Comment by Flammy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Flammy | Hacker News Reader

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The local article from the day of the event makes it pretty clear he was having some sort of mental breakdown. This BBC article has a lot more generic details about opening a plane door but the local article has a few more details about the incident:

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/florida-man-c...

> Hudek, who was sitting in first class and traveling on a “dependent pass,” ordered one beer before takeoff and showed no signs of intoxication, FBI Special Agent Caryn Highley wrote in the complaint.

> About an hour into the flight, Hudek briefly went into the lavatory, according to the complaint. He then went back out and asked one of the flight attendants a question in the galley area, the complaint says.

> Hudek returned to the lavatory for about two minutes. After he walked out he lunged toward the emergency exit door, grabbed the handle and tried to open it, the complaint alleges.

Assuming that this was a mental breakdown, what can we as a society do to help these people or prevent this from happening? I imagine that the consequences for this will be quite severe, and I also imagine that many people know someone that could have had a mental breakdown like this and done something like this.

Stress reduction would probably be a good start.

Be it shorter work weeks, social safety nets, and/or less focus on perfection in (social) media.

> and I also imagine that many people know someone that could have had a mental breakdown like this and done something like this.

This kind of dramatic event is very rare. You could focus some attention on early intervention services that work with people experiencing first episode of psychosis. Ideally those services would be all age, but pragmatically I guess 14 to 35 would cover most people.

About 1% to 2% of the population has a psychotic illness. I think that prevalence, with the rarity of events like this is reassuring.

You're far more likely to come to harm on a plane from a drunk or drugged person, or from someone dropping their bag on your head as they get something from the overhead locker.

And this risk from drunk / drugged people shows perhaps another thing to target: phobias are very treatable. People don't know this, and can't afford the treatment, so they self-medicate with alcohol and meds and drugs.

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