Suicide Pilots

Listener Discretion Is Advised.

A pilot who intentionally crashes or attempts to crash an aircraft in an attempt to commit suicide, often with the intention of killing other people on board or on the ground, is said to have committed suicide. This is occasionally referred to as a murder-suicide. It is known to have caused some commercial aviation crashes and is likely to have contributed to others. In general, it is challenging for crash investigators to pin down the pilots' intentions since they occasionally take deliberate actions to obstruct recordings or other inquiries. Pilot suicide is therefore sometimes impossible to establish with absolute certainty.

Unless there is strong evidence that the pilot was actually committing suicide, investigators do not classify aircraft events as suicide. This proof could come in the form of suicide notes, prior suicide attempts, suicide threats, or a history of mental illness. Eight deaths were determined to be suicides in a study of pilot suicides from 2002 to 2013, and five other cases of unclear causes may have been suicides. To ascertain if the suicide was a terrorist act, investigators may also consult with terrorism experts and look for connections to extremist groups.

The majority of pilot suicides occur in small, general aviation aircraft. The lone occupant of the airplane in the majority of these situations is the pilot. A flying prohibition would have ordinarily resulted from the pilot using drugs, most frequently alcohol or antidepressants, in around half of the cases. Many of these pilots have a history of mental illness that they have tried to hide from authorities.

As most people know, the strategy of war where pilots will dive bomb their aircrafts into land or sea based vessels has been around since World War 2 so we arent really going to talk too much about incidents such as those. However, the first person credited with doing so was Russian aviator Nikolai Gastello. He was credited with the first takedown of a land based vehicle with his aircraft, although his aircraft had been shot down and was in a rapid partially controllable descent which this is later to be disputed. Other notable incidents are the kamikazes of the Empire of Japan during the Pacific Campaign of World War 2.

Now lets talk about cases where pilots had suicidal thoughts or temptations of murder while piloting an aircraft.

Hosted by Jonathan Sayre and Logan Sayre

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If you or someone you know is having thoughts of hurting themselves, someone else or they just need some mental assistance, contact the National Institute of Mental Health https://www.nimh.nih.gov or your local mental health facility.