Hundreds of commercial airline pilots battling depression are faced with the stigma of being "grounded" if they reach out for help, according to a shocking Harvard study offering a fresh look at depression in the cockpit less than two years after a suspected suicidal pilot killed 150 people by crashing into the Alps. The survey conducted by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health of nearly 1,850 commercial airline pilots found 12.6 percent could be clinically depressed, a figure that is double the depression rate of adults in the U.S.

The study, published yesterday in the journal Environmental Health, found depression rates spiked to 31 percent and 28 percent for pilots who reported being sexually harassed or verbally harassed two to three times in the past month.

"There is a veil of secrecy around mental health issues in the cockpit," said Joseph Allen, assistant professor of environmental health at Harvard. "We found that many pilots currently flying are managing depressive symptoms, and it may be that they are not seeking treatment due to the fear of negative career impacts."

The FAA requires pilots to be screened for physical and mental fitness at least once a year through an exam that depends on pilots self-reporting symptoms of depression. But the stigma of being grounded for being depressed often causes pilots to keep those dark thoughts to themselves, the study said.

Seventy-five of the pilots responding to the anonymous survey - about 4 percent - reported having suicidal thoughts in the past two weeks. A separate 2014 study reported that only a third of a percent of U.S. airplane crashes from 1956 to 2012 were determined to be suicide by plane.

The study "underscores the importance of accurately assessing pilots' mental health and increasing support for preventative treatment," said Alex Wu, a doctoral student at Harvard and first author on the paper.

The Air Line Pilots Association, the world's largest pilot union with 54,000 members at 31 airlines in the U.S. and Canada, said the airline pilot remains one of the "most highly vetted careers today" and requires ongoing training and checks on pilot fitness.

"It is important to remember that airline travel is the safest mode of transportation in the world. Pilots for U.S. carriers alone safely accomplish 27,000 take offs and landings each day, in every kind of adverse weather and operational conditions," the union said in a statement, declining to comment on the Harvard study.

Although she said she is skeptical of the report's headline finding that one in eight pilots is depressed, Illinois-based aviation psychologist Diane Damos noted a pilot's first year is often stressful and that they typically work long hours for limited pay and carry huge debts from flight schools.

"Do I think 12 percent of Delta and United captains are depressed? No," Damos said. "Is it possible that 12 percent of the guys in the first year and flying under very restricted pay and difficult work hours, and rough commutes could the feel depressed? ... That's a possibility."

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/local_coverage/2016/12/survey_pilots_have_high_rate_of_depression