PILOT SUICIDE A TABOO TOPIC IN PAST AIR CRASH PROBES
CANBERRA, Australia — As police investigate the two pilots of a Malaysian passenger jet that disappeared more than a week ago, a possibility they must consider — however remote and improbable — is that one of them committed suicide. While such incidents have happened before, the topic remains almost taboo, with investigators and offi cials reluctant to conclude that a pilot purposely crashed a plane in order to commit suicide even when the evidence appears compelling. A dozen years ago, U. S. investigators fi led a fi nal report into the 1999 crash of EgyptAir Flight 990, which plunged into the Atlantic Ocean near the Massachusetts island of Nantucket, killing all 217 aboard. They concluded that when co- pilot Gameel El- Batouty found himself alone on the fl ight deck, he switched off the autopilot, pointed the plane downward, and calmly repeated the phrase “I rely on God” over and over, 11 times in total. Yet while the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that the co- pilot’s actions caused the crash, they didn’t use the word “suicide” in the main fi ndings of their 160- page report, instead saying the reason for his actions “was not determined.” Egyptian offi cials, meanwhile, rejected the notion of suicide altogether, insisting instead there was some mechanical reason for the crash. There was also disagreement over the cause of the crash of SilkAir Flight 185, which plunged into a river in 1997 during a fl ight from Jakarta, Indonesia, to Singapore, killing all 104 passengers and crew. A U. S. investigation found that the Boeing 737 had been deliberately crashed, but an Indonesian investigation was inconclusive. Mozambique offi cials have been investigating a crash that killed 33 people in November. They say preliminary investigations indicate that the pilot of the Mozambique Airlines plane bound for Angola intentionally brought it down. A 2014 study by the Federal Aviation Administration indicates that in the U. S. at least, fl ying remains a remarkably safe mode of transport and pilot suicide is a rare occurrence. The study found that during the 10 years ending in 2012, just eight of 2,758 fatal aviation accidents in the U. S. were caused by pilot suicide, a rate of 0.3 per cent. The report found that all eight suicides were men, with four testing positive for alcohol and two for antidepressants. The cases ranged from a pilot celebrating his 21st birthday who realized a woman didn’t want a relationship with him, to a 69- year- old pilot with a history of drinking and threatening suicide by plane. Seven of the cases involved the death of only the pilot; in the eighth case, a passenger also died. “Aircraft- assisted suicides are tragic, intentional events that are hard to predict and diffi cult to prevent,” the FAA’s report found, adding such suicides “are most likely under- reported and under- recognized.” Mike Glynn, a committee member of the Australian and International Pilots Association, said a pilot rather than a hijacker is more likely to be able to switch off the communications equipment, adding that he thinks suicide was to blame in the EgyptAir and SilkAir crashes. “The last thing that I, as a pilot, want is suspicion to fall on the crew, but it’s happened twice before,” Glynn said. Still, there is no explanation why the pilot of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane would spirit the jet away to an unknown location and not crash it soon after taking off if he had wanted to commit suicide.