Suicide by aircraft

s on , May 11, 1945 During World War II, the Russian aviator Nikolai Gastello was the first Soviet pilot credited with a (later disputed) "fire taran" in a suicide attack by an aircraft on a ground target, although his aircraft had been shot down and was in a rapid partially controllable descent. Another early example took place during the attack on Pearl Harbor where First Lieutenant Fusata Iida, commander of the Japanese 3rd Air Group, told his men before taking off, that if his aircraft were to become badly damaged he would crash it into a "worthy enemy target". In the following years there were more suicide attacks; the best known by military aviators are the attacks from the Empire of Japan, called kamikaze, against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II. These attacks were designed to destroy warships more effectively than was possible with conventional attacks; between and , 3,860 kamikaze pilots died by suicide in this manner. ==List of declared or suspected aircraft suicides==

This list excludes World War II suicide attacks on ground and naval targets (see section above). Legend: By pilots in control of whole flight By hijackers ==Published studies==

A 2016 study published in Aerospace Medicine and Human Performance analyzed suicide and homicide-suicide events involving aircraft. They state, "In aeromedical literature and in the media, these very different events are both described as pilot suicide, but in psychiatry they are considered separate events with distinct risk factors." In the years 1999–2015 the study found 65 cases of pilot suicide (compared to 195 pilot errors) and six cases of passengers who jumped from aircraft. There were 18 cases of homicide-suicide, totaling 732 deaths; of these events, 13 were perpetrated by pilots. Compared to non-aviation samples, a large percentage of pilot suicides in this study were homicide-suicides (17%). ==Prevention==

U.S. regulations require at least two flight crew members to be in the cockpit at all times for safety reasons, to be able to help in any medical or other emergency, including intervening if a crew member tries to crash the plane. Following the deliberate crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 on March 24, 2015, some European, Canadian and Japanese airlines adopted a two-in-cockpit policy as did all Australian airlines for aircraft with 50 or more passenger seats. ==See also==