Pill-Popping Pilots–Are You Kidding Me?

By Capt Ron • April 9th, 2010
Prozac
Image by PaDumBumPsh via Flickr
An email from recovering fearful flyer Regina was directed this week to Capt. Ron:

WHAAAAATTTTTT the FAA is  going to allow pilots to fly while taking antidepressants???? (&_(*M&*$N)C(@*MX)@  What airlines are this dumb? And to agree with the FAA on this one?  Passive aggressive and suicidal behavior are side effects anyone knows –(at let’s face any age on those puppies) –  yes I know the pilot doesn’t want to die either and he sits up front! But but but he may become irrational and whatz his home life that he left that morning like?

But… not to worry, I am fine and will continue to fly from point A to point B, happily, how else would I get around? But perhaps while slipping back into fearful flyer mode just a hair.

Capt. Ron’s Answer:

Antidepressants for pilots…I hate to tell you this but it’s long overdue.  I have been a proponent of the FAA allowing pilots to take certain medications for depression for years for two main reasons:  the first is that there are and have been pilots taking antidepressants for years, and this will bring the issue into the light and allow them to be properly administered and directed; the second reason is because some pilots NEED them.

The airline industry has been a leader (even over the medical profession) in drug and alcohol awareness and prevention.  The drug of choice for many pilots has always been alcohol.  Until the program was developed for a pilot to seek treatment and then enter an intense monitoring program, there were many pilots whose drinking was either unnoticed or ignored.  And not surprisingly, many had underlying depression as an accompanying malady.  Now the airline industry has the most successful record in any industry for returning pilots with the lowest recidivism (less than 1%).  The medical community has modeled their program for drug and alcohol abuse after ours.

The Delta crash at DFW in 1987 disclosed that the pilot had antidepressants in his blood in the post-crash autopsy.  When you listen to the cockpit voice recorder, there is a noticeable non-responsiveness on the part of the captain to his First Officer’s query about “lightning coming out of that one”:– the area of weather ahead of them resulting in the fateful windshear that proved fatal.

Thirty years ago we didn’t have any of the knowledge of brain science, depression, and the current vast array of treatments including the variety of medications that we have today.  Currently, if a pilot admits to being depressed and is formally diagnosed, he/she automatically loses his/her medical and career.  That is senseless when current medications exist (combined with mandatory counseling and monitoring) that would permit him/her to continue without cause for concern.  Think of the alternative where the fear of losing your livelihood and accompanying income results in either self-medicating with alcohol or medications obtained on the sly.

Despite the current policy of random screening for alcohol and drugs, some pilots will gamble out of fear and ignorance to preserve their jobs.

Yes ma’am, I’m a strong proponent of a program to provide for monitoring pilots with depression issues keeping the problem “in the Light” and out of the shadows where it has been for years.

Finally, let me speak to the issue of pilots taking antidepressants to which I have alluded.  The randomness of the problem combined with the ever-increasing technological advances in aviation minimize the possibility of a “perfect storm” of circumstances coming together is such a way where a pilot on antidepressants contributed in the slightest to an accident.  But, that should never serve to excuse our failure to be vigilant in this area.

When we know better, we do better.  And we have known for a long time that identifying pilots with depression and treating them appropriately is not only the right thing to do, but the safest thing.

Keep your eye on the ball…the problem with fear of flying is obsessive thinking as a means of feeling in control.  And the feeling is an illusion. One thing I have admired about you, as well as the many other fearful flyers I meet,  is your insatiable thirst for information.  Keep it up.  Don’t settle for all that’s available in the media.  For that matter, as Wayne Dyer says:  ”Don’t believe everything that you think.”  We fall prey to our own brains sometimes.

Happy Landings,

Capt. Ron

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  3. 3 Things Pilots Fear
Comments(3) Airplane Crashes, Aviation safety, Overcoming Fear of Flying

Comments

By Marge Graf on April 9th, 2010 at 11:16 am

Thanks for the great response Capt. Ron!

I’m tired of society’s general conclusion that someone on antidepressants is not capable of maintaining a “normal” life.

Antidepressants are available for all sorts of reasons beyond depression.

By Marcia Silberman on April 9th, 2010 at 1:10 pm

I’m always grateful for your perspective, Captain Ron. As you so well know, we pick apart everything we hear in the news which can come with a panic element.

By Capt Ron on April 9th, 2010 at 2:07 pm

Absolutely. Any public outcry opposing this may be more out of reaction to not considering that pilots, as part of the general population, are susceptible to the same social maladies and the general population. Commercial aviation has had a program for drug and alcohol abuse for years. In fact, it has the highest success rate of any profession upwards of 98% of pilots who complete the program never relapse. At least a large part of the success is due to the monitoring requirements following identification. That same monitoring will be in force with the changes that permit pilots to user approved medications. As a matter of fact, the general public might be just as surprised to know that the medical profession has created programs for substance abuse based upon the one we use in aviation to address the high incidence of abuse within the medical community. Also worthy of mentioning is the fact that the medical industry also has created a program to address the human errors in medicine resulting in over 100,000 deaths each year based upon our Human Factors program in aviation to prevent airplane crashes.

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