Quote:
Originally Posted by janmcn
This just get worse and worse for Lufthansa. Today's news said the co-pilot was removed from duty by a physician for unknown reasons (possibly mental problems) and declared unfit to fly, but nobody notified the airline.
It defies common sense that anyone would rely on the patient being treated for possible mental problems to notify the carrier and take himself off duty.
The medical professional who treated him must feel terrible and procedures will probably change soon, but 150 innocent people are dead.
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I think that several posters have offered highly intelligent suggestions as to cockpit access and 'single occupancy' being forbidden.
There is another area that needs attention and change and that is the privacy laws barring doctors, including psychiatrists, from notifying air lines and other public carriers of a potential for danger given the patient's job and condition.
What good is giving a mentally ill person a note saying he or she is 'unfit to fly a jet plane?' I am not blaming the doctors - God knows they are up to their eyeballs in malpractice insurance costs and hovering trial lawyers.
The solution is to remove that prohibition, and let common sense and the innocent passengers live.
The privacy wall is good until it is bad, dangerous and nonsensical. The world found about about Mr. Lubitz' problem anyway, but in a devastating and preventable way.
There has been case law already in the US tempering the 'privacy laws' in cases where a patient tells a psychiatrist he is going to kill someone. Google "Tarasoff case" in California. No one should try to say that the Tarasoff case is different. The trained psychiatrist (and most normal people) know that the real possibility of self harm and harm to others exists, whether vocalized or not, in certain medical conditions.
I pray for those poor innocent families. This should not happen to anyone.