This is your captain speaking. Please help me!

It’s high time awareness is created for mental health among pilots and cabin crew, and we stop trivialising this by labelling it ‘pilot fatigue’

Mental health issues affecting pilots and cabin crew is an important issue that does not get the importance it demands. Yes, there are the occasional news reports about how aviation authorities pay attention to the problem, but seldom is anything impactful done.

To understand the gravity of the problem, we need to look at some of the crashes due to pilot suicide.

• December 1997: The pilot of the Singapore Airlines SilkAir Flight 185 from Jakarta to Singapore smashes the Boeing 737 aircraft into the Musi River in Indonesia. All 104 on the flight are killed. Investigations conclude the cause of the crash as ‘suicide by pilot’.

• October 1999: Egypt Air Flight 990 crashes into the Atlantic Ocean killing all 217 people on board. Investigations conclude that the controlled dive was initiated by a co-pilot who was recently demoted.

• November 2013: A LAM Mozambique crashes into terrain (CFIT) killing all on board. The captain was depressed — his son had recently died, his daughter was in the hospital for heart surgery, and his divorce had not yet been settled.

• March 2015: A Germanwings Airbus A320 aircraft intentionally crashed into the Alps after the co-pilot locked out the captain from the cockpit. The co-pilot had a history of severe depression the airline wasn’t aware of.

We currently see one crash every two years due to pilot suicide — and we’re doing nothing about it.

It’s high time awareness is created for mental health among pilots and cabin crew, especially because the risks of overseeing this can cause large-scale disasters. What to one might seem as a flamboyant, carefree, overpaid, alcohol-laden promiscuous life is a mere defense mechanism to an extremely dark, vicious, and ruthless cycle that pushes human endurance, proficiency, and exploitation to unfathomable levels.

Price to pay

It costs around Rs 2 crore to be an ‘acceptable’ pilot with 2,000 flying hours to even be considered by an airline today. Pilots who don’t have the money end up signing a five-year minimum bond linked to around Rs 50-75 lakh as ‘training costs’. These bonds are signed up afresh when you start on a new type of aircraft. This means that an average pilot who’s starting is enslaved to an airline’s whims and fancies, and salary cuts till the point of burnout. Did someone say slavery was abolished! The agony continues.

Anything connected with becoming a pilot is linked to corruption and kickbacks. Getting a radio license commands a kickback, and airline executives too make a buck in the recruiting and training rigmarole. Over that layer add the struggle of getting a license, passing medicals every year, being pushed to one’s flying limits in a simulator every 12 months, an alcohol breathalyzer test before every flight, and constant proficiency checks whenever you fly is enough to wreak havoc with one’s mind. If that wasn’t enough, add pressure from the family, pilot-politics, industry instability, and making ends meet.

Breaking point

In my 29-year aviation career I’ve managed pilots at four airlines, and it has not been easy. Anxiety, depression, and silent screams for help by pilots and cabin crew transform into aggression, and vicious attacks on airline staff; beyond a point it becomes hard to control and reason with, let alone comprehend.

Pilots and cabin crew don’t have homes because you can’t call a hotel you stay for 12 hours a ‘home’. You often can’t talk to anyone because there isn’t anyone ready to listen to you or your problems; your colleagues have their set of problems to manage. You can’t call family because often it’s past everyone’s bedtime when you get into your crew rest. Like the crew bag, you stuff your problems and challenges within, and just keep flying.

Such bottling up takes its toll. I’ve seen pilots reach the state of breaking down with roaming naked in a hotel lobby right up to substance abuse, pornography addiction, and severe alcoholism dealing with broken marriages, children gone astray, and failed relationships.

In 2015, I lost a dear pilot friend who flew with me at RwandAir to suicide during a layover. During his final moments, his ex-girlfriend and friends tried to step in with help, but it was too late. 

Not ‘pilot fatigue’

Since World War II, mental illnesses have been downplayed and dismissed as superficial. Soldiers who went on a killing spree and/or killed themselves were said to be suffering from ‘battle fatigue’. Britannica defines ‘battle fatigue’ as a mental illness that is caused by the negative(sic) experiences of fighting/work(sic) in a war and that causes extreme feelings of nervousness and depression. In the case of ‘pilot fatigue’ we’re doing it again by marginalising the problem, and airlines are intentionally downplaying this into insignificance.

Authorities were in for a rude shock after three pilots died within a week last month, one pilot collapsing of a heart attack as he was at the boarding gate. Airlines today note a sizable amount of crew becoming medically unfit by the month, and several by the dozens reporting sick and unable to operate flights. This is leading to increased duty hours for those rostered line pilots with some flying into minimum crew rest. Instead of looking at this rationally using basic human intervention, we’re leaving this to software to plan what’s best through an algorithm. 

Act now! 

Psychologists have repeatedly warned us that those with a mental illness often don’t know that they have it, those who know it don’t want to admit it, and those who admit it are too scared to seek help.

India is the world's largest aviation market by size and percentage of the travelling public. India needs to acknowledge that pilots and front-line airline staff might be facing mental health issues that can impair their ability to work and perform their DGCA-mandated tasks. Airlines and employers aren’t the competent authority to decide on how to address the problem, because it is beyond ethics — and common sense — to have the victim’s fate decided by the transgressor/offender.

The aviation and health ministries need to set up an emergency independent committee comprising the regulator, mental health practitioners, senior psychologists, and psychiatrists to decide on interventions, plan screenings, and take strides to resolve crew stress, fatigue, and work anxiety issues. Airlines, armchair safety experts and the government must stay away from involving themselves with the committee, because it has been their misleading involvement and lobbying which has downplayed the threat of mental Illness.

Alarming as it would sound, the further we delay this, the greater the chances of an aviation tragedy. When it comes to crew stress and anxiety, we’re treading on thin ice.

Seek help

Two Covid-19 lockdowns were enough to batter and badger our minds to their wit's end, and by now almost all of us would know someone who has had it rough. Airline staff aren’t demigods to be an exception here. Numerous national and international helplines could make a difference to pilots and cabin crew; here it’s trained professionals who hear you out and offer help. It’s also confidential. We need to encourage a culture where asking for help is not looked down upon.

For far too long we’ve brushed this problem under the carpet — not anymore.

(Mark D Martin MRAeS is CEO of Martin Consulting, an aviation consulting firm based in Asia. Views are personal)

(The VIMHANS Psychologist Helpline in India is [phone], in Malaysia the Anonymous Psychologist Healthline is 1 800 22 5757, in Thailand dial [phone] to speak with the Thailand Samaritans, in Hong Kong the Caritas Mental Health Support Hotline number is18288, in Australia the SANE Hotline is 1800 187 263, and in Singapore, the Samaritans of Singapore hotline is 1-767.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.