What with the Germanwings pilot managing to crash a plane because he was upset with life, it is becoming increasingly apparent that there need to be more adequate mental health checks on pilots around the world.

South African Airways pilots couldn’t agree more and are warning “of an aviation time bomb due to lack of proper mental health checks”. Apparently once pilots are qualified, they no longer have to have any mental checks, even though ‘life happens’. What’s more worrying is the type of mental health problems the pilots have spoken about: “depression or dementia due to drug addiction or conditions such as HIV/Aids”.

This from the Sunday Times:

Commercial pilots in South Africa do not require psychological evaluation as part of their compulsory physical check-ups, which are mostly done only once a year. There is currently not a single registered aviation psychologist to check on pilots’ mental health.

Medical examiner at SAA, Thabani Nkwanyana, says that it’s a serious “system flaw” as pilots do suffer from depression and social ills.

Just FYI, a former SAA pilot was medically boarded a few years ago due to HIV/Aids and “became delirious while travelling on an SAA flight”. Awesome.

A handful of pilots have come forward, one saying that it’s “bizarre” that no mental health checks are done. One senior SAA pilot said that “several of his colleagues at SAA were presently medically boarded for various conditions, including depression” and that “fortunately they were all very responsible guys and declared their problem”.

They [SAA] may also receive reports from other pilots who notice a pilot displaying strange behaviour.

The same senior pilot said this has occurred at SAA, “where at least five pilots had been boarded for psychological issues”.

And obviously because SAA is under such massive financial pressure, the company shelved the idea of mandatory neuropsychological tests as they were deemed too expensive.

Happy Easter weekend travels… Hopefully see you next Tuesday.

[Source: Times Live]