Pilot Depression
It is obvious that the crash in March of 2015 for Germanwings Flight 4u9525 was incidental. The cause of an accident was because of a depressed co-pilot who locked out the captain after he left to use the bathroom. The captain was unable to get back into the cockpit while the co-pilot was ignoring all of ATC commands. According to an article written by Ben Knight for the theguardian.com, Andreas "used the automatic pilot to put the plane into a descent and then repeatedly adjusted it to speed up the plane". Lubitz had battled depression years before he took the controls of Flight 9525 and that he had concealed from his employer recent medical leave notes saying he was unfit for work (CNN 2015).
In addition to this incident I found another one which is Japan Airlines flight 350 crash. What turned out to be the first one in the 80's for the airlines this was also due to mental illness. There were 166 passengers aboard and 8 crew members, of them 24 people died. Katagiri who was identified as the captain after he took a rescue boat and lied about his position to avoid his true identity was later found to be suffering from a mental illness prior to the incident. This resulted in his decision that he was not guilty by reason of insanity. The first officer and flight engineer worked to restrain him and regain control. Despite their efforts, the DC-8's descent could not be completely checked, and it touched down in shallow water 300 meters short of the runway (NY Times 2015).
The only process that I am aware of that the FAA does for mental health is ask if you have ever been diagnosed with a mental condition. They question what medications you're currently on to be able to distinguish the problems you suffer from. It is obvious to me their concern isn't whether or not if you have a mental disorder but rather if you give false information and lie to them. This method to me is horrible and provides no security to prevent a pilot with a mental disorder being employed and taking responsibilities of many lives. The only thing I can think that would help the FAA figure who is mentally stable and who is not is to require more physical tests that test for these issues such is bipolar disorder and other mental illnesses.
Some challenges for the FAA and airlines would be their hiring process would definitely have a longer screening process. Rather than just check to see what sort of medical they currently own and for drug screening, they would have to test to see if they have any mental illnesses that can lead to a pilots depression. They must be challenged with new ways to distinguish if a pilot has past events of anger issues or symptoms of bipolar disorder.
Knight, B. (2015, April 3). Germanwings co-pilot accelerated plane during descent. Retrieved January 25, 2016, from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/03/germanwings-co-pilot-accelerated-plane-during-descent
Brown, P., Spark, L., & Pleitgin, F. (2015, April 25). Germanwings crash: Co-pilot researched suicide methods, cockpit doors. Retrieved January 25, 2016, from http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/02/europe/france-germanwings-plane-crash-main/index.html
S., Sinha. (2015, March 26). A History of Crashes Caused by Pilots’ Intentional Acts. Retrieved January 25, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/03/26/world/history-plane-crashes-pilots.html?_r=0
