IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v15y2018i11p2525-d182114.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Aircraft-Assisted Pilot Suicides in the General Aviation Increased for One-Year Period after 11 September 2001 Attack in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Alpo Vuorio

    (Mehiläinen Airport Health Centre, 01530 Vantaa, Finland
    Department of Forensic Medicine, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Tanja Laukkala

    (Mehiläinen Kielotie Health Centre, 01300 Vantaa, Finland
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Ilkka Junttila

    (Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Finland and Fimlab Laboratories, 33014 Tampere, Finland)

  • Robert Bor

    (Royal Free Hospital, Pond Street, London NW3 2QG, UK
    Centre for Aviation Psychology, London NW3 1ND, UK)

  • Bruce Budowle

    (Center for Human Identification, University of North Texas Health Science Center, 3500 Camp, Bowie Blvd, Fort Worth, TX 76107, USA)

  • Eero Pukkala

    (Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Tampere, 33014 Tampere, Finland)

  • Pooshan Navathe

    (The Maitland Hospital, Maitland 2320, Australia)

  • Antti Sajantila

    (Department of Forensic Medicine, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland)

Abstract

Pilot aircraft-assisted suicides (AAS) are rare, and there is limited understanding of copycat phenomenon among aviators. The aim of this study was to evaluate the possible effect the 11 September 2001, terrorist attacks had on pilot AASs in the U.S. Fatal aviation accidents in the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) database were searched using the following search words: “suicide”, “murder-suicide” and “homicide-suicide”. The timeline between 11 September 1996, and 11 September 2004, was analyzed. Only those accidents in which NTSB judged that the cause of the accident was suicide were included in the final analysis. The relative risk (RR) of the pilot AASs in all fatal accidents in the U.S. was calculated in order to compare the one, two, and three-year periods after the September 11 terrorist attacks with five years preceding the event. The RR of a fatal general aviation aircraft accident being due to pilot suicide was 3.68-fold (95% confidence interval 1.04–12.98) during the first year after 11 September 2001, but there was not a statistically significant increase in the later years. This study showed an association, albeit not determinate causal effect, of a very specific series of simultaneous terrorist murder-suicides with subsequent pilot AASs.

Suggested Citation

  • Alpo Vuorio & Tanja Laukkala & Ilkka Junttila & Robert Bor & Bruce Budowle & Eero Pukkala & Pooshan Navathe & Antti Sajantila, 2018. "Aircraft-Assisted Pilot Suicides in the General Aviation Increased for One-Year Period after 11 September 2001 Attack in the United States," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-10, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:11:p:2525-:d:182114
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/11/2525/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/11/2525/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Knox, K.L. & Pflanz, S. & Talcott, G.W. & Campise, R.L. & Lavigne, J.E. & Bajorska, A. & Tu, X. & Caine, E.D., 2010. "The US air force suicide prevention program: Implications for public health policy," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 100(12), pages 2457-2463.
    2. Tanja Laukkala & Alpo Vuorio & Robert Bor & Bruce Budowle & Pooshan Navathe & Eero Pukkala & Antti Sajantila, 2018. "Copycats in Pilot Aircraft-Assisted Suicides after the Germanwings Incident," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-8, March.
    3. McKeown, R.E. & Cuffe, S.P. & Schulz, R.M., 2006. "US suicide rates by age group, 1970-2002: An examination of recent trends," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 96(10), pages 1744-1751.
    4. Merike Sisask & Airi Värnik, 2012. "Media Roles in Suicide Prevention: A Systematic Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-16, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Massimiliano Scopelliti & Maria Giuseppina Pacilli & Antonio Aquino, 2021. "TV News and COVID-19: Media Influence on Healthy Behavior in Public Spaces," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(4), pages 1-15, February.
    2. Girma, Sourafel & Paton, David, 2022. "Is assisted suicide a substitute for unassisted suicide?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    3. Harper, Sam, 2017. "The Great Recession and suicide," OSF Preprints gep3z, Center for Open Science.
    4. Chloe Chang Sorensen & Mego Lien & Vicki Harrison & John J. Donoghue & Jeevanjot Singh Kapur & Song Hi Kim & Nhi Thi Tran & Shashank V. Joshi & Sita G. Patel, 2022. "The Tool for Evaluating Media Portrayals of Suicide (TEMPOS): Development and Application of a Novel Rating Scale to Reduce Suicide Contagion," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(5), pages 1-12, March.
    5. Sadhvi Krishnamoorthy & Sharna Mathieu & Victoria Ross & Gregory Armstrong & Kairi Kõlves, 2022. "What Are Complex Interventions in Suicide Research? Definitions, Challenges, Opportunities, and the Way Forward," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(14), pages 1-10, July.
    6. Tanja Laukkala & Alpo Vuorio & Robert Bor & Bruce Budowle & Pooshan Navathe & Eero Pukkala & Antti Sajantila, 2018. "Copycats in Pilot Aircraft-Assisted Suicides after the Germanwings Incident," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-8, March.
    7. Jan Domaradzki, 2021. "The Werther Effect, the Papageno Effect or No Effect? A Literature Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(5), pages 1-20, March.
    8. Silke Bachmann, 2018. "Epidemiology of Suicide and the Psychiatric Perspective," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-23, July.
    9. Kristy Parkinson & Joseph Price & Kosali Simon & Sharon Tennyson, 2014. "The influence of FDA advisory information and black box warnings on individual use of prescription antidepressants," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 771-790, December.
    10. Pugno, Maurizio, 2009. "The Easterlin paradox and the decline of social capital: An integrated explanation," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 590-600, August.
    11. Ella Arensman & Claire Coffey & Eve Griffin & Chantal Van Audenhove & Gert Scheerder & Ricardo Gusmao & Susana Costa & Celine Larkin & Nicole Koburger & Margaret Maxwell & Fiona Harris & Vita Postuvan, 2016. "Effectiveness of Depression–Suicidal Behaviour Gatekeeper Training among police officers in three European regions: Outcomes of the Optimising Suicide Prevention Programmes and Their Implementation ," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 62(7), pages 651-660, November.
    12. Merike Sisask & Kairi Kõlves, 2018. "Towards a Greater Understanding of Suicidal Behaviour and Its Prevention," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-8, August.
    13. Navarez, Joel C. & Dela Cruz, Charles Kelvin F., 2024. "Life Skills Integration and Flourishing Education (LIFE): A Suicide Prevention Program," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 8(5), pages 701-707, May.
    14. Liliana Dell’Osso & Carlo Antonio Bertelloni & Marco Di Paolo & Maria Teresa Avella & Barbara Carpita & Federica Gori & Maurizio Pompili & Claudia Carmassi, 2019. "Problematic Internet Use in University Students Attending Three Superior Graduate Schools in Italy: Is Autism Spectrum Related to Suicide Risk?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-9, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:11:p:2525-:d:182114. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.