Are You Mentally Fit to Fly?


USHST program offers free, confidential counseling to vertical aviation community.


By Mark Huber I


N THE VERTICAL AVIATION INDUSTRY, WE PAY substantial—and fully warranted—attention to a pilot’s physical ability to fly. But how often do we focus on an equally important aspect of fitness: mental health? Confidential peer counseling has been around for centu-


ries as a proven and cost-effective mental health tool. More recently, it’s attracted greater interest from the international aviation community, propelled in part by a trio of high-pro- file airline crashes that killed more than 600 people between


1999 and 2015—accidents that were associated with flight-crew mental health issues. The most notorious of these events occurred in 2015, when a Germanwings copilot locked himself alone in the cockpit and intentionally flew into a mountainside, killing all 150 aboard. While widely adopted by the


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POWER UP JUN 2025


FLY SAFE


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