Air India Crash Exposes Deadly Risk of Pilots on Psychiatric Drugs
Republished with permission from AbleChild
While Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, reassures the flying public that air travel is now so safe that there is no longer a need to remove shoes prior to boarding aircraft, the tragic June 12, 2025, Air India crash raises larger concerns for the flying public that have nothing to do with the size of liquid containers but certainly something Secretary Noem and her colleagues at the FAA and the NTSB may want to address.
According to news reports about the Air India crash, investigators are focusing attention on the data being reveal through the aircraft’s black box recordings and, specifically, what the pilot had to say prior to the deadly crash.
Apparently, investigators are concerned that the pilot, Sumeet Sabharwal, seconds into the flight, turned off the fuel supply to the engines, causing the Boeing Dreamliner to slam into the ground killing all but one of the 230 passengers and all 12 of the crew. Investigators now are interested in the pilot’s medical records, trying to come up with a motive. What would have caused pilot, Sabharwal, to purposefully crash the aircraft?
Well, as it turns out, Sabharwal, reportedly had depression and some mental health issues, despite both flight pilots having, within the past two years, passed the Class 1 medical exam, which takes into consideration the pilot’s psychological capabilities. Nevertheless, it is certain that both fuel switches had to have been pulled upward to unlock them. This action was not by accident…it had to be deliberate.
So, understanding that the fatal action was deliberate one now must consider the bigger question…how many commercial pilots, transporting millions of travelers around world, have been diagnosed with a mental disorder and are being treated with mind-altering drugs?
Remember it has been ten years since the deadly 2015 Germanwings flight that was deliberately crashed into the French Alps by pilot Andrea Lubitz. Lubitz killed all 150 on board by diving the aircraft into a mountain. Investigators reportedly found a “number of medications for the treatment of psychological illness” during a search of the pilot’s home. It also was reported that Lubitz had been treated by several neurologists and psychiatrists.
That was ten years ago. Fast forward to the January 29, 2025, midair collision between American Airlines passenger jet and a US Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River. While investigators have not released the complete investigation or autopsy information, it has been reported that “there is no indication that Capt. Rebecca Lobach was suffering from health issues at the time or that a medical event affected her during those final moments…” That’s important information, but it does not explain whether the military captain had been diagnosed with any mental disorder or was being medicated with any mind-altering drugs.
It should be of interest to the flying public that pilots, and commercial airlines, do not have to disclose which of its pilots are being medicated for a mental disorder. Nope. In fact, just trying to find specific data about how many pilots are currently taking mind-alerting drugs as treatment for a mental disorder is nearly impossible.
The fact that the public is unaware of whether the pilot (or all the flight’s crew) is being treated for a mental disorder does not bode well for flight safety nor informed consent for that matter. Here’s the point. Shouldn’t a paying passenger have the right to know if the people flying the aircraft have their minds chemically altered in order to function appropriately?
AbleChild recently learned that not only are commercial aircraft pilots and Air Traffic Control personnel allowed to take serious psychiatric drugs as treatment for mental disorders, but the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has expanded the number of psychiatric drugs that pilots and controllers may take and still fly the friendly skies.
In a May 29, 2025, update to the Guide for Aviation Medical Examiners (AME’s), acceptable anxiety diagnoses include generalized anxiety disorder, situational anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, unspecified anxiety, postpartum depression, situational depression, situational anxiety and depression, unspecified depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, and PTSD.
The FAA also explains that “a pilot can have up to two listed conditions treated with any combination of psychotherapy; medication; a single metal health medication last taken, prescribed or recommended two or more years ago.”
The chemical treatments the FAA allows pilots to take while flying include Prozac, Zoloft, Celexa, Lexapro, Wellbutrin, Cymbalta, Effexor and Pristiq. Of course, AbleChild would be remis without reminding the public that neither the pharmaceutical companies that produce the drugs nor the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that approves the drugs for use, know how any of these drugs “work” in the brain to “treat” any mental disorder.
And, not to belabor the point, let’s just consider for a moment the possible adverse events associated with just one of the FAA approved psychiatric drugs, Zoloft. Possible side effects associated with Zoloft (Sertraline) include aggressive reaction, confusion, drowsiness, inability to sit still, mood or behavior changes, seizures, agitation, anxiety, aggravated depression, depersonalization, mania, paranoia, suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, abnormal thinking, hallucination, psychotic disorder and psychosis. If even one of these adverse events occurs during flight, this does not bode well for the safety of the flying public. It’s also of interest – even weird – that pilots are not allowed to use psychiatric drugs that “treat” ADHD. Antidepressants are fine, but don’t use ADHD drugs!
Clearly, the possible adverse events associated with just one of the drugs allowed by the FAA would lead one to wonder if the federal agency is appropriately tracking drug use among pilots and drug use associated with airline accidents. The last publicly available toxicology report only covered data up to 2017. With increased use of mind-altering drugs among pilots, air traffic controllers and aircraft crew, it seems imperative that the Secretary of Homeland Security may want to work with her colleagues at the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to not only collect yearly data but make it publicly available.
AbleChild recently introduced legislation that became law in Tennessee that requires toxicology tests be conducted on all perpetrators of shootings involving four or more victims and results of those data be made public. The FAA may want to consider a similar approach involving the number of pilots and air traffic controllers using psychiatric drugs to function.
Afterall, there are ample data revealing air accidents that have occurred at the hands of pilots being “treated” for mental illness. If the FAA is comfortable with pilots suffering from mental disorders flying, then there should be no problem allowing the public to know how many pilots are being treated and how many air accidents are occurring at the hands of those pilots being treated.
The mission of the FAA is “to provide the safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world.” One might argue that allowing pilots to fly commercial aircraft while being medicated with serious psychiatric mind-altering drugs is not in the public’s best interest. However, providing the necessary crash data on a yearly basis would go a long way to reassuring the public that air travel is safe, despite the pilot’s altered mind .
AbleChild is a 501(3) C nonprofit organization has recently co-written landmark legislation in Tennessee, setting a national precedent for transparency and accountability in the intersection of mental health, pharmaceutical practices, and public safety.
What you can do. Sign the Petition calling for federal hearings!
Donate! Every dollar you give is a powerful statement, a resounding declaration that the struggles of these families will no longer be ignored. Your generosity today will echo through generations, ensuring that the rights and well-being of children are fiercely guarded. Don’t let another family navigate this journey alone. Donate now and join us in creating a world where every child’s mind is nurtured, respected, and given the opportunity to thrive. As a 501(c)3 organization, your donation to AbleChild is not only an investment in the well-being of vulnerable children but also a tax-deductible contribution to a cause that transcends individual lives.
More like “300 feet high”, sadly. At 30000 they would have survived.
The problem is not antidepressants it was the pilots mental problem!
I get so exasperated with people blaming a pill for malevolent behavior.
Do you blame the gun or the person holding the gun?
l knew this 6 days ago.
Blaming the Pilots is a REPUGNANT thing to do to someone that can’t defend them selves.
Well one of them certainly sabotaged the flight. Are we supposed to just ignore that fact?
The FLAP configuration was not proper… and a crash was assured because of that.
That fact is being hidden right now.
No it’s not….As flaps was shown at a regular setting of 5% . Also the flight control computer , would keep nagging a flap setting , if not set on a normal takeoff configuration….This pilot , knew how to manipulate , at the most critical point of a flight….He then denied it to his co-pilot , but both knew he killed them all at that point…
The pilots? It’s much more important to determine what happened to save lives in the future.
The plane was not at 30,000 feet. It has just taken off. Stop the clickbait. Sure it would have been much cooler if it had plunged from 30,000 feet but that is not what happened.
if you read the entire article’s title it covers all flights that average that flying height…Exposes Deadly Risk of Pilots on Psychiatric Drugs. The amount of life that was lost and the risk we are all taking without informed consent is worth a shocking title, because it is actually shocking. Don’t we have a right to know before boarding if the Pilot is on a cocktail of drugs?
Thanks for your feedback.
Wonder who was on that plane that knew the Clintons?
Thank you, come again!
Hmmmmmm………No thanks , not safe. Flying in India….
Maybe they should have asked on the psych eval whether they dreamed of crashing a plane.
Keep raising your government control over airline pilots lives and you just might not have any to control. I was a captain with three airlines and had to undergo two physical exams each year that included physical as well as mental health. I had to take random drug tests and could have an FAA inspector show up to ride the jumpseat in the cockpit at anytime unannounced. I always had a co-pilot who was well trained on every flight. There is simply no way to prevent a suicidal pilot from crashing a plane either on TO or landing. If you look at the millions of flight hours per day and then factor in pilot induced crashes, it is almost not even plotable on a graph. Doctors can kill by a mistake or by design yet they do not have to take any exams like pilots. The only possible way to make turning off an engine in flight is to make the switches like ICBMs where both pilots have to agree and turn a key to activate the switches. This would be a very complicated system that could hamper an emergency procedure where one pilot has to control the aircraft while the other executes the emergency checklist. This was a terrible tragedy but we shouldn’t overreact to it.
Ever hear that a big league pitcher admitted to once throwing from the mound, while on LSD~~~?
Really good points on increasing the safety around the switches. It’s not about controlling the pilots; it’s about support our pilots by ensuring they aren’t getting bogus psychiatric labels and dangerous drugs that impair their minds. It’s also about informed consent for passengers. Also great point, maybe we need to train more pilots and encourage that in schools.
Being a Boeing aircraft, this is what the NTSB exists for. Until they issue their final report, it’s all just speculation.
Click on the 2017 link in the article and read the report. Where are all the reports of safety reviews and autospies since 2017? One cannot increase the amount of psychiatric drugs and labels the pilots can receive without following up with accurate accountability with reports on the impact increasing the mind altering drugs have. Release the report from 2017 on…or do they not even have them? Did they just stop producing these reports? When will the final report come out? In what year?
But interesting take. We should all care about safety in the air. No harm in writing about it.
The bottom line is psycho drugs seem to be behind every mass shooting/suicide. Pharmaceuticals that mess around with serotonin are associated with most mental illnesses.
The solution has been known for decades. Ban all psychological drugs.
As a 42 YR Retired Airline Transport Pilot, including 20 YR FAA Aviation Safety Operations Inspector, Aircraft Accident Investigator, I am shocked about this going on! It was always my understanding that “8 hours from Bottle to Throttle” referring to Alcoholic Beverage Consumption, additionally Any Airline Pilot has a duty to disqualify themselves while taking ANY Drugs that might interfere with their judgement & flight skill ability, whether Prescription Medication or Street Drugs/Marijuana.
Indian pilots should stop thinking about cows on the road and focus on the clouds.
Ban all headpills, if bad for pilots then bad for anyone else. Get rid of all of it.
More like “300 feet high”, sadly. At 30000 they would have survived.
The problem is not antidepressants it was the pilots mental problem!
I get so exasperated with people blaming a pill for malevolent behavior.
Do you blame the gun or the person holding the gun?
l knew this 6 days ago.
Blaming the Pilots is a REPUGNANT thing to do to someone that can’t defend them selves.
Well one of them certainly sabotaged the flight. Are we supposed to just ignore that fact?
The FLAP configuration was not proper… and a crash was assured because of that.
That fact is being hidden right now.
No it’s not….As flaps was shown at a regular setting of 5% . Also the flight control computer , would keep nagging a flap setting , if not set on a normal takeoff configuration….This pilot , knew how to manipulate , at the most critical point of a flight….He then denied it to his co-pilot , but both knew he killed them all at that point…
The pilots? It’s much more important to determine what happened to save lives in the future.
I think Both flight crew flying did as they always do…
I say the BOEING did not work as it was supposed to.
People are dead, I say a hack on the FMC trio was the ONLY way to trick those pilots into taking off without flaps enough to survive the attempt.
Computers CAREFULLY watch suck matters to ELIMINATE errors at take off.
The WAILER siren is not something you can miss…. Unless it’s disabled.
The plane was not at 30,000 feet. It has just taken off. Stop the clickbait. Sure it would have been much cooler if it had plunged from 30,000 feet but that is not what happened.
if you read the entire article’s title it covers all flights that average that flying height…Exposes Deadly Risk of Pilots on Psychiatric Drugs. The amount of life that was lost and the risk we are all taking without informed consent is worth a shocking title, because it is actually shocking. Don’t we have a right to know before boarding if the Pilot is on a cocktail of drugs?
Thanks for your feedback.
Wonder who was on that plane that knew the Clintons?
Thank you, come again!
Hmmmmmm………No thanks , not safe. Flying in India….
Maybe they should have asked on the psych eval whether they dreamed of crashing a plane.
Anti-depressants don’t make people high. They may either agree or disagree with a person, but they do not typically cause hallucinations or psychosis. I suppose anything is possible, but this would be very unusual. Anyone taking a medication who takes murderous action had murderous tendencies to begin with. You are making assumptions that cannot be substantiated and are based on speculation. You ignore the fact that there are a lot of very mentally ill people in the world. Some of them are too sick to have a conscience. People do not go to a psychiatrist for help for the fun of it. They don’t go to experiment with drugs. They go to see a doctor because they are desperate and can find no peace due to depression, anxiety or whatever is bothering them. This whole belief system that conservatives have concocted just does not make sense. There are sick people. Some of them do inexplicably desperate or evil things. Trying to tie the actions of all such people to psychiatry and to drugs is in itself kind of crazy.
Problem being , that the Airline/Bus company certifies with paid travelers , they are certified safe and reliable . Yet they may not have a stringent program , to actually deal with such affected people , with these several mental conditions .
As the article sites , when can they know these many Big Pharma drugs , are helping or actually hurting the affected pilot/driver ? Just because they sometimes help some afflicted people ? As we see the aftermath of Covid shots/drugs , making many people worse , and cutting their lives…..Yet many swore that covid drugs helped , but that appears not so true….
Is there anyway , they can. Certify , that the very depressed , will recover and become as normal functioning people/pilots ? Now we go to the odds happening , such as possible lax oversight of a pilots use, or even non-use of these drugs . What is the algorithms saying about likely pilots mental meltdowns ? Even to the shown pilot , even denying , just as both pilots faced sure death , within seconds of his denying he pulled the switches . Yet the other pilot knew instantly, that his fellow pilot just murdered them all…
What facts do you have to produce that anyone taking a medication who takes murderous action had murderous tendencies to begin with? You might want to review Senator Grassley’s reports on the clinical drug trials relating to psychiatric drugs and their slanted bias research, and there are several cases that have determined that the psychiatric drugs were the contributing factor to increased violence and suicide. This is a human rights issues not a left versus right issue. It is the best interest of the public safety to investigate the link between psychiatric drugs and violence and suicide. As a Former Therapist it is not shocking you would “label” anyone trying to write about the links “kind of crazy”. Of course your input is appreciated, but for the record there are a lot of sane people in the world as well that have been wrongfully labeled and drugged and their lives have been destroyed by psychiatry without recourse. People who board planes should know if their pilot is mentally ill and on psychiatric drugs. Maybe they can change their flight.
Keep raising your government control over airline pilots lives and you just might not have any to control. I was a captain with three airlines and had to undergo two physical exams each year that included physical as well as mental health. I had to take random drug tests and could have an FAA inspector show up to ride the jumpseat in the cockpit at anytime unannounced. I always had a co-pilot who was well trained on every flight. There is simply no way to prevent a suicidal pilot from crashing a plane either on TO or landing. If you look at the millions of flight hours per day and then factor in pilot induced crashes, it is almost not even plotable on a graph. Doctors can kill by a mistake or by design yet they do not have to take any exams like pilots. The only possible way to make turning off an engine in flight is to make the switches like ICBMs where both pilots have to agree and turn a key to activate the switches. This would be a very complicated system that could hamper an emergency procedure where one pilot has to control the aircraft while the other executes the emergency checklist. This was a terrible tragedy but we shouldn’t overreact to it.
Ever hear that a big league pitcher admitted to once throwing from the mound, while on LSD~~~?
Really good points on increasing the safety around the switches. It’s not about controlling the pilots; it’s about support our pilots by ensuring they aren’t getting bogus psychiatric labels and dangerous drugs that impair their minds. It’s also about informed consent for passengers. Also great point, maybe we need to train more pilots and encourage that in schools.
Being a Boeing aircraft, this is what the NTSB exists for. Until they issue their final report, it’s all just speculation.
Click on the 2017 link in the article and read the report. Where are all the reports of safety reviews and autospies since 2017? One cannot increase the amount of psychiatric drugs and labels the pilots can receive without following up with accurate accountability with reports on the impact increasing the mind altering drugs have. Release the report from 2017 on…or do they not even have them? Did they just stop producing these reports? When will the final report come out? In what year?
But interesting take. We should all care about safety in the air. No harm in writing about it.
The bottom line is psycho drugs seem to be behind every mass shooting/suicide. Pharmaceuticals that mess around with serotonin are associated with most mental illnesses.
The solution has been known for decades. Ban all psychological drugs.
As a 42 YR Retired Airline Transport Pilot, including 20 YR FAA Aviation Safety Operations Inspector, Aircraft Accident Investigator, I am shocked about this going on! It was always my understanding that “8 hours from Bottle to Throttle” referring to Alcoholic Beverage Consumption, additionally Any Airline Pilot has a duty to disqualify themselves while taking ANY Drugs that might interfere with their judgement & flight skill ability, whether Prescription Medication or Street Drugs/Marijuana.
Indian pilots should stop thinking about cows on the road and focus on the clouds.
I think Both flight crew flying did as they always do…
I say the BOEING did not work as it was supposed to.
People are dead, I say a hack on the FMC trio was the ONLY way to trick those pilots into taking off without flaps enough to survive the attempt.
Computers CAREFULLY watch suck matters to ELIMINATE errors at take off.
The WAILER siren is not something you can miss…. Unless it’s disabled.
Ban all headpills, if bad for pilots then bad for anyone else. Get rid of all of it.
Anti-depressants don’t make people high. They may either agree or disagree with a person, but they do not typically cause hallucinations or psychosis. I suppose anything is possible, but this would be very unusual. Anyone taking a medication who takes murderous action had murderous tendencies to begin with. You are making assumptions that cannot be substantiated and are based on speculation. You ignore the fact that there are a lot of very mentally ill people in the world. Some of them are too sick to have a conscience. People do not go to a psychiatrist for help for the fun of it. They don’t go to experiment with drugs. They go to see a doctor because they are desperate and can find no peace due to depression, anxiety or whatever is bothering them. This whole belief system that conservatives have concocted just does not make sense. There are sick people. Some of them do inexplicably desperate or evil things. Trying to tie the actions of all such people to psychiatry and to drugs is in itself kind of crazy.
Problem being , that the Airline/Bus company certifies with paid travelers , they are certified safe and reliable . Yet they may not have a stringent program , to actually deal with such affected people , with these several mental conditions .
As the article sites , when can they know these many Big Pharma drugs , are helping or actually hurting the affected pilot/driver ? Just because they sometimes help some afflicted people ? As we see the aftermath of Covid shots/drugs , making many people worse , and cutting their lives…..Yet many swore that covid drugs helped , but that appears not so true….
Is there anyway , they can. Certify , that the very depressed , will recover and become as normal functioning people/pilots ? Now we go to the odds happening , such as possible lax oversight of a pilots use, or even non-use of these drugs . What is the algorithms saying about likely pilots mental meltdowns ? Even to the shown pilot , even denying , just as both pilots faced sure death , within seconds of his denying he pulled the switches . Yet the other pilot knew instantly, that his fellow pilot just murdered them all…
What facts do you have to produce that anyone taking a medication who takes murderous action had murderous tendencies to begin with? You might want to review Senator Grassley’s reports on the clinical drug trials relating to psychiatric drugs and their slanted bias research, and there are several cases that have determined that the psychiatric drugs were the contributing factor to increased violence and suicide. This is a human rights issues not a left versus right issue. It is the best interest of the public safety to investigate the link between psychiatric drugs and violence and suicide. As a Former Therapist it is not shocking you would “label” anyone trying to write about the links “kind of crazy”. Of course your input is appreciated, but for the record there are a lot of sane people in the world as well that have been wrongfully labeled and drugged and their lives have been destroyed by psychiatry without recourse. People who board planes should know if their pilot is mentally ill and on psychiatric drugs. Maybe they can change their flight.
Was he a Mohammadean?
Was he a Mohammadean?