How Airlines Screen Their Pilots, and Watch Out for Warning Signs

Officials are confident that Germanwings Flight 9525 copilot Andreas Lubitz deliberately sent the plane into the ground while the pilot was locked outside the cockpit. It's another grim reminder that these craft are lethal devices with imperfect humans at the controls. So how do airlines screen the psychology of their employees when so much is at stake?

In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration has a public document explaining its pilot evaluation procedure, which is conducted by a board-certified clinical psychologist. He or she investigates a candidate's medical records, substance abuse history, hospitalizations, and more, all in the name of finding a history of behavior that might set off alarms bells. They also analyze a person's history of medication and conduct a formal interview.

That, however, is for the United States. Under the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), each country is responsible for monitoring its own carriers, and the FAA can only deny a plane access to a U.S. airport if the carrier isn't complying with international regulations. Still, commercial pilots undergo similar evaluations. Candidates can be rejected for a history of alcoholism or personality disorders. Besides that, evaluations require that candidates be able to manage anxiety in high-stress situations.

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US pilots get physicals every year, then every six months if they're over age 40, but the FAA doesn't incorporate psychological evaluations. The doctors who perform the evaluations, however, are trained to spot behavior that could indicate psychological distress. Douglas Laird, a former security director for Northwest Airlines, says, "If the pilot had a psychological issue, there's a chance it'd get picked up at the annual physical." Beyond that regular checkup, colleagues are encouraged to tell their flight surgeon about anything from suspected alcohol abuse, or a nasty divorce, factors that would preclude a pilot from being fit to fly. But they are not required to.

American regulations require that a flight attendant go in the cockpit whenever one pilot leaves. That is as a security measure, in case the remaining pilot has a medical issue and can't open the security door. With an attendant in place, unlike in the Germanwings scenario, the co-pilot isn't left alone. As CEO Carsten Spohr of Lufthansa (Germanwings' parent airline) said in a press conference today, Europe doesn't have such a rule.

When NBC asked Spohr about the possiblilty that the co-pilot committed suicide, he "demurred." He also mentioned that the co-pilot interrupted his flight training six years ago for 11 months, for unexplained reasons. Speculation about mental instability is inevitable. This isn't the first pilot suicide. There was Japan Airlines Flight 350 in 1982, Royal Air Maroc Flight 630 in '994, SilkAir Flight 185 in in 1997, Egypt Air Flight 990 in 1999, and Mozambican Flight TM 470 in 2013. With that history, most Asian airlines require regular psychological evaluations of their pilots. (More pilot-intentional accidents listed here).

Asia aside, most psychological evaluations for European and United States pilots generally take place only during recruitment, cases of strange behavior are usually reported by fellow staff. Even if screenings were more reliable, as an ICAO manual says plainly, "Psychological testing of aircrew members is rarely of value as a screening tool."