JetBlue captain subdued after pounding on cockpit

Cav said:
Federal no but it's certainly not outside the realm of possibilities and plenty of doctors have gone to prison for negligence. In all honesty, the federal government probably did us a favor by acting quickly. Perhaps if they had not the story would be why hasn't the government done anything. Front page news sure doesn't help us in this case and the public screaming for action and regulation doesn't either. In this case it seems they acted quickly and basically handed it over to the very people who should be dealing with the incident...pretty much everyone but the press. Sure it's news but it's not NEWS.
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True, however I am not sure he was negligent, and those aren't the charges. Anyway, I see your point and he clearly did interfere with the flight, just raised my hair a little bit on the back of my neck.
 
Cazadores said:
I mean, if a surgeon has a similar "episode" while performing his duties and no one is worse for the wear, he gets restrained/removed from the O.R. by coworkers and is given treatment with compassion. I am confident an attorney having an issue in the courtroom as a result of illness would not be held in contempt, nor an engineer on the job site arrested for a similar outburst. Had it been any other profession, the headline if any would simply be "Local (insert professional title) has unforeseen mental issue during performance of their duties and is currently being evaluated."

Seems the only reason he is facing federal charges along with potential illness and subsequent uncertain future is he is a pilot, and therefore works on airplanes. Unfortunately for him this happened at work, and as a natural consequence, it interfered with a flight crew. For that reason only, he is facing criminal charges. Maybe I am wrong here but it seems out of line.
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I think the differentiator is what is expected of the profession and seen by the public in various industries. Pilots have a steady, calm, professional demeanor even in the face of death (listen to a CVR or read a transcript sometime), yet everything they do is witnessed (or experienced) by public passengers. Any divergence from this demeanor arouses attention. On the other hand, doctors are known to be mercurial, explosive narcisists, yet their outbursts are almost always behind closed doors. They scream at assistants, throw instruments during sugery, even curse sedated patients on the table - the public expects no better of doctors, and aren't surprised when they are kept waiting for appointments.

Neil Armstrong says "shucks" under his breath - page one. Dr. Fill-In-The-Blank kicks a nurse - that's not even cocktail party chatter.
 
tomokc said:
Pilots have a steady, calm, professional demeanor even in the face of death
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Says you. If the earth rises up to smite me, I'll be screaming like a little girl. This ain't a costume drama and I'm not a Hero. I'm a guy who knows how to fly a plane, and makes it his business not to crash. And I suppose I'm arrogant enough to say that you'll never hear my voice on a CVR because I'm pretty good at what I do. But if I'm wrong, and you do, I won't be performing for anyone, I'll just be another poor bastard who screwed up or drove the wrong plane on the wrong day. It's not a TV show and I'm not looking for any weeping eulogies to my bravery. Living is about life BEFORE death. You think the Charmin truck driver puts on a stoic face when he forgets to put it in "park" and it crushes the life out of him so that people will retardedly worship truck drivers? Please.

PS. How many CVR tapes have you heard?
 
tomokc said:
On the other hand, doctors are known to be mercurial, explosive narcisists, yet their outbursts are almost always behind closed doors. They scream at assistants, throw instruments during sugery, even curse sedated patients on the table - the public expects no better of doctors, and aren't surprised when they are kept waiting for appointments.

Neil Armstrong says "shucks" under his breath - page one. Dr. Fill-In-The-Blank kicks a nurse - that's not even cocktail party chatter.
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This is quite possibly one of the most rediculously ignorant things I've read in a long time. Go tell this to Dr. Forred who VOLUNTEERS his time to help pilots on this very website. You obviously don't know many doctors personally. My father, my grandfather, my uncle, my sister, my brother in law, many family friends, all doctors, are some of the hardest working, most selfless people you will find.
 
Cav said:
This is quite possibly one of the most rediculously ignorant things I've read in a long time. Go tell this to Dr. Forred who VOLUNTEERS his time to help pilots on this very website. You obviously don't know many doctors personally. My father, my grandfather, my uncle, my sister, my brother in law, many family friends, all doctors, are some of the hardest working, most selfless people you will find.
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204720204577128481569245646.html

Read that and call me in the morning.
 
You read it as satire? I didn't. Seemed like an honest appraisal from a surgeon of his profession and a frustrating night in the operating room.

In any case, I did find this part amusing, and very familiar:

"You're going to earn your fee tonight, Dr. Surgeon." The colon kept talking. "I hope you're not in this business for the money, like the last guy who operated on me. Between what Medicare pays you, the phone calls in the middle of night and the time you spend guiding my recovery, I figure you will make about $200 an hour for this operation. How does that grab you?"

Should have gone for my M.B.A., I mumbled to myself. Big mistake going into medicine, never mind surgery. If I could only go back and do it over again.

The colon's rant continued: "Wait, subtract what it costs you in overhead to bill for this operation (double that if the claim gets rejected), plus malpractice costs for the day, and we are now at $150 an hour. And how could I leave out the biggest expense of all? The price of the mental stress from worrying about me after the surgery (and double that if there's a complication). Now, I figure you're under $100 an hour. Plumbers make more than that just to step inside your house. I bet they sleep well at night. Just remember, Dr. Surgeon, nobody put a gun to your head. You chose this profession."
 
Cav said:
I'll go with my personal experiences over a media article and a few book quotes. But hey, you've got it all figured out from a WSJ article and a book. Stereotype much?
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You didn't mention that you know any surgeons, and I think he's being specific to them, not doctors in general. I don't really know any surgeons, but I do know someone who started up a business that was aimed at teaching CRM-like principles in hospitals for this exact reason. This person was a pilot who had a background in teaching CRM courses. He also had a background in medicine before going into the piloting profession. So, he had seen it from both angles. His opinion was that hospital emergency rooms have an extreme lack of CRM-like discipline. He felt that surgeons were basically treated like gods, similarly to how airline captains were treated in the '50s, before even the most basic elements of CRM began to be introduced. Assistants didn't feel comfortable correcting them or making suggestions, they had frequent outbursts, yelled at other people in the operating room, etc.

Again, I have no personal experience, but this was what was relayed to me by this individual who did have that experience and wanted to work to correct the problems that he saw.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
You read it as satire? I didn't. Seemed like an honest appraisal from a surgeon of his profession and a frustrating night in the operating room.

In any case, I did find this part amusing, and very familiar:

"You're going to earn your fee tonight, Dr. Surgeon." The colon kept talking. "I hope you're not in this business for the money, like the last guy who operated on me. Between what Medicare pays you, the phone calls in the middle of night and the time you spend guiding my recovery, I figure you will make about $200 an hour for this operation. How does that grab you?"

Should have gone for my M.B.A., I mumbled to myself. Big mistake going into medicine, never mind surgery. If I could only go back and do it over again.

The colon's rant continued: "Wait, subtract what it costs you in overhead to bill for this operation (double that if the claim gets rejected), plus malpractice costs for the day, and we are now at $150 an hour. And how could I leave out the biggest expense of all? The price of the mental stress from worrying about me after the surgery (and double that if there's a complication). Now, I figure you're under $100 an hour. Plumbers make more than that just to step inside your house. I bet they sleep well at night. Just remember, Dr. Surgeon, nobody put a gun to your head. You chose this profession."
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Yup, I take it as satire. Is it any different than Pilot X?
 
ATN_Pilot said:
. Plumbers make more than that just to step inside your house. I bet they sleep well at night. Just remember, Dr. Surgeon, nobody put a gun to your head. You chose this profession."
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Replace "Dr. Surgeon" with "random pilot" and you have my response to every pilot who bitches about their pay, knowing what they signed up for.

I think doctors get deserve every dime they make, because at the end of the day, after factoring in school loans, overhead, malpractice insurance, billing insurance companies (and not getting paid,) etc. what are you left with? A-holes that dont pay and make my insurance pay (or really deny) 200 bucks for a set of crutches.

The only real gripe I have is about a small minority of doctors who really have an unsavory hustle. Most pilots in my company go to the same AME because he's quick and easy, but everyone I work with has been told by the AME that he thought he "heard something funny" with their heart and wanted imaging done. Just so happens that the same AME also owns an imaging device. Go figure. One guy asked if it was serious enough to delay his medical, and the Dr. said he would have to check the image, the pilot said ok, ill get a second opinion, the Dr. back tracked and said dont worry about it.

GG doc.
 
Yup, I take it as satire. Is it any different than Pilot X?
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Well, I wouldn't call "Four Day Follies" by "Pilot X" a satire, either. Humorous, yes, but satire, not really.

In the case of this article, it is adapted from a book named "Confessions of a Surgeon." You can find a link to the Amazon page for it here: http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Surgeon-Complicated-Life-Behind-Doors/dp/0425245152

Reading about the book, it hardly seems to be a satire. It doesn't seem to be intended to be humorous in any way, in fact. I think it's pretty clear that the doctor intended it to be a very serious look into the O.R.
 
Cav said:
. My father, my grandfather, my uncle, my sister, my brother in law, many family friends, all doctors, are some of the hardest working, most selfless people you will find.
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You may have more experience than me as only 3 out of 4 of my immediate family are Drs, my mom is only a nurse. I love "House", I am waiting for a TV show depicting a beloved pilot who acts like this. I think it is safe to say all Drs. are arrogant and pilots are salt of the earth.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
You didn't mention that you know any surgeons, and I think he's being specific to them, not doctors in general. I don't really know any surgeons, but I do know someone who started up a business that was aimed at teaching CRM-like principles in hospitals for this exact reason. This person was a pilot who had a background in teaching CRM courses. He also had a background in medicine before going into the piloting profession. So, he had seen it from both angles. His opinion was that hospital emergency rooms have an extreme lack of CRM-like discipline. He felt that surgeons were basically treated like gods, similarly to how airline captains were treated in the '50s, before even the most basic elements of CRM began to be introduced. Assistants didn't feel comfortable correcting them or making suggestions, they had frequent outbursts, yelled at other people in the operating room, etc.

Again, I have no personal experience, but this was what was relayed to me by this individual who did have that experience and wanted to work to correct the problems that he saw.
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My dad is a retired surgeon but that it doesn't really matter. Like our profession there are a certain percentage of poor communicators who make everyone around them uncomfortable and surgeons probably had the reputation for being the tip of the spear. But I think it's an overplayed stereotype that like any has a degree of truth.

Now there is some truth in what you say above. The medical profession is only now stepping foot into the arenas of CRM and checklists. My brother in law sent an article to me a while back that talked of how medicine is trying to emulate airline style procedure in the operating room. I asked him about it and he stated that he is starting to see checklists more and more. Not so much in the realm of his individual activities as an anestesologist but in say finishing procedures that involve everyone in the OR...sponge counts for example. He said that reason the checklists are unpopular with many is because there is no uniformity among them. Hospital A has a checklist for one procedure while hospital B has a totally different checklist for the same procedure. Furthermore, the checklists were written not with patient safety and success in mind but instead for hospital liability protection....a problem I think we can identify with because we've all seen QRH procedures that seem to be written by attorneys rather than pilots. In his opinion they were in many cases a hazard to operation for those reasons.

Why is medicine behind aviation despite a much longer history? My theory is that we benefit from having the vast majority of the pilot work force working for comparitively few entities than does medicine. Furthermore we have the benefit of the military and NASA which developed many of the tools we use today. Medical professionals work for hospitals, small practices, for themselves, etc.
 
exneophyte said:
In case the doc doesn't want to go there, here is what I've found from research. To be clear, this information is completely independent of the recent situation and may or may not be applicable. Physiologically, there are many things that can lead to symptoms related to psychosis when in reality, the person has nothing wrong mentally. Our bodies are finely tuned and it doesn't take much to alter its stable balance. Just like a plane or a car, if one part of the body isn't working right, it can cause other things to go wrong or cause the display of seemingly unrelated symptoms. Here are just a list of a few issues that come to mind:
Ultimately, I'd say it doesn't really matter what the nature of the specific issue is. You aren't going to diagnose it in the air though it may be useful to differentiate whether it's an issue with one person or whether this could just be the first person to show issues like the poor canary in the coal mine.
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I appreciate you writing that up, because I didn't really feel like wasting my breath as everyone kept saying "HE MUST HAVE CRACKED!!!" "THE PRESSURE FINALLY GOT TO HIM!!!" while patting themselves on the back and telling themselves they would never make the same mistake. As pilots we are taught that if we learn emergency procedures, follow the checklist and try and learn as much as we can from the mistakes of others (often postmortem), we will be invincible! Or at the very least we won't crash. Unfortunately medical problems don't play by these rules, and despite our best intentions at living a healthy lifestyle bad things can still happen to us. When your career and your livelihood depend on being evaluated by a doctor every 6 months I could see why some might choose to live in denial about it, but it's not fair to condemn the Jetblue captain for something that very well may have been completely out of his hands.

Like exneophyte, MikeD and WacoFan suggested, don't rule out the physiological explanations. Personally I think his symptoms, especially the religious component of his ranting, have traumatic brain injury written all over them.

Case in point: My father was one of the healthiest people I knew, so imagine everyone's surprise when he found out he had a brain tumor at 41 years old. He was rushed into brain surgery and sent home in a matter of days. The experience had understandably shaken his spirituality and it was something he talked about a lot, but during the course of a week of recovery his behavior became more erratic and his religious ideas more incomprehensible and frantic (as the Blues Brothers put it, he was 'on a mission from God'). He regressed into a kind of psychosis. It turned out that there were complications with his surgery and he was suffering a buildup of intercranial pressure in his brain throughout this time. By the time my family realized something was wrong it was too late, and he had a stroke in the ER waiting room as he was waiting to be seen (a convenient location, it saved his life). That was four years ago, and over the last four years he has spent fighting terminal brain cancer - suffice to say I learned a lot about strokes, TIAs (Transient Ischemic Attacks, aka mini-strokes) and other brain injuries and developmental disabilities and what symptoms they can manifest.

A TIA is also the first thing that came to mind with Jetblue Captain Clayton Osborn, because blood flow in the brain is blocked causing stroke-like symptoms, but the blockage is temporary and dissipates quickly enough that no brain tissue dies as it would in a stroke. As exneophyte pointed out the pressure changes in the cabin can be conducive to these. Furthermore, because the blockage is only temporary and causes no permanent tissue damage, there's nothing obvious to look for in an MRI, and thus doctors usually diagnose TIAs indirectly based on observed symptoms and family histories. This is really bad news for Capt Osborne, because with the FAA already filing charges, he has no way to definitively point to an MRI or any other medical test in his defense because for TIAs there simply isn't one.

To those that argue the FAA should still charge him because he still engaged in that behavior regardless of the cause, I envy your ignorance to brain injuries and how they affect people. I doubt my dad really thought he was the next Jesus Christ, I believe that as the brain shuts down it latches onto fundamentally important and deep rooted ideas and themes, and religion was very important to him. I could see someone latching onto the idea of 9-11 in much the same way if it was something that was fundamentally traumatic or deeply affected their life and career.

So do the math. Either the man consciously decided to throw away his entire diverse and well respected career and have a psychological break because he couldn't handle the idea that Las Vegas is "full of sinners", or he had a latent neurological problem which resulted in a mini-stroke (TIA), known to be brought on by altitude changes, which resulted in involuntary psychosis. Let's throw him in jail either way. :rolleyes:

Cazadores said:
Maybe I am wrong here but it seems out of line.
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My thoughts exactly.

Sorry to make this personal, but all the "he finally cracked! couldn't handle the pressure!" BS really rubs me the wrong way. And during a time where pilot unity is such a hot topic, I'm disappointed to see some of you be so quick to throw a fellow pilot under the bus. Whatever happened, it couldn't hurt to show the man some compassion.
 
This story is just absolutely too weird for me to believe it was anything other than a physiological problem. Nothing I have seen to date makes this guy look like anything but a normal, good guy. If it is, I certainly hope that they find out why and the guy gets disability (if needed) rather than jail. It is baffling to me.
 
Cav said:
This is quite possibly one of the most rediculously ignorant things I've read in a long time. Go tell this to Dr. Forred who VOLUNTEERS his time to help pilots on this very website. You obviously don't know many doctors personally. My father, my grandfather, my uncle, my sister, my brother in law, many family friends, all doctors, are some of the hardest working, most selfless people you will find.
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There's nothing quite so rewarding as being excoriated on a message board by people who have never met me, as I held up the professionalism of members of the industry.
 
tomokc said:
There's nothing quite so rewarding as being excoriated on a message board by people who have never met me, as I held up the professionalism of members of the industry.
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I wasn't speaking to you personally just the rediculous stereotype you made. Tearing down another profession in defense of your own does little to further your point. As pilots we get don't particularly like the often used stereotype that we are arrogant, womanizing, boozing, overpaid, and underworked bus drivers. We see it reported that way in the media all the time but we all know better and are rightly defensive of our reputation. In light of that, should we not use similar discretion when analyzing others? The media rarely paints us correctly so it stands to reason others are depicted in a similar manner.
 
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