anxiety, depression, and deliberate self-harm. This is being experienced in most western countries (perhaps globally, but I have less direct knowledge of non-western countries). It is absolutely off the scale. In my 35 year career, I have never seen anything like the last 4 years.
Sadly, I am confident this phenomenon will result in more incidents like Germanwings, MH370 and this. This is certainly a challenge for healthcare everywhere, but I do not consider the data available to be majorly applicable in the context of aviation over the already very current research closer to the industry and GA. The positive impact of what has been done and is being done is highly likely to outperform whatever global mechanism is at work here. It's certainly a very important field of study, but based on the data I would still consider the industry and regulators as a global whole to be on a positive path. We can certainly discuss this topic further, but I would not currently see it as likely to be causal in this particular case. Overall I am still not convinced we are looking at an individuals mental health crisis in this case. I have already detailed the massive differences to all known or suspected cases of pilot suicide at least twice. There is no evidence of mental health issues for the Captain or the FO. There is certainly a strong indication for a human factors cause to this accident. And as mentioned above I find the idea of improving the safety of the Fuel Cutoff Switches a worthwhile topic to discuss. No single action, and I see these two switches as a single action just as much as operating both thrust levers, should be able to cause a major accident. I find it perfectly reasonable to require the Throttle Levers be at idle for the Cutoff Switches to work, and in case of an incorrect setting some sort of alert would be appropriate. *EDIT* *1: I missed this in my original readthrough, the cutoff is sensibly set to 10, starting with moderate depression. I'd have to look into the classification scheme but from memory both mild and moderate depression fall into the same category as relevant for the following statements. Last edited by JustusW; 16th July 2025 at 10:37 . |
Lord Farringdon
July 16, 2025, 11:33:00 GMT permalink Post: 11923656 |
In a similar manner pilots can make errors, some small, some large that subsequently turn into disasters but at the time they thought their act or omission was the right thing to do. They didn't just do something absentmindedly that clearly wasn't the right thing to o. But you suggest that during a critical phase of flight any highly experienced, professional pilot with thousands of hours under their belt can have an action slip or 'brain fart' and switch off fuel to all engines. Well in that case we should all be very worried and never fly again since every airliner has two crew who by your reckoning could potentially expose their inner 'brain fart' capacity and randomly (but unintentionally) deselect some very important switches during takeoff. I, m sorry but I just don't buy that. I'd much rather accept that we have a very few CPT Fruit Loop and FO Looney Tunes types out there who are intent on bringing the aircraft down but that the chances of being on a flight operated by them is extremely slim. |
Musician
July 17, 2025, 13:34:00 GMT permalink Post: 11924410 |
The issue of intent
Assumed: a pilot moved both fuel switches to CUTOFF, and that caused the accident.
Argument against intent: 1. The CVR, taken at face value, reveals that neither pilot was aware he had moved the switch himself 2. On a G650 simulator, CUTOFF after 10 seconds (then RUN after 10 more seconds) was barely recoverable. ( See upthread. ) This suggests the "unrecoverability" window on the 787 was quite short, making a suicide plan risky. 3. Similar accidents were survivable (someone said upthread). 4. Typically, pilot suicides start with the pilot alone in the cockpit at cruise altitude. 5. "Shut down both engines" is an action that often occurs after a flight, and could thus be learned as "muscle memory", and be subject to an action slip. 6. The airline stated that the captain's medical records were found "unremarkable". Argument for intent: 1. It's the simplest explanation. 2. "I can't believe any pilot would do this unintentionally, and neither should you." 3. Pilot took 10 seconds to correct his "mistake" 4. Uncorroborated reporting has it that the captain did not sound panicked on the CVR. Did I miss any points? To be clear, given the facts in the preliminary report, I could not decide this question today. Whatever happened in Ahmedabad is not affected by the outcome of our discussion. I hope that the AAIB and the public prosecutor will gather as much evidence as possible, and then the question can hopefully be resolved from facts. Last edited by Musician; 17th July 2025 at 14:02 . Reason: link added |