Airborne_Again wrote:
You tell me! There is not much point in answering a question with another question.
That is how it started out. The airplane had hardly hit the mountains when the suicide story broke together with unacceptable leaks of alleged recorder contents and so forth. The police and procurors minds were made up even before the FDR was located, let alone analyzed.
From that moment on, all that was worked on appears to be this theory, whereas facts were looked for to confirm it, rather than to collect facts and then go from a white sheet and establish theories and trying to prove them. Consequently, a lot of stuff was never discussed nor is it included in the report.
Personally, I am open in that case. It is quite possible that the suicide theory is valid, but to do a PROPER investigation simply doesn’t work this way. I’ve talked about the emerging goings on in this case and most people who deal with investigations are baffled by the way this was done. It doesn’t help the situation and it doesn’t put and nutcase theories to sleep either.
On the other hand, the BEA’s record whenever Airbusses or derivates were concerned is quite interesting too. In the case of Concorde, all of AF’s failures were almost totally omitted or just mentioned by the by, because they had a cuprit in the form of a piece of metal. That the airplane should never have taken off from that runway, with that weight and in a degraded technical status does not get considered.
In Germany, the LBA has introduced a new mental health questionnaire.
Some questions are questionable, e.g. their assumption that everybody drinks alcohol.
I don’t think they do. You can answer all of them from the standpoint of someone who never drinks alcohol.
But I find the whole approach laughable.
What is the goal of that questionnaire? To get help for the pilot or to make a case against the pilot? If it’s the latter: What stops one from simply answering every question on the good side? Also in an oral psych evaluation: An intelligent person must be able to get a perfect score when he just tells the doctor what he wants to hear. Of course the doctor will have his doubts when someone scores 100% every single doubt. But in order to ensure a certain (and comparable) standard one needs numbers and proof not hunches. Unless we develop mind scanners which can extract information out of a person’s head without his cooperation I think the best we can do do is to help pilots with dealing with mental problems and to make sure that an eventual loss of the medical is as non-threatening as it can get.
AME; Do you or have you ever felt suicidal?
Pilot: No
AME; Has any of your family recently committed or attempted to commit suicide?
Pilot; No
AME: Are you on any antidepressants or any other drug for depression?
Pilot; No
AME: How often do you drink alcohol? (NB there is no box which allows you to say you have a glass at Christmas or at a celebration) Its once twice etc a day or a week. Mind you this is France and you might be considered a depressive without the odd glass of wine
The above are some of the questions asked on the class 2 medical form, here in France
When I questioned the AME he told me that the rate of suicides amongst pilots is very high and rising. I do not have any facts to contradict this.
But if I did occasionally feel suicidal and flying was my passion., I’m not sure I would admit it, would you?
Rwy20 wrote:
I don’t think they do. You can answer all of them from the standpoint of someone who never drinks alcohol.
Don’t all Germans drink alcohol? What about the Oktoberfest? ;-) ;-)
Seriously, beting a teetotaler myself, I really wouldn’t know what to reply to the question “I feel guilty after drinking alcohol.” If I agree, it can be taken to mean that I drink so much alcohol that it worries me — bad. If I disagree, it can be taken to mean that I drink a lot without caring — also bad. Come to think of it, someone who does drink alcohol would have the same problem.
To me as a medical professional, these question are immediately recognisable. There is no original content in there, it’s a mixture of several standard questionnaires used in healthcare. It might even be a perfect copy of one of those, but that is not my field of specialisation, so I wouldn’t know for sure.
MedEwok wrote:
To me as a medical professional, these question are immediately recognisable. There is no original content in there, it’s a mixture of several standard questionnaires used in healthcare.
There is apparently cultural factors involved here. I have, in many situations, been asked about my drinking habits but never with questions such as these — rather questions about the amount of alcohol I drink.
