Five years ago, in the Alps in southeastern France, an A320 plane crashed by the German airline Germanwings, flying a flight from Barcelona to Dusseldorf. The liner crashed into a mountain at a speed of 700 km / h. The catastrophe claimed the lives of all 150 people on board. As the investigation found out, the culprit of the tragedy was the second pilot, a 27-year-old German citizen Andreas Lubitz.

He deliberately directed the A320 to the ground. Before the descent, Lubitz closed the door to the cockpit, taking advantage of the fact that the aircraft commander left the workplace.

The authorities of the Federal Republic of Germany and France, conducting the investigation, called the cause of the disaster the mental state of Lyubits. The co-pilot suffered from depression, consulted with a psychiatrist three times and took antidepressants. At the same time, the acquaintances of the pilot characterized him as a calm and friendly person.

"System Testing"

The crash of the A320 in the Alps has tightened control over the psychological state of civil aviation pilots and the introduction of a number of safety standards. For example, the Latvian airline AirBaltic already on March 27, 2015 introduced a requirement that two people must be in the cockpit throughout the flight.

This rule was introduced by a number of other airlines, including German, but it did not become mandatory. In particular, in April 2017, the German Aviation Industry Association announced the cancellation of the requirement for two people to be in the cockpit.

  • Andreas Lubitz
  • AFP
  • © OFF

As explained in the organization, it does not contribute to improving security measures - the door to the cockpit often has to be kept open, which increases the risk of penetration by outsiders, including criminals.

In March 2016, the French Bureau for the Investigation and Analysis of the Safety of Civil Aviation advocated strengthening medical control of civil aviation pilots, including their psychological state.

In July 2018, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) ordered airlines to conduct “systematic testing” of pilots for psychoactive substances, including alcohol and drugs. Checks must be made at the time of hiring and without warning.

The Agency demanded that these measures be implemented within two years, that is, until July 2020. These steps apply to all airlines of EU member states and foreign carriers flying in the airspace of the European Union.

However, the EASA decree and a number of other measures taken due to the tragedy that Lubitz provoked do not take into account all aspects related to monitoring the mental and psychological state of the pilots. This point of view in an interview with RT was expressed by Nadezhda Yakimovich, candidate of psychological sciences, chief researcher at the Moscow Aviation Technological Institute (MATI) - Tsiolkovsky Russian State Technological University.

So, according to an expert with over 30 years of experience in aviation psychology, depression can occur in various forms that are not always diagnosed by doctors.

According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) "Guidelines for Aviation Medicine", depression leads to latent and sometimes apparent loss of working capacity - "mainly due to a weakening ability to concentrate, distracted and indecisive." Also, this disease is characterized by the risk of suicide, which makes the sick pilot "unsuitable for work in the aviation environment."

“During the episode of depression, the symptoms increase or decrease, and therefore on some days the patient may feel relatively good and look fit to fly. Nevertheless, weakening of concentration and cognitive response are always present to one degree or another, ”the ICAO experts say.

  • Rescue workers at the crash site of the Germanwings A320 airliner
  • Reuters
  • © Gonzalo Fuentes

As the Düsseldorf prosecutor’s office established, Germanwings did not know anything about Lubitz’s depression because of the principle of medical secrecy, and the pilot himself did not advertise his mental problems when undergoing a medical examination for access to flights.

“In this case, the anonymity of the patient and the principle of medical secrecy turned into tragic consequences. However, after the incident with Lubitz, changes in the EU legislation took place that allow doctors to inform the employer about the patient’s problems if he is responsible for the lives of other people by occupation, ”said Yakimovich.

“Minimize Risk”

According to experts, more than 99% of pilots are absolutely adequate people who monitor their health and mental state. Nevertheless, according to statistics, about 70% of air crashes are caused precisely by the human factor, which dictates the need to create new mechanisms for checking the psycho-emotional state of pilots.

“Even the most experienced pilots are not safe from mistakes. In life, various events occur that can negatively affect the cognitive abilities of pilots. It is impossible to completely insure pilots against mistakes, but minimizing the risk is quite possible, ”says Yakimovich.

The catastrophe in the French Alps has become an incentive for the development of projects aimed at putting the human factor under the control of machine intelligence.

  • Civilian pilot medical checkup
  • Gettyimages.ru
  • © humonia

Today in Russia, MATI specialists have developed special express testing for the cognitive (mental) abilities of pilots. It takes place in the form of a short computer game during the pre-flight inspection of pilots.

Nadezhda Yakimovich, one of the creators of the methodology, told RT that this verification method can improve the efficiency of the pre-flight inspection, which usually takes about five minutes. The test has already been tested on Aeroflot pilots and on Russian candidates for astronauts during the preparation of the mission to Mars.

Also in Russia and in the West, studies are being conducted related to automatic tracking of the mental state of pilots. According to Yakimovich, in the future, scientists can create equipment that can analyze the speech of pilots.

“It is assumed that artificial intelligence will detect signs of mental arousal or inhibition, for example, in tone frequency. True, the machine cannot determine semantics, that is, the direction of the pilots' thoughts. Therefore, the effect of using such devices will be limited if you do not include professional psychologists in the analysis, ”the expert noted.

“Maximum measures”

In Russia, the medical suitability of pilots is checked upon admission to civil aviation schools, as part of a medical flight examination and pre-flight examination, where the pulse, temperature, pressure and respiratory rate are measured.

In the West, unlike the Russian Federation, there is no strict system of professional selection for admission to educational institutions of civil aviation, says Yakimovich. According to her, medical examination and psychological control in Europe and the USA are the lot of private organizations that have medical certification required by law.

“The advantage of the Russian approach, in my opinion, lies in the serious regulatory role of the state. At the same time, the West has moved further than Russia in introducing tests for cognitive abilities. However, both approaches do not imply an in-depth study of the mental state of pilots. Checks are episodic in nature, ”Yakimovich stated.

The absence of a unified approach to monitoring the psychological and mental state of pilots is indicated in the ICAO Guide to Aviation Medicine. Experts do not consider the current situation with testing critical, but recall that "almost any weakening of cognitive function can have serious consequences."

According to Oleg Panteleev, Executive Director of Aviaport Agency, the human factor is extremely important in plane crashes, but the tragedy in the Alps that occurred due to Lubitz was an extraordinary incident in civil aviation.

The interlocutor of RT called exhaustive verification measures of civil aviation pilots that exist in Russia and in the West. For example, a medical flight examination in the Russian Federation “captures a fairly large number of medical aspects and is one of the most stringent in the world,” Panteleev emphasized.

“From my point of view, it is not necessary to tighten the measures of psychological and mental control. At least, what has already been implemented in Russia, in my opinion, is more than enough. In general, in recent years in the Russian Federation and in the West, perhaps, a maximum of measures has been taken that allow controlling the psycho-emotional state of pilots without serious economic damage to the aviation industry, ”Panteleev summed up.