How about encouraging them not to kill themselves at all?
Yep:
What can be done to encourage pilots to kill themselves on ground? And what can be done to encourage pilots to continue living and get over depressiom?
Compared to crashing a plane, even suicide on ground is better – but not killing themselves at all is even better.
So strongly suspected crashes by pilot suicide:
JAL 350, in 1982. The comrades in cockpit were able to limit damage – the suicidal captain failed, but 24 people did get killed.
RAM 630, in 1994. All hands lost, 44 in number.
Silkair 185, in 1997. All hands lost, 104 in number.
Egyptair 990, in 1999. All hands lost, 217 in number.
Lam 470, in 2013. All hands lost, 33 in number
Germanwings 9525, in 2015. All hands lost, 150 in number.
Of course it’s a serious matter, but why not worry more about a mad truck, bus, train drivers, the weird guy in the cubicle or your odd neighbor?
Those people don’t have the routine medical screenings airplane pilots do.
Let’s face it, we’re far more likely to get killed a drunk just leaving a pub. If one musr worry about something, look up a list of incurable diseases, worry about an asteroid hitting Earth, or my favorite, being savaged in my sleep by my basset.
That´s a good reasoning. Considering the number of planes that have arrived safely at their destinations since 1982, 6 crashes for a common cause may be an insignificant hazard not worth worrying about.
But if the problem of pilot suicide is insignificant, then the airlines AND civil aviation authorities certainly do address it as if they saw some problem there.
Airlines might trust in the good will and humanity of their pilots, even while depressed, and continue to roster and employ pilots who are confessing to be depressed and actively suicidal, on grounds that they have the sense to kill just themselves and harm no one else. Or they might permit pilots to apply whatever medical treatments are offered for depression, while continuing to be rostered and employed.
The airlines do not, and apparently the civil aviation authorities do not permit them. Causing the pilots to not confess to depression, and giving them more reasons to be depressed about.
If the prospect of pilot suicide by plane is not a serious problem, then the reaction of airlines and civil aviation authorities to this is an overreaction, in which case it is that overreaction which is the serious problem.
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