Pilots and Mental Stability

We can define mental stability as: "the capability of handling life in a calm, mature fashion. and if negative emotions do arise, like impatience or anger, the capability to handle oneself so the situation and the emotions dont get out of hand".

The Clayton Osbon event on board Jet Blue Flight 191 on march 28th, remembered me this definition, and a discussion with some fellow pilots from my airline a few weeks ago during a CRM session. Most of them were very experienced pilots, flight instructors or check airmen, with more than 15 years of airline experience, and most of them were concerned about the increasing number of young pilots reaching the airline's cockpits.

In this discussion, issue number one was that being so young, their mental stability under stress conditions was of concern, and most of them were afraid of what could happen in case they became ill or incapacited during a flight. I told them my opinion, Mental stability is a matter of development and maturity, and age is not the best indicator. Mental stability may also have peaks during your life, specially in early 40s and 50s an male adults, so "old" pilots may be less mental stable than "young" pilots under certain circumstances.

The main fact here is that you have to be the manager of your own emotional status, and as a pilot, with the responsibility of other people life's on your hands, you have to be profesional enough to determine when you're not stable enough to fly. Money and relations are the number one cause of stressed crews, but this two so human factors could be amplified by airline's policies and work environment, and those are factors that could be controlled and managed to help crews get their best in the air (SMS).

I'm not afraid of youg pilots reaching airline cockpits, as long as they have the required skills to fly and the mental and emotional development to "keep cool" under stressful conditions. What I'm really afraid is complacency and lack of supervision that sometimes "big" airlines show when it comes to stressed pilots and cabin crew, specially when that stress is infringed by the own airline's scheduling policies that deny a crew member a required rest period when they need it the most, especially when they say - "I really need to stop flying, now!".