When I grew up the skies were truly friendly. You didn’t have to strip down and get   searched in order to get on the plane and your suitcases were not unlocked   with airport personnel having the right to explore your stuff and have the right to be able to choose to take   some of your toiletries and toss them   in the trash. We were not humiliated before boarding a plane. It was a time when you were separated by your pilot by a curtain that was left open most of the time and you got to see all their cool meters and panels that were used to navigate the skies. If you were a kid you were exhorted in and was allowed to sit in his seat and proudly went back to your seat wearing wings the pretty nice smelling stewardess pinned to your shirt.

Where did those safe simple times go? Now everyone is suspicious of each other on the plane and we all look around trying to guess who the cop is on the plane on domestic flights. In Europe they are deliberately flying crashes into death for all or the plane just disappears. Is it in the pot? What is making young men so crazy lately? They crash planes,   blow up movie theaters, kill school children in their schools,   explode bombs during   Marathons all senseless, all successful and at times suicidal. A recent senseless tragedy was the suicide crash of a Germanwings plane .

It was the co-pilot , ,27 year old Andres Lubitz who locked the door to the pilot and deliberately crashed the plane killing 149 innocent people.  No one suspected that he was nuts.  He hid his severe depression from other employees. Now with locked doors to the cockpit, he locked the pilot out and took the plane into a severe descent.   Why don’t pilots have keys to their own friggin doors? Just 2 weeks ago the murderer was being treated for depression at a local hospital but did not disclose any of it to his job.  Does the world need new rules? All mental issues dealt with at hospitals must be reported to employers?

He suffered depression during his pilot training in 2009 that led to him taking many days off.  He appeared to be a quiet and capable pilot before this catastrophic meltdown. He never showed any signs of inner turmoil. He was a runner and the picture of health. He flew over the crash site earlier that fateful day on another flight probably looking for a place for sudden disaster. Who knows what is going through the mind of a severely sad person. Many anti-depression drugs that are prescribed has suicide as a possible side effect. The world is crazy now. I want to be that little boy again who can earn his wings with a pin on his shirt and just a curtain separating us all.

The Aviation Analyst John Nance does not believe that the depressed young man was not completely capable of flying a plane safely. His qualifications to fly a plane was fine. It all raises questions now on how airlines screen pilots for mental issues.  Dr. Robert Noven an Aviation Medical Examiner says that there is no real guideline for general observations and impressions. If there is an indication that a pilot is suffering from depression or mental issues, they are subject to additional psychiatric screening. It is still up to the individual to report their anxiety or a co-worker to report them. Not many people admit that they are nuts. If there are not any overt signs and no legal issue, it is possible a disaster can happen and it did.