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Student pilot successfully lands plane after instructor jumps to death mid-flight (www.dexerto.com)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world
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Flight instructor: "Do your best, lol."

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[–] 51 points 3 months ago (5 children)

Mens mental health is already a disaster, but in the airline industry it's made worse by the fact that you can lose your piloting license just by seeking help. This is a tragic story. I've joked about this story elsewhere, but I've learned more about it since then.

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  • [–] 13 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    Very similar in law enforcement as well.

    I personally worked alongside three people who committed suicide for years in our tiny district of maybe 50 patrol deputies over the span of about three years. Kirk Keithley was my zone partner for a long time, then it was Terry Strawn, and then finally Daniel Leyden.

    Of course, they also murdered their S/Os and other family members as well, so I'm not exactly pouring one out for them, but it's an undeniable trend more broadly - that spaces that theoretically require the utmost in mental health often paradoxically result in mental health crises because of the stigma and practicality of undermining your paycheck; when the problem is still solvable, it's "not big enough of a deal to risk my job over it."

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  • [–] 17 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    It's a messy picture with cops, too because that job so strongly attracts cluster B personality types. You're not just working a job that is institutionally trying to drive you crazy (Killology seminars and all), but the job itself is highly attractive to the most unstable people in society.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 months ago

    True. It's a mess.

    Pedantically that doesn't take away from your point but asserting just for clarity because I see people bring it up a lot:

    The infamous Killology lecture isn't taught to the vast majority of law enforcement in the US as I understand it. We certainly didn't receive it (or similar) at my academy.

    I've heard it isn't quite as bad as cherry-picked-and-taken-out-of-context-to-malign, but I've personally never watched it, much like I haven't read Mein Kampf; "That seems like a soup sandwich of nasty, so I'm not going to waste my time."

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  • [–] 10 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    It should be the other way around. LEO should be required to get regulator mental health help. It's a stressful job, potentially dangerous, they're armed and have people's lives in their hands. We need to make damn sure they are capable of handling that with a sound mind.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago

    As previously mentioned, they simply bottle it up. It's not hard to "I've never had any suicidal ideations" your way out of any mandatory screening as currently implemented. Some are better at rooting out deception like that, but apparently that's not in the budget. I received an MMPI-style questionnaire and subsequent interview, but so did all three of those peers I mentioned who passed just the same as I did. Hell, one of my academy classmates told the psychologist he thought he was Batman. When pressed for why, he relented and said it was an outburst because he was distraught due to his goldfish dying. He obviously made it through with a Pass and I think is still on the force many years later? His social media is intentionally obscure so it's hard to say.

    Truth be told, reforming law enforcement in this and other ways is simply not politically motivating for most Americans; they're generally either focused on other single issues, "The police are perfect and criticizing them is immoral," or "The police are all bastards and need to be abolished."

    I'm not dumb enough to tell everyone I meet I was a cop so all of my discussions about the matter are generally relegated to the internet, but of the people I bump elbows with on the topic on Reddit, 90% of the time it turns into name-calling and other bad faith tactics. The other evidence I use is... -gestures broadly at the state of US politics-. Remember when people were marching in the streets to fix the police? Remember how it generally didn't?

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