Keeping Tabs On Cockpit Crew
As CBS News reported last week, the co-pilot of EgyptAir flight 990 uttered the same prayer several times before and during the plane's fatal dive. Newsweek put the number at 14. After this disaster and the ensuing suggestions that the co-pilot may have been responsible for it, passengers enduring airport screening this hectic travel season can't be faulted for wondering how rigorously pilots are being checked, CBS News Correspondent Jerry Bowen reports.
"No one wants a pilot who is functioning at less than his peak to be in an airline cockpit," says Diane Damos, an aviation psychologist.
But the consensus of aviation experts is that U.S. airlines and the F.A.A. have a system of physical and psychological checks that is working.
Their requirements weed out anyone with a history of delusions, hallucinations and personality disorders. According to Damos, "It's part of the process of identifying someone who might not function optimally in a cockpit and get them out before they're ever hired."
But the rules work too well, says Georgetown University psychiatrist Robert Hedaya. Pilots he treats for depression won't inform their bosses.
"It's a Catch-22, because on the one hand the pilot needs treatment, the pilot wants treatment, but the pilot knows that if they get treatment they're going to pay a heavy price in terms of their career," he says.
Clay Lacey, a pilot with 41 years of eperience, agrees. "Pilots are probably less inclined to go to a doctor voluntarily and tell him there's something wrong with him, because it does affect his license if anyone knows."
Lacey, now retired, contends pilot screening is effective in this country. The four commercial airplane crashes caused by pilot suicides involved foreign, not U.S. airlines.
The statistics are awfully good on airline travel. It's the safest form of travel ever developed in the history of the world--but only as safe as the people on the flight deck make it.
Copyright 2009 CBS. All rights reserved. "No one wants a pilot who is functioning at less than his peak to be in an airline cockpit," says Diane Damos, an aviation psychologist.
But the consensus of aviation experts is that U.S. airlines and the F.A.A. have a system of physical and psychological checks that is working.
Their requirements weed out anyone with a history of delusions, hallucinations and personality disorders. According to Damos, "It's part of the process of identifying someone who might not function optimally in a cockpit and get them out before they're ever hired."
But the rules work too well, says Georgetown University psychiatrist Robert Hedaya. Pilots he treats for depression won't inform their bosses.
"It's a Catch-22, because on the one hand the pilot needs treatment, the pilot wants treatment, but the pilot knows that if they get treatment they're going to pay a heavy price in terms of their career," he says.
Clay Lacey, a pilot with 41 years of eperience, agrees. "Pilots are probably less inclined to go to a doctor voluntarily and tell him there's something wrong with him, because it does affect his license if anyone knows."
Lacey, now retired, contends pilot screening is effective in this country. The four commercial airplane crashes caused by pilot suicides involved foreign, not U.S. airlines.
The statistics are awfully good on airline travel. It's the safest form of travel ever developed in the history of the world--but only as safe as the people on the flight deck make it.
