10 years ago, a German wings Airbus A320 went down in the French Alps, but the crash was no accident.

The co-pilot of that flight, whose doctor had diagnosed him with suicidal tendencies and told

him he was unfit to fly, concealed his mental illness from his employer, locked the captain

out of the cockpit, and deliberately drove the plane into the mountains, taking his own life and 149

others. From KERA in Dallas, this is think. I'm Chris Boyd. In the U.S., the FAA requires pilots to be both

physically and mentally healthy to be allowed to fly as a matter of public safety. But if getting

care means being grounded or fired, you can see how those rules could actually create an

incentive for pilots to lie about their treatment or to avoid seeking help at all.

It is not an easy problem to solve. Even in an era when many people want to reduce stigma around mental illness, we might feel differently when we board an aircraft and entrust our safety to a professional aviator.

Helen O'Yang is an emergency physician

and associate professor at Columbia University, also contributing writer to the New York Times

magazine, which published her article, Why Airline Pilots Feel Pushed to Hide Their Mental Illness.

Helen, welcome back to think. Thanks so much for having me again. You introduce us here to a pilot named Troy Merritt, who had just turned 30 when he fell

into a serious depression. He just could not shake. This was not a guy who was in denial about his condition.

He wanted help. Why was he fearful of getting an official diagnosis? So Troy Merritt is a pilot for a major

U.S. airline, and he was afraid to get help because he knew he was going to put his medical

certification at risk if he did. So all pilots and air traffic controllers have to get medically certified. And if he reported

a mental health condition, he was putting it at risk. So he did actually see a therapist,

but what would have happened if he had followed that therapist's suggestion to try medication

initially? Right. So he had seen a therapist and a therapist suggested that he might benefit from some

medications, that he wasn't making as much progress as she thought he needed. But if he did take a

medication, he would have to stop flying immediately. There was no guarantee that the medication that the psychiatrist thought he should be on would even be allowed for flying.

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