Update: US Pilot Ruled Insane After Air Meltdown

[matty22]

A US pilot who triggered a mid-air emergency when he suffered a breakdown in which he screamed about terrorists and 9/11 was ruled not guilty by reason of insanity, media reported.
Clayton Osbon, 49, had to be restrained by a number of male passengers after the incident in March, in which a JetBlue plane from New York to Las Vegas made an emergency landing in Amarillo, Texas.
US District Judge Mary Lou Robinson ruled in Texas that Osbon be sent to a federal mental health facility in Fort Worth for further examination before another hearing to be held by August 6, Amarillo Globe-News reported.
The pilot suffered a "severe mental disease or defect that impaired his ability" to understand that his midair meltdown was wrong, it said.
Footage filmed with cell phone cameras and broadcast on US television showed chaos at the front of the plane, as male passengers scrambled to help restrain the pilot, who could be heard shouting hysterically.
Between four and six passengers had to sit on top of him for up to 20 minutes as the plane, which was three and a half hours into its flight, made an emergency landing, witnesses said.
According to an affidavit, the pilot, who had shown no previous sign of mental problems, had arrived late for the flight, and began behaving erratically soon after the plane took off from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.
The first officer became particularly concerned when Osbon said "things just don't matter," and "yelled over the radio to air traffic control and instructed them to be quiet," according to the affidavit.
The first officer then suggested they invite an off-duty JetBlue captain who was on board into the cockpit, at which point the captain abruptly left to go to the forward lavatory.
When Osbon came out of the lavatory, he began talking to flight attendants, mentioning "150 souls on board," before walking to the rear of the aircraft, and then sprinting back to the forward galley.
At that point, the first officer used the plane's intercom to issue an order to restrain Osbon.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/us-pilot-ru...012748362.html

[K9Grip]

He obviously needs some help, hopefully he'll get it now.

[zombie-rot420]

This is no surprise...

[gatagato]

I can't believe it: he looked so calm, balanced and stable, once he was handcuffed and surrounded by police

http://www.documentingreality.com/fo...ps-out-100991/
Thanks for the update

[chris50stang]

cuckoo cuckoo

[Flaka]

Bath salts or he's ill.

[durt]

ATC and airline food will do it to you every time

[diamondsmiles]

Originally Posted by Flaka

Bath salts or he's ill.

Probably ill, if he was ruled, "insane", although we all know sometimes insane people are not ruled as being insane.

A couple of Xanax and he'd be fine. I'm so glad I never had any of these things happen when I was on a plane, (any one of the recent things posted here).

I do remember a fun flight one time where a bunch of guys were acting like comedians and made the flight seem much shorter ;)

[diamondsmiles]

The latest news reported last night is that, although he was off for an entire weeked before that flight, he was sleep deprived! Temporary insanity defense coming!

[gatagato]

Originally Posted by diamondsmiles

The latest news reported last night is that, although he was off for an entire weeked before that flight, he was sleep deprived! Temporary insanity defense coming!

That's an interesting turn:

According to the court transcripts, forensic neuropsychologist Robert E.H. Johnson testified that Osbon's disorder lasted about a week after the incident. Johnson didn't specify how long Osborn may have gone without sleep, and his psychiatric evaluation was sealed during the trial, but he said he determined Osbon suffered from brief psychotic disorder and delusions "secondary to sleep deprivation."

Osborn, who was taken to a mental health facility after the flight, could not appreciate the nature and quality of his actions and he didn't appreciate their wrongfulness, Johnson testified.

JetBlue declined to comment on the psychologist's testimony, citing no medical authority on the topic. But company spokeswoman Sharon Jones said Osbon did not fly March 24 or March 25, and worked a round-trip flight March 26 that gave him 17 hours of off time leading into the flight March 27.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-w...upted-captain/

Sleep Deprivation effects are being compared to alcohol ones since decades, plenty of scientific papers explaining that the two can affect coordination, reaction time and judgment in very similar ways.


Sleep deprivation as bad as alcohol impairment, study suggests
No sleep means no new brain cells
There are hundreds, if not thousands of academic articles covering it.
A recent, related article titled "Crew Schedules, Sleep Deprivation, and Aviation Performance" was published some months ago, here's a part of its abstract:

In 2004, a corporate airlines flight crashed as it approached Kirksville Regional Airport; in 2008, Honolulu based pilots of Go! Airlines overshot their destination by more than thirty miles because they fell asleep during a trip that was only fifty minutes long. A Northwest Airlines Flight overflew its destination by 150 miles because pilots had dozed off at the controls. In 2009, fifty people were killed when a Continental Connection flight en route from Newark to Buffalo crashed into a house. Pilots failed to respond properly to a stall warning and the flight went out of control.

After examining what went wrong, the NTSB concluded that, "the pilots' performance was likely impaired because of fatigue." Since 1990 the US National Transportation Safety Board has placed pilot fatigue on the Most Wanted List of safety related priorities.

Sleep deprivation may have TRIGGERED the issue, but the explosive was already in his mind, imo.
And even so, if the man decided to spend his 17 hours of off time without sleeping, and decided to pilot a plane carrying passengers anyway, then he's worse than all the people driving under influence. MUCH worse.
I averagely sleep 3 hours per day, tried everything, it is a SERIOUS problem for me, stuff that worked for some of my friends didn't work for me, including heavy meds. What works for me is a very empirical solution: during the week-end, i get stoned for good with a combination of alcohol and weed, then i try to sleep as long as i can: BUT i don't drive once i'm done.
Among its side effects, posts like this one though.
However, NEVER seen any Al Qaeda member setting up explosives under my ass.