Another reason to fly your own plane...

Sounds like Susan S is trying to make a name for herself in todays media today....:(
 
A self reporting online questionnaire based study? Not exactly scientific. I wonder what the numbers are amongst the general population.
 
Airline pilots are just humans like most everyone else. Life happens. Divorce, financial stress, company and the FAA always trying to screw you with so many procedure changes that one cannot keep up. More complicated aircraft and procedures that on the surface appear to be good but in fact increase the workload and confusion of a very tired pilot. The article said that pilots don't seek help due to a career ending diagnosis. No joke Sherlock!

Non scientific "poll" that means nothing but fear mongering.
 
Last edited:
"Hundreds of airline pilots may be clinically depressed." Does that mean they may not be? Talk about irresponsible reporting.
 
Last edited:
MD11Pilot said:
Airline pilots are just humans like most everyone else. Life happens. Divorce, financial stress, company and the FAA always trying to screw you with so many procedure changes that one cannot keep up. More complicated aircraft and procedures that on the surface appear to be good but in fact increase the workload and confusion of a very tired pilot. The article said that pilots don't seek help due to a career ending diagnosis. No joke Sherlock!

Non scientific "poll" that means nothing but fear mongering.
Click to expand...

What he said..
 
OkieAviator said:
Yes... beside the collection method being flawed you can see their agenda in the conclusion section.
Click to expand...

The collection of statistical data for medical studies is always flawed, one way or another. So it's more a matter of degree. In this particular case, we do have the Germanwings accident as a known single data point, which raises the question of how prevalent that situation is elsewhere. If you can point to a study that assures us that this study is false and the actual results are far better, then feel free to give us a link.
In any case, as far as the original point of whether the author of the news article should have mentioned this study at all, I don't think we expect or want that level of scrutiny (or censorship) from reporters, unless the scientific study is an obvious joke or fraud, which this one isn't (though I am not vouching for its validity either).
 
RotorDude said:
The collection of statistical data for medical studies is always flawed, one way or another. So it's more a matter of degree. In this particular case, we do have the Germanwings accident as a known single data point, which raises the question of how prevalent that situation is elsewhere. If you can point to a study that assures us that this study is false and the actual results are far better, then feel free to give us a link.
In any case, as far as the original point of whether the author of the news article should have mentioned this study at all, I don't think we expect or want that level of scrutiny (or censorship) from reporters, unless the scientific study is an obvious joke or fraud, which this one isn't (though I am not vouching for its validity either).
Click to expand...

It's not limited to medical studies. In graduate school I did no less than 4 classes on various statistical and analysis methodologies. Not going to be able to type out all my observations in reading the posted study. If you're truly interested in that topic you can find a mess of information out there and come to your own conclusion. Here are some high points though and where I have a problem.

The Germanwings crash is a statistical anomaly among airline crashes. Even including GA accidents my untested hypothesis would be that suicide by plane is a very low percentage, even lower when it involves killing others or the airlines. This low incident of occurrence can't possibly give a full spectrum of reasoning.

The data collection was through an anonymous survey of 1800 people. Quite a small sampling for their estimated 140,000 pilots worldwide, somewhere just over 1%. On top of that no way to judge the quality of the samples, or if it's just how they felt that day or if their answers would change over the course of a week, month, year, ect.

They reference other external studies to back up their study.

Their conclusion states that pilots don't seek the treatment they need because of the stigma or fear of being grounded... yet that's not even a questions that I could see was asked.

Bottom line this study reads like an opinion piece trying to be reinforced by some level of statistics. I wouldn't call it a joke or a fraud, but rather a poorly executed academic exercise by someone working on their doctoral. So if someone is truly worried about being killed in an Airline suicide they probably shouldn't get out of bed in the morning or use any advanced appliances.
 
Nothing like some good fear mongering.


...and ten things in your house that could kill you, right after these messages from our sponsors!
 
OkieAviator said:
It's not limited to medical studies. In graduate school I did no less than 4 classes on various statistical and analysis methodologies. Not going to be able to type out all my observations in reading the posted study. If you're truly interested in that topic you can find a mess of information out there and come to your own conclusion. Here are some high points though and where I have a problem.

The Germanwings crash is a statistical anomaly among airline crashes. Even including GA accidents my untested hypothesis would be that suicide by plane is a very low percentage, even lower when it involves killing others or the airlines. This low incident of occurrence can't possibly give a full spectrum of reasoning.

The data collection was through an anonymous survey of 1800 people. Quite a small sampling for their estimated 140,000 pilots worldwide, somewhere just over 1%. On top of that no way to judge the quality of the samples, or if it's just how they felt that day or if their answers would change over the course of a week, month, year, ect.

They reference other external studies to back up their study.

Their conclusion states that pilots don't seek the treatment they need because of the stigma or fear of being grounded... yet that's not even a questions that I could see was asked.

Bottom line this study reads like an opinion piece trying to be reinforced by some level of statistics. I wouldn't call it a joke or a fraud, but rather a poorly executed academic exercise by someone working on their doctoral. So if someone is truly worried about being killed in an Airline suicide they probably shouldn't get out of bed in the morning or use any advanced appliances.
Click to expand...

I don't necessarily disagree with anything you say, and my OP was partly tongue-in-cheek.
But let me mention another point that AFAICT even the study authors didn't, at least not explicitly.
Our assumption is that actual accidents caused by suicidal pilots are fairly rare (EgyptAir, SilkAir come to mind in addition to GermanAir). But it might not be a black and white issue. You could be depressed and not "suicidal", which means you may not shove the stick forward yelling some religious chant (or even want to do that), but still your performance as a pilot might be deficient. If you are the captain, and your FO is weak on CRM (I assume this is more of a problem outside the US), and are "depressed", then you might simply forget to do something important, or misinterpret some vital input, or otherwise exercise poor judgment when the chips are down for other reasons, impacting safety. IOW, suicide by pilot might be just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to crew mental issues. All speculation, of course, but that study might just be good enough to tell us that there is a problem (16% depression rate among long term disability reasons in Air Canada?), though its size and actual impact on safety (beyond the suicide cases) is unknown.
 
Last edited:
Who hasn't thought of suicide at one time or another? Just thought I'd share that sunny observation. :):eek:
 
James331 said:
Nothing like some good fear mongering.


...and ten things in your house that could kill you, right after these messages from our sponsors!
Click to expand...
1. Getting out of bed.
 
You guys clearly haven't heard about buzzfeed...? LOL

Clickbait capitol of the interwebz
 
Many years ago in STL for a '6 check' in the bar afterward an old about to retire TWA captain told us if you stay in this industry buy a house worth half of what you can afford, stay with the first wife (choose well in that regard), save as much as you can & don't mess with the flight attendants. He said that sooner or later you will be furloughed, may loose your medical or bust the check ride. I laughed when he said that and told him I had been furloughed twice in 5 years & knew what he was talking about. The rest of the guys were new hires. This industry can be very rough.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top