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This past March, two recent, yet separate, incidents of airline crew members having emotional
outbursts happened. The first involved a flight attendant having a near-hysterical breakdown,
insisting that the plane should not take off because it was destined to crash. While in
mid-flight, a second similar episode happened to an airline pilot, loudly persisting that
a crash was imminent. What could be causing these sudden outbursts? On March 10th, an
American Airline’s flight was delayed after a flight attendant had an alleged panic attack
about the plane crashing. The aircraft was still on the ground at Dallas International
Airport when the flight attendant started screaming over the plane’s P.A. system about
9/11 and not being responsible if the plane crashed. Two weeks later was a similar incident
when a JetBlue flight was forced to land after passengers had to subdue the plane’s pilot
who was shouting about bombs, Al Qaeda, and telling passengers to say their prayers. Both
are very scary situations, but what can be said for the mental health of these individuals
and flight personnel in general. We talk to an expert on this special one-on-one edition
of InsidersHealth News (IHTV).Now within the past month, there have been two separate incidents
of airline personnel experiencing hysterical outbursts on flights and citing panic when
they began ranting about crashing, Al Qaeda, and terrorist attacks. Even their incoherent
claims appear to be unsubstantiated; we are once again questioning the safety of our flights
and are now questioning the sanity of those in charge of them. At the root of the issue,
we still wonder were these panic attacks or indicative of something much deeper? To help
us answer that, we have with us Dr. Leslie Seppinni, world-renowned doctor of clinical
psychology and crisis intervention specialist. She’s a regular contributor to CNN’s Nancy
Grace show as well as a number of nationally televised broadcasts. Thanks for being with
us, Dr. Leslie. “You’re welcome.” Now I really want to get into discussing these
cases because this is kind of baffling all of America, myself included. And I think it’s
because they’re so similar. So what I wonder is this some sort of trend in online hysteria
or are these just isolated coincidental incidents? “Well, I think they’re separate incidents,
but I do think that, you know, that there are several things that we have to look at
and have not, we don’t have the information, it hasn’t come out yet as to the cause for
both of these individual’s meltdowns. But we have to look into substance abuse. We have
to look into panic attacks. Now panic attacks can come on from any kind of stress or something
that you’ve experienced before. And they usually last about 10 minutes. But during
that time you feel like you’re having a heart attack. You feel like you’re dying.
You can’t breathe. You feel like you need to go to the hospital. Now in both of those
cases, neither one had those symptoms.” Right. “Both of those cases, they were more
delusional. They thought things were happening that weren’t happening …”