Co-pilot who crashed jet was told to stay off work
The few who are dangerous are mainly dangerous only to themselves
Of all the horrifying revelations that have so far emerged from the crash of a Germanwings jet this week, there may be none thornier, with wider ramifications, than what German prosecutors announced Friday — that the co-pilot who is believed to have deliberately crashed the plane had a medical condition he hid from his employer.
According to prosecutors in Dusseldorf, where 27-year-old Andreas Lubitz had an apartment, investigators who searched the apartment found a doctor’s note declaring him “unfit for work” during a period that included the day of the crash.
A similar note was also found torn up in a trash can.
Thursday, French prosecutor Brice Robin said that while the pilot left the cockpit, presumably to use the toilet, Lubitz deliberately locked him out and set Flight 9525 on the deadly path that saw the plane smash into the French Alps.
If it turns out that Lubitz suffered from, and was being treated for, some form of mental illness — and while details are still sketchy that seems likelier than not, given his age and apparently robust physical condition — what will follow are the sort of painful and awkward conversations that invariably accompany this particular subject.
If mental illness doesn’t carry the stigma it once did in this country thanks to those like Clara Hughes and others who have spoken so openly about their own experiences with it, it still packs a hell of a wallop. Some people who are sick do tend not to disclose it or they minimize it; some of those who aren’t nurse suspicions that the afflicted ought to just toughen up; and there’s a pervasive belief that if someone is deemed not criminally responsible, or NCR, by a court, he’s managed to pull a fast one.
The truth is that most people who are treated manage even serious mental illnesses remarkably well, and that of the few who are dangerous, most are dangerous only to themselves.
One of the most productive and reliable reporters I know has bipolar disorder (the old name was manic depression), with its characteristic intense peaks and valleys.
Diagnosed as a teenager, she’s been on medication — lithium — most of her life, and she took it so diligently that it destroyed her kidneys such that she ended up on dialysis and then needed a transplant; if only her doctors had been as diligent as she was and monitored her more carefully.
In the 25 years or so that I knew or worked alongside her, only a handful of times did she stop taking her meds, with predictable results — she was soon out of control, ended up in hospital for a more or less brief time, and was soon back in the saddle, cheerful and dependable.
That’s one of the tricky things about mental illness: So much, including diagnosis, treatment, compliance with medication and even recognition of potential dangerousness, depends upon the self-report.
Consider convicted killer Luka Magnotta, whose original diagnosis of schizophrenia was made probably too quickly and too early and whose lawyer argued he should be found NCR.
But the diagnosis suited Magnotta — the label alleviated him of the need to work regularly and got him some of the attention he craved 24-7 — and it was effectively rubber-stamped thereafter.
As forensic psychiatrist Dr. Gilles Chamberland testified at Magnotta’s trial, that happens often enough in his business: Changing or negating a diagnosis is a whole lot of bother and may carry tremendous ramifications for the patient, so doctors are loath to do it.
My friend was remarkably, unusually I’d guess, honest about her illness and she was lucky enough to have an unusually supportive employer years, if not decades, ahead of its time. Despite her illness, she was a tremendously valuable employee who built a rich career and life.
But she wasn’t, of course, in charge of an airplane, and she didn’t hold in her hands the fate of hundreds of strangers. And she never attempted to hide the fact that she had a serious condition from anyone, least of all from the company.
In all the debate that may flow if the facts from prosecutors reveal Lubitz was mentally ill — the employee’s privacy rights versus the employer’s right to know; the physician’s duty to protect patient confidentiality versus his duty to warn authorities; the merits of psychological screening, etc. — maybe the best thing to remember is that he would be the exception, the rare bird.