Last week, Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz seemingly made a tragic and terrifying decision to fly an airbus A320 into the French alps, killing all 149 passengers on board.
When news first broke of the tragedy, questions arose about technical faults. What could cause a plane to go down on such a short, routine flight, on a perfectly clear morning? An aerodynamic stall the likes of which downed Airasia flight QZ8501 last December? An engine fault?
The more we searched for explanations, the more far-fetched they became. The plane’s descent was not consistent with a technical disaster, experts told us. It didn’t just fall out of the sky. Then news broke of a black box recording showing that the plane’s pilot was locked out of the cockpit just before the plane began descending. He never managed to get back in. Did something happen to the co-pilot while the pilot was away? A heart attack, maybe a stroke?
Then the final piece of evidence settled. On the recording, during the steady, eight minute descent into the alps, one can hear co-pilot Andreas Lubitz breathing. He was alive. He made the manual input to initiate descent. With this information there was little we could do to avoid the terrifying truth that the 27-year-old had crashed the plane on purpose.
Immediately, newspapers the world over began printing headlines linking Lubitz’s decision to down the plane with reports about his depression. Anti-depressants were found at his home, and reports emerged that he had received psychiatric treatment for depression in the past.
It is not hard to comprehend why the media’s narrative became so consumed by the idea that Lubitz’s depression is to blame – as a society we naturally seek meaning in the face of chaos; we seek explanations for things we cannot understand.
But linking the crash to depression is not only misrepresentative, it is dangerous.
Depression affects millions of people worldwide across their lifetime. People with depression get up every day, go to work, perform surgery, solve problems, save lives, and fly planes. Of course depression ranges in severity, and can be debilitating.
But depression does not turn a person into a murderer. Depression does not convince a person to fly a plane carrying 149 passengers into the side of a mountain.
In reality, depression is more simple and more complex than that. It cannot, at least not on its own, explain why Lubitz downed flight 9525. Suggesting it can both promotes an incorrect characterisation of the condition and isolates those who live with it.
“I don’t know what it is, but it’s not depression,” psychologist Anne Skomorowsky wrote last week.
If Lubitz had a mental health condition that contributed to his making that decision, it was something far more serious than depression. Of course depression may have been a factor, but it could not have been the only one.
The problem with media outlets drawing a link between the two that largely doesn’t exist is that it builds on a stigma around depression that individuals and peak bodies have been working assiduously to break down.
Blaming a mental health condition as common as depression for a tragedy as inexplicable as this simply adds to the fear that already surrounds depression and other common mental health problems.
The narrative we have been told by the media about this incident is that if you are depressed, it is possible you will become a murderer. Can you imagine anyone wanting to come forward and speak openly about their depression at a time when that is the world’s understanding of the condition?
This narrative would make a person suffering from depression feel hopeless and fearful. And it makes us as a society more fearful, too.
We need to be doing what we can to open up the conversation about depression and mental health, to ensure those who need treatment feel able to seek it. Drawing a link between depression and Lubitz’s actions serves only to close down that conversation.
The media has long acknowledged the responsibility to report on mental health issues sensitively and responsibly, and in a matter that protects those who suffer from them. By blaming depression for this incident, not only are we being insensitive to those who suffer from it, we are putting them at risk.
I understand the desire to find an explanation that will help us make sense of what seems like a senseless act of murder, but depression is not the right one. And while forwarding that explanation may ease the minds of those lucky enough not to suffer from a mental health condition, it endangers and silences those who do.
As reporters, it is not our job to explain what causes a man to deliberately fly a plane into a mountain. We never could. The only person who actually understands what caused that plane to go down is not around to share it with us.
And in the absence of a satisfactory explanation, we need to be more careful – and more responsible – about the explanations we put forward in its place.
If you or someone you know needs help with issues raised by this article contact Lifeline (13 11 14), beyondblue (1300 22 46 36) or the Salvo Care Line (1300 36 36 22).