Pilots to face psychological screening

Airline pilots should be psychologically screened and details of their medical visits shared in a proposed European database, according to new recommendations delivered to the European Commission in the wake of the Germanwings disaster.

A task force led by Europe’s aviation safety regulator has also called for random drugs and alcohol testing of pilots and better oversight of the doctors responsible for their medical checks. European Union Transport Commissioner, Violeta Bulc, ordered the review after a young pilot barricaded himself inside the cockpit and crashed his Germanwings jetliner into the Alps, in March, killing all 150 people on board.

The co-pilot, who had suffered severe depression and may have feared losing his job, had researched suicide methods and concealed an illness from his employer, sparking a debate on supervision and medical secrecy.