Pilot suicides

Yesterday’s revelation that the recent crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 was caused by an apparent pilot suicide shocked the world. First Officer Andreus Lubitz reportedly locked the captain out of the cockpit and calmly flew the airplane with its 150 passengers into the side of a French mountain, killing everyone on board.

The act of suicide by an airline pilot while flying is not common, but has happened more than most people think. The most well-known suicide pilots, the Japanese kamikazes of World War II, carried no passengers, although the September 11 suicide hijackers did. The Aviation Safety Network lists nine crashes dating back to 1976 that were confirmed to be suicides. Additionally, ABC News notes that a Japan Air Lines pilot crashed his DC-8 in 1982, killing 24 people, but surviving the crash himself. Last year’s disappearance of Malaysia Flight 370 is widely believed to have been due to a pilot suicide as well.

Airline suicide crashes are usually not well known because they have primarily occurred in the third world. The sole suicide crash before Germanwings that affected a Western country was EgyptAir 990, which crashed off the island of Nantucket, Mass. in 1999. The American NTSB determined that a relief first officer crashed the plane into the ocean, killing all 217 people on board, but Egypt disputed the conclusion.

For most people, there are strong psychological barriers against killing oneself or others. A pilot who intentionally crashes his plane has obviously overcome these strong taboos against killing and suicide. While pilots are normal people with normal problems, few people who commit suicide do so while taking hundreds of other lives at the same time. Nevertheless, one study cited by Air & Space Magazine found that suicide was suspected in .33 percent of fatal crashes over 20 years. This is slightly more than one crash per year, mostly involving small airplanes.

Flying is a high stress occupation. Being an airline pilot involves long periods of time away from home and family, which leads to a high divorce rate. The airline industry is often unstable and furloughs (layoffs) or demotions can come suddenly and last years, leading to financial problems. Add to that a grueling schedule with irregular work hours, regular flight tests and medical exams that can quickly end a career, and the knowledge that a momentary lapse can kill or lead to a violation by regulatory authorities and it is easy to understand how a pilot could suffer from depression or substance abuse. In spite of the stress, suicide is not demonstrably higher for pilots according to most studies.

“It's a special job. You are working at irregular times; if you have a family, you are often not there [or] may be at home when everyone is at work,” said Dr. Andre Droog, president of the European Association for Aviation Psychology on Voice of America. “If you are flying intercontinental flights, you may build up jet lag and fatigue and of course you have to manage your life very well.”

In spite of policies at many airlines that encourage pilots to self-report addiction or mental health issues, many pilots are fearful that doing so will cost them their jobs. In 2010, the FAA changed its policy to allow pilots to take antidepressants for mild to moderate depression, but the current policy stipulates that approval is on a case-by-case basis and requires successful treatment for six months, during which time they would not be legal to fly. This effectively means that pilots have to either forgo treatment, fly illegally, or take a six month leave of absence.

In Asia, where several suicide crashes have taken place, many airlines now subject their pilots to psychological testing. “They ask about your mental health, about events that could affect you psychologically,” one captain from an Asian airline told CNBC. “But who willingly admits to anything that could lead to a suspension of their license? I won't. I need my job.”

Since airline crewmembers know each other best, flight crews are encouraged to report any potential problems that they observe. In the United States, many pilot unions have professional standards committees to help resolve interpersonal conflicts. Concerned crewmembers can talk to representatives on these committees without involving company representatives and threatening jobs.

“Never leave a person alone - that's probably the most effective suicide prevention technique there is," said Tony Catanese, a clinical psychologist at Glen Iris Psychology in Melbourne on CNBC.

Federal aviation regulations already require that both pilots remain in the cockpit, but contains an exception for “physiological needs.” For flights lasting from six to eight hours, it is unrealistic to assume that neither pilot would ever have to visit the lavatory. On most flights, there are no relief crews to fill the empty seat for a few minutes. Cockpit doors have been strengthened since the September 11 attacks to resist forcible entry, making it difficult for the second pilot to break back in.

One solution might be for a flight attendant enter the cockpit when one pilot leaves. The Flight Attendant would probably not be able to wrestle the controls from a suicidal pilot, but might be able to at least prevent him from locking the other pilot out.

Ultimately, there is no way to effectively prevent any possibility of future airline pilot suicides. At present, even though the shock of the Germanwings crash is still fresh, the problem of suicides by pilots is a tiny statistical blip. The vast majority of airline pilots around the world are professionals who have learned to cope with life’s problems and keep them out of the cockpit.

 

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Details of the Malaysia airline shootdown

For the second time in less than a year, the previously little known Malaysia Airlines is the subject of intense scrutiny after a mysterious crash. In March, Malaysia Flight 370 disappeared and has never been found. On July 17, Malaysia Flight 17 was shot down over a disputed area of the Ukraine. At this point, who shot the airliner down and why is not known.

According to Flight Aware, MH 17, another Boeing 777, departed from Amsterdam at 12:19 p.m. local time and was bound for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The 11.5 hour flight was estimated to arrive at 6:00 a.m. Malaysia time. Instead, Flight Aware’s tracking map shows the flight abruptly terminating over eastern Ukraine near the Black Sea.

According to early reports from NBC News, the plane, which was carrying 298 people, was cruising at 33,000 when it was attacked. Many of the passengers were Dutch nationals since the flight was operated under a code share with Royal Dutch Airlines. Malaysia was originally colonized by Holland in the 1600s. The International Business Times reports that the victims include 23 Americans.

The wreckage from the plane came to rest in several fields about 31 miles from the Russian border. Photos posted online show that the plane broke into a large number of small pieces. Yahoo reported that debris fields were reported to be at least six miles apart, indicating that the plane broke up in flight. There were no reports of survivors.

A miner who witnessed the crash told NBC that he saw a surface-to-air-missile strike the plane. Andrey Tarasenko said, “You know how you see a trail from a plane — it was the same, but it was a missile launched from the ground.” Tarasenko said he heard an explosion in the air seconds after he saw the missile’s smoke trail and then heard a larger explosion on the ground several seconds later.

Ukraine has been at war since February when Russian soldiers invaded the Crimea region in support of ethnic Russian separatists. On national television, Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, said, “I would like to draw your attention that we do not call it an incident, not a disaster, but we call it a terrorist act” according to NBC.

Russian president Vladimir Putin blamed Ukraine for the tragedy saying that it “would not have happened if there were peace on this land, if the military actions had not been renewed in southeast Ukraine. And, certainly, the state over whose territory this occurred bears responsibility for this awful tragedy” according to Yahoo.

Mounting evidence points to either Russia or the separatist militants supported by Russia being responsible for the attack. Ukraine released audio clips of intercepted communications between Russian and rebel commanders in which the rebels tell their Russian allies that “We have just shot down a plane.” Over the course of several calls, the rebels report that the airplane was civilian and unarmed.

Two days earlier, there were reports of another aircraft being shot down. According to Al Jazeera, on July 15, a Ukrainian Antonov 26 cargo plane was shot down in eastern Ukraine. All eight people on board survived. The An-26 was flying at about 20,000 feet when it was shot down by either a missile or a Russian fighter plane according to a Ukraine Security Council spokesman.

Two more Ukrainian attack jets were also attacked by missiles from Russia on Wednesday according to the Ukraine. One Sukhoi Su-25 was shot down and another was damaged, but both pilots survived according to ABC News.

According to Defense Tech, the most likely weapon to be used in the attack was the M-2 Buck surface-to-air missile (SAM) system. Called the SA-11”Gadfly” by NATO, the Buk was developed in 1979 by the Soviet Union. The Buk has a range of up to 19 miles and can engage targets at altitudes up to 46,000 feet. It is not known for certain whether the Russians have supplied the rebels with Buk missile systems, which are mounted on tracked vehicles, but the Voice of Russia claimed in June that the Donetsk militia had taken control of Ukraine air defense base equipped with the missiles.

Several of the plane’s “black boxes” have already been recovered. Yahoo reports that most of the black boxes had been found by the rebels. Indications were that at least some of the boxes had been turned over to Russia.

Following the shootdown, Business Insider noted that Ukrainian airspace was largely empty. Much of the air traffic between Europe and Asia normally flies over the country, but most civilian traffic seemed to be staying clear of the disputed area.

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Malaysia 370 may have been hundreds of miles off course

Speculation about Malaysia 370, the Malaysian Airlines flight that has been missing since March 8, has reached a fever pitch. The disappearance of the jumbo jet has fueled the imagination of the world as people try to understand how a 775,000 pound airliner with 239 people could seemingly vanish into thin air. New information released on March 11 now indicates that the searchers may have been looking 350 miles from the actual crash site. As reported by Reuters, an anonymous Malaysian military official now says that military radars tracked the plane long after civilian air traffic control lost contact. When the plane’s transponder disappeared from civilian air traffic radar, the plane apparently turned west and descended several thousand feet below its cruise altitude.

When contact was lost about an hour into the flight, MH 370 was flying at 35,000 feet (10,668 meters) and nearing the southern coast of Vietnam. According to the Reuters report, the plane then turned west and lost 1,000 meters (3,280 feet in altitude). The flight then traveled west for about an hour, crossing the Malay Peninsula. Head of the Malay air force, Gen. Rodzali Daud, told the Malay newspaper Berita Harian, that the plane was last detected at 2:40 a.m., approximately two hours after takeoff, near the island of Pulau Perak, located at the northern end of the Strait of Malacca.

The new information may explain why four days of searching have not yielded any trace of the missing plane, but it prompts new questions as well. It appears that the airplane did not suffer an abrupt structural failure or catastrophic bomb attack that caused an immediate crash, but no one can be certain what caused the airplane to fly under control for hundreds of miles before it presumably plunged into the sea. A timeline of the flight in International Business Times reported that weather along the route was good so loss of control due to storms or lightning strikes can be ruled out.

There are several possible scenarios. One possibility is a rapid decompression combined with an electrical failure. If the airplane’s pressurization failed at 35,000 feet the time of useful consciousness for the pilots would have been about 30 seconds (possibly less since at least one of the pilots was a known smoker, which inhibits the ability of the blood to carry oxygen). Normally, this is plenty of time for a pilot to don his oxygen mask and initiate an emergency descent to the thicker air at lower altitudes.

This theory also does not explain the fact that the plane’s transponder stopped responding to radar queries. One possibility is that that some sort of catastrophic failure caused the pressurization problem as well as a total electrical failure. If trimmed properly, the plane could have flown for hundreds of miles until its fuel was exhausted or something disturbed its equilibrium. It is possible that a bomb that did not immediately destroy the airplane may have caused it to depressurize and lose electrical power.

There are additional problems with this scenario. The airplane had fuel to fly well beyond the two hours when it was last in radar contact. The plane was fueled for a flight to Beijing that would have landed at 6:30 a.m. (Beijing is in the same time zone as Kuala Lumpur). It is possible that the plane flew even further into the Indian Ocean before running out of fuel and crashing.

Further, airliners have more than one source of electricity. Multiple generators and batteries make an instantaneous electrical failure unlikely. Using battery power, the crew should have been able to at least report their situation to ATC. An electrical failure without some sort of crew incapacitation would require a series of serious pilot errors to wander 300 miles off course without any radio contact.

Another possibility is a hijacking, although this is unlikely due to the scrutiny given to the plane’s passengers since its disappearance. Two passengers from Iran were revealed to be traveling on stolen passports, but authorities report having found no links to terrorist groups with these men or the other passengers. Yahoo News Australia reported that several Chinese journalists had received an untraceable email from an encrypted service that claimed responsibility for the attack and referenced last week’s knife attack by Uyghur separatists in China that killed 29.

The Malaysia Airlines website notes that the 777-200 is equipped with satellite phones. In the event of a hijacking or other nonelectrical emergency, it is likely that passengers would have attempted to use these phones to contact authorities or their loved ones as many passengers did during the September 11 attacks. A hijacker in the cockpit might have been able to disable the phones by pulling the cabin circuit breaker, however. They would also likely have been unavailable in a catastrophic electrical failure.

There are problems with the hijacking scenario as well. The biggest is that the plane likely crashed into the sea. Terrorists would have probably chosen a high value target for maximum destruction or landed and presented demands to authorities. It would probably have taken more than the two identified Iranians to control the 239 passengers and crew on MH 370. Yahoo Australian News did report on March 10 that Malaysia’s transport ministry was looking at four suspect passengers.

Perhaps the most likely theory is that one of the pilots committed suicide, taking the rest of the passengers and crew with him. In this scenario, one of the pilots would have left the cockpit, perhaps for a trip to the lav, and the other pilot would have locked him out of the cockpit and disabled the satellite phones in the cabin. At that point, the flying pilot would have turned off the transponder and flown the airplane until either its fuel ran out or until he decided to deliberately crash.

There have been a number of pilots who committed suicide by crashing their airliners. Suicide is suspected in the November 2013 crash of a Mozambique Airlines Embraer 190 according to the International Business Times. The most famous case of pilot suicide was the 1999 crash of Egypt Air 990 enroute from New York to Cairo. Two more crashes in the 1990s, one in Indonesia and the other in Morocco, were also attributed to suicide. A Japan Air Lines DC-8 crashed in 1982 during the captain’s unsuccessful suicide attempt.

It may be days before the wreckage of Malaysia 370 is located. In 2009, it took five days to locate the remains of Air France 447. Even without full radar coverage, the South China Morning Post reported that Rolls Royce, the manufacturer of the plane’s engines, tracks all its engines from its control center in England. It is believed that Boeing has a similar capability for tracking its airplanes.

With Air France 447, it took years to retrieve the flight data recorder and determine the cause of the accident, the answer was finally found. In the case of MH 370, due to the long elapsed time between the loss of contact and the ultimate crash, many of the answers may never be found. Engine parameters will be recorded by the flight data recorder, but cockpit voice recorders are only required to record 30 minutes. They typically delete earlier recordings as they record in a loop. This may mean that the crew’s reaction to whatever happened near the coast of Vietnam is forever lost.

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