Comment by WalterBright
12 hours ago
Does it? I've never heard of anyone being cured of mental illness, just drugs that relieve the symptoms. The body develops resistance to the drugs, the drugs usually come with bad side effects, and patients often go off their meds.
Pilots who develop a heart condition get their license revoked. Every pilot knows this. There's nothing fair about that, either.
Fun fact - my Air Force dad told me that when an airplane was overhauled, the chief mechanic went up on the check ride. That ensured the job was well done.
It seems trivial that it's better than option 1; in both cases a mentally ill person is flying the plane, and in one of them a health professional is involved in managing the condition.
For option 2 I'll confess to not being sufficiently familiar with the gamut of what can be considered a mental illness, such that I couldn't tell you whether a person under management for such is a safer pilot than someone undiagnosed, or the median pilot. I'd be mildly surprised if you were, but stranger things have happened.
As it stands, I expect these would be the same diagnostics that until ~2013 considered sexual preferences as mental health issues.
Mental health is indeed an inexact and poorly understood condition.
As pragmatic rule, if one is prescribed drugs for it, one is not fit for being a pilot.
I know several people who are prescribed drugs for mental conditions. I would not get on an airplane if they were the pilot. Nor would I get on one with a pilot with a heart condition. It doesn't mean they are bad people, it's just the way it is.