The SWAPA Number

In each podcast we explore a number that will help us explain an issue that matters to our Pilots. This might be a scheduling metric, a Company financial number that impacts us, or anything else that has significance to us as SWAPA Pilots.

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The SWAPA Number

11 (Project LIFT, Ty Dimeff)

June 23, 2025 • SWAPA • Season 6 • Episode 12

Today's SWAPA Number is 11. That's the number of pilots we've lost to suicide since 2019. And while that's not an easy thing to say out loud, ignoring it won't make the number smaller. Mental health just isn't at the forefront of the greater national healthcare conversation. It's an ongoing discussion in the aviation community as well.

So today we're sitting down with Project LIFT chair, Captain Ty Dimeff. LIFT, which stands for Life Incident Family Team, provides peer-to-peer support for SWAPA pilots and their families. There's a lot to cover when it comes to mental health and wellness and unfortunately there's several stigmas surrounding it. Let's hear from Ty on how to break those stigmas down and discuss ways to stay mentally fit to fly.

If you have any feedback for us at all, please drop us a line at comm@swapa.org or tap here to send us a text.

Matt McCants:

Casey Casteel:

Matt McCants:

I'm Matt McCants.

Casey Casteel:

And I'm Casey Casteel. And here's our conversation with Ty.

Matt McCants:

Well, Ty, Project LIFT, and even spelling this out as the Life Incident Family Team might not give someone who is new to SWAPA a clear understanding of what LIFT is. So in your own words, can you tell the listeners what LIFT is and what it can provide for our pilots and their families?

Ty Dimeff:

Yeah, absolutely. So Project LIFT is a team of 12 line pilot volunteers, and that's an important distinction is that we are line flying pilots, and we manage confidential, which is also super important, 24/7/365 hotline. Peer support has really, it's been around for a long time, but it's only within about the last decade really come out to provide mental health services outside of the cockpit, which is what we're kind of talking about today. So what we do is we provide confidential peer support, education, guidance, and really a sympathetic ear for any issue that's really affecting you or your families. And that's also a good distinction is that we work with families as well, you or your family's mental health. Research has shown over the past 10 or 15 years, pilots are much more likely to both ask for and accept help from someone they can relate to like another line pilot versus a chief pilot or a supervisor or even a mental health professional. At some times they're much more apt to open up to us because we've got similar lifestyles.

We can provide resources, whether it be another SWAPA committee, a Company resource, an outside professional counselor, to make sure that you're getting whatever help you need at the appropriate level. We only have one, and I do want to highlight this, there's only one limit to our confidentiality, that's if we determine that there's a threat of harm either to yourself or someone else, then we do have responsibility to report that. But that's a pretty high bar. Anything short of that, you can expect that your conversation with our pilots is going to be confidential and not really go outside of our team. On top of that, just realize that we are not counselors, we're not certified counselors, we're not licensed counselors. We're just line pilots with some training. Now we do get a lot of the very similar training that counselors get, but we're not licensed. So we're not giving you, when we talk about things to do or advice or options going forward, we're not doing that as a counselor. We're doing that as a peer who has an understanding of what resources are available to you. Like I said, we're just going to listen. We're going to educate and we're going to provide you with those resources.

One item of note, Project LIFT is not a program that you enter. You're not considered in the LIFT program. We're just another committee that provides you resources for whatever it is that you happen to be going through for all things mental health related. We also handle as a team anytime there's a pilot, a spouse, or a child death, it's the pilot services part of our LIFT team that will assist your family in really whatever manner that you'd like. We typically send two of our team members to your home after a death to help with whatever you need help with. We've done everything from mow your lawn to groceries to walk the dogs to sit in with the funeral home and plan with your spouse because maybe it was a sudden death and it's just beyond their potential at that point and they just don't have the family resources available to help. So we can do as little or as much as you'd like. But super important especially for your spouse, because if you as the pilot are the one that passes, you need to have all that stuff in place. Because we have seen that a few times where there is no estate plan or will in place and it does make it very difficult on the surviving spouse.

Casey Casteel:

When we talk about mental health issues, I think our pilots think, well, I'm not depressed, I don't need this service, I don't need this committee. But sometimes is it just about having an ear to listen, whether it's about you had a stressful day on the job or you're worried about a co-worker even, you get those kind of calls as well?

Ty Dimeff:

Yeah, absolutely. I would say if you kind of look back probably the two years leading up to contract 2020, the vast majority of our calls were stress and anxiety. We just had our first strike vote. People were rightfully concerned about that and that bled over into home life, that bled over into work life. So a lot of our calls were about how to deal with that. It could be something as simple as just talking to another pilot that's going through the exact same thing that you are or is it to the point where it's kind of gone beyond just wanting to kind of vent, for lack of a better term, and actually talk to a professional and get some family or marriage counseling? I would say post contract 2020, especially since the contract was so good, we kind of went back to the pre-contract stuff of the most common calls were marriage and family counseling, and that's really where we are today.

We still handle calls about depression, we still handle calls about sexual assault and stress, anxiety, grief. All those things are, we're normal people just like everybody else and we have the same kind of problems that everybody else does. The problem is that we have medicals and licenses that we also have to carry, so we just have to be careful about how we handle those and what we do going forward. But like I said, marriage and family counseling, we've got a ton of resources. We've got a ton of mental health professionals that we've worked with over the years that we can get you in contact with. But after that, we're kind of back to stress and anxiety are kind of the second most common calls that we get. It goes with the lifestyle. It's probably not shocking to anyone. We do see depression though, but the other ones are ones that we see probably more commonly. Just one thing to keep and remember, the IMSAFE Checklist, we talk about that a lot. Anytime we get a call, I'm kind of walking you through the determination on are you fit to go fly.

A lot of times when people call, they're just really looking for validation that it's either okay to call off because I got too much going on in my life, worried about using some sick time. We'll walk them through that IMSAFE Checklist. And one of the things that I'll always ask them, "Hey, if you were getting on an airplane and you knew that the flight crew, pilot and the first officer were going through the same thing that you were going through, how would you feel sitting in the back of that airplane?" And more often than not, there's about a five to ten second pause as they just kind of go, "Oh, yeah, I never really thought about it that way. I wouldn't want to be flying with somebody that I knew was going through the same thing that I was." So it makes it much more, just like we talked about fatigue a lot and assessing your own fatigue levels, we talk about this when you're assessing your own kind of mental health capacity at the time.

The FAA has looked at IMSAFE in such a manner that two of those letters actually refer specifically to mental health conditions. The S is for stress and the E is for emotion. So if you can't successfully go through that IMSAFE checklist, then you probably shouldn't be in the cockpit when we're talking about risk and resource management, if you want to compare it to something that we do on a daily basis. The key here though is calling us early. We don't want you to wait until it gets beyond control. And that's going to make it much tougher on you to get the help. You might be out longer depending on what the situation is. The more we can catch these problems upstream, the better chance we're going to have to reach a good positive conclusion in a good timely manner that affects you and your family the least. But the longer you wait, the more likely it is going to be, it's just going to make it a little bit tougher.

We kind of often tongue in cheek call ourselves last responders. A lot of times we're the last people on the list. Things just got, finally got to the point where somebody finally decided they needed to reach out for help. That's when they'll call us. Hopefully we can catch them before that, but just realize that even if we are the last responder, it's even more important at that point to call to make sure that we can get you the help that you need.

Matt McCants:

Yeah, there's no such thing as too late.

Ty Dimeff:

Never too late to call. There's almost always a pathway back before something happens where maybe there isn't going to be at that point. And then like I said, the other big issues that we handle, anytime there's a death. I kind of talked a little bit about that already, but our pilot services at the house. Anytime there's a pilot or spouse or a child death and we're going to be involved with that program as well.

Matt McCants:

That's a great perspective when you're talking about that IMSAFE Checklist and making the decision whether you should be flying or not. And the question that you ask somebody, "Hey, would you want to be a passenger in your own airplane right now? If you knew that your pilot was going through this, would you want he or she to be flying that airplane?" I think that's a fresh perspective to bring onto this. And in general, I think we've heard a lot more, especially over the last few years, about mental illness and mental health and that being on the rise. And more and more people are seeking mental health services than ever before. What's your take on how mental health has become such a hot topic in multiple national dialogues out there? It seems like we weren't talking about it at all for a while and now you even see it in Super Bowl commercials.

Ty Dimeff:

Yeah, absolutely. We're definitely seeing a big both public and professional push to destigmatize just about any mental health condition. And even more importantly with the FAA, we've seen some huge improvements over the last even just five to 10 years with FAA changes that make it much more simple, much easier to go out and get some help that you need. We kind of look at it as it's really no different than you break your arm. What do you do? You go to the doctor and you get it fixed. The FAA is really coming to the conclusion as well that mental health issues are very similar to something may not be broken, but there's definitely something that you need some help with. Although we may ground ourselves for a short period of time, you don't turn in your medical when you break your arm. You get it fixed, you get clearance to go back from your AME if you need to, and then you go back and fly. And there's a big push to get mental health to that area as well.

There's always been the perception that if I have a mental health issue, I'm going to have to surrender my medical. It's just not the case. There's actually a very small percentage of people that actually have to do that. The one big difference obviously with if you break your arm, you're not going to go to your neighbor or your fellow pilot to try to get it fixed. The one advantage you do have within the mental health area is you do have this peer support program. You've got another pilot that you can confidentially talk to, work through the issues, and maybe that's all you need. Maybe you just need a different perspective from somebody else who's in your own industry to figure out a plan forward and move on. But if it's beyond something that we can help you with, then we've got the resources to get you connected to some professional help to get you back into that good positive state of mind.

The one note I'll leave you with as far as this question goes is mental health issues, they don't normally just go away on their own unless it was kind of a precipitating factor that really set it off and that factor is no longer there anymore. So it's really important to reach out and get that help before it gets to the point where now it's affecting your family, it's affecting your work life, and it's going to cause you some more problems down the road.

Casey Casteel:

What's that line between everyday day-to-day stress and I might need to talk to somebody, there are some signs or things to look for, and when to reach out?

Ty Dimeff:

Yeah. I mean, if you're sitting on the flight deck and thinking about what's going on at home and you're missing radio calls and things like that. We talk about the same things with fatigue, signs that are there. And it's a great question. If you take nothing else from this entire message, it's that there is very little threat to your livelihood by reaching out and getting help. We go to a lot of conferences with the Federal Air Surgeon. Dr. Northrup and Dr. Giovanetti have been very forward-thinking on mental health issues as it relates to pilots. The last briefing we saw, they put the numbers up, it's less than one 10th of 1% of submitted medicals with the mental health issue actually get denied. So the number is extremely small, but there are a few, so there are some things to be careful about.

They've made great progress at the FAA in allowing talk therapy, but there are actually very few diagnoses that actually require a surrender of your medical or require a special issuance. Now we're talking about serious mental health issues like bipolar, schizophrenia, personality disorders, very few. Just about everything else, you go get your talk therapy, you put it on your 8500, and your AME signs you off and you're good to go, no issues. Generally speaking, as long as there's no medications involved and no substance abuse issues, then there's just almost no threat to you having to surrender your medical if you're getting some mental for whatever that condition might be.

There's a number of new checklists that are actually in the AME guide now, they're in the back, that came out September of 2024. They're called fast tracks. They list about 12 different diagnoses and almost all of them are the ones that we see kind of regularly, the most common being it's called adjustment disorder. Something's going on in your life and you're just not handling it the right way and it's affecting you whether personally or professionally. That's probably the most common diagnosis that you're going to get from a therapist. It's reportable on your 8500, but it's not grounding. As long as you and your therapist both think your therapy's going fine and you're not taking any medications for it, then you go fly and you just report it.

But now there's actually a checklist on the back of the guide because you'll still get that one-off AME that wants to defer it and send it down to Oklahoma City, which is that's not what the FAA wants. That's definitely not their goal, but it does happen. But now that checklist is there and I've actually gone through it probably three or four times with a pilot and I actually went through it once with an AME. They didn't know that it was there. He's like, "I didn't even know that that was there." Because actually there's no official way to update AMEs on changes that come out until it pops up and then they become familiar with it.

Matt McCants:

They got to get sped up on it at that point too.

Ty Dimeff:

Yeah. And it's literally just a checklist and you just go through it. If you can answer them all in the positive, you get down to the end and it says AME can issue the medical or it says deny or defer. But we've got it straight from Dr. Giovanetti's mouth at our last conference that... And I even asked her this specific question because this was the worry that you do everything right, I follow the checklist, I comply with everything, I'm not taking meds, both me and my therapist think I'm fine to fly, and then my AME decides he wants to send it to Oklahoma City. And her answer was, number one, find a new AME, and number two, send them his name. So they're very serious about making sure that it's as easy as possible for people to reach out and get help, especially in the talk therapy area, and not have it affect their livelihood because they know how important that is.

Matt McCants:

Yeah, she's been very loud and clear about that.

Ty Dimeff:

Absolutely. And all of us on the LIFT team, we've been dealing with this now for a number of years, so if you have any questions about what is required on the 8500, you can always reach out to us and we can walk you through that ourselves.

Matt McCants:

Absolutely.

Casey Casteel:

How does Project LIFT and say our benefits committee and our HIMS committee, how are all these committees tied together? How do you all work together? I'm sure you get references, that sort of thing. How do all those committees work together?

Ty Dimeff:

Yeah, there's definitely some overlap on some of these cases. It's one of the things that as the hotline rings as we're going through of our conversation, one of the things that's always in the back of my head is one, is there a sleep issue, and two, is there maybe an alcohol issue? And it's kind of my job at that point to, again, not to diagnose, but I've used the techniques and tools that I've been taught on is the alcohol causing the mental health problem or is the mental health problem causing alcohol abuse? So depending on the answer to that question, either I can refer them to HIMS and Tyler and Tom can jump in and kind of help. If we're talking about disability and then how mental health affects our disability plans which are outstanding, then we've got Tony and Brent that are always there to help and Debbie and Angel in the office.

So yeah, Pro Standards, we've had crossover with them. We've had crossover with training. Especially a year or two ago when we had a lot of very young first officers, we had kind of a spike in calls from training issues going on that ended up being some mental health issues too. So yeah, we work very closely with just about every other committee here at the union. And that's part of our job as when we answer that hotline is to kind of triage, I know why you told me you called, but let's see if we can't figure out why you're really calling, because it's usually not the first thing that they say. We're having to kind of dig down and really get to the root of, and that's where our training is, our job is to figure out what's the root cause on really why you're calling. Again, not to diagnose you, but just to make sure that we're getting you hooked up with the correct resource to give you the best chance. Or maybe you just need to talk, which we're always available for that from a peer support standpoint.

Matt McCants:

Yeah. And no matter what it is or who the first entity that a pilot calls, whether it's you, whether it's Pro Standards, whether it's CIRT, it doesn't matter. We're going to get you to the right person that's going to get you the help that you need. We all talk here at SWAPA, all these committees talk to each other and make sure that the pilot gets to the spot that they need to go. And I think it's a huge takeaway for anybody who's not sure who to call. Well, don't worry about it. You're going to end up at the right spot. That's what we're here for.

Ty Dimeff:

Definitely. Absolutely. We work with them. We cross-pollinate all the time on cases, but we'll always do it with your permission. Like I said, we're confidential. We're not going to go outside the team without your permission. But if you're talking about something that's severe trauma, which falls right into the CIRT category, it's not really what we do, then I'll just ask you, "Hey, okay, if I bring Dave West in and the CIRT team? Because it sounds like we're talking about trauma and they're better equipped to handle that." So yeah, part of our job is definitely connecting you with the right resource at the right level.

Casey Casteel:

Okay. So speaking of resources, Project LIFT has an app that our members can find on the app store. Tell us a little bit about what our members can find on this Project LIFT app.

Ty Dimeff:

Yeah, so just about everything that's on the LIFT page on the website is also available on the app. The beauty of the app is obviously it's right there, it's at your fingertips, it's very simple. If you just search Project LIFT services on the Apple Store. It's not available on the Google Store because our guy that did it is an Apple guy, so unfortunately we're stuck with that as far as, at least for right now. But the biggest things that are on there is we have sections for the most common mental health conditions that we deal with. We've got links. We've actually got links to the counselors that we have used over the years and have a lot of trust in that deal, work with pilots, some of them almost exclusively. Some of them, it kind of falls in the first responder, but we see a lot of the same therapists that first responders do because a lot of the issues are very similar. We've got a whole suicide section now on the app. Our whole team is listed on the app. So pretty much any information really just all at your fingertips now. Very simple to use, but I would say the best part about it is being able to pick a counselor right from the app. It'll take you right to their website and you can get yourself signed up and registered to get an appointment if that's what you're looking for.

Matt McCants:

Okay. So we opened the show with a pretty sobering topic. I think regardless of whether you knew someone closely or just in passing, finding out that they took their own life is it's jarring. And you start thinking about if there was something you could have done or said before things became unmanageable. So talk to us about what are the signs? What are the dos and don'ts? What should someone do if they suspect that someone is struggling or has even said things that indicate they're struggling and thinking about doing something like this?

Ty Dimeff:

Yeah, it's a great question. And obviously we could spend a three-day podcast talking about suicide prevention awareness. To drill it down to the basics, I would say probably the most important thing is do not be afraid to ask. If you're talking to somebody and you're having concerns that they're even considering harming themselves in some way, there's a big fear out there that if I ask the question, I'm going to put the thought in their head. All the research out there shows that actually the opposite is true. If they're not already thinking about it, you asking about it is not going to make them start to think about suicide or have suicidal thoughts or ideation or plans or however you want to look at it. The research shows that all it's really going to do is open up a line of communication, and a lot of times that's all they really want. They want somebody to show interest. They want you to show that somebody cares about them. So just asking that question can really do wonders and potentially save a life. Something as simple as just asking the question can really save a life.

And some of the other big myths that are out there, it's a very common myth that if somebody wants to die, that there's nothing you can do to stop them. Most of the research shows that most suicidal people really don't want to die. It's called suicidal ambivalence. What they want is for the pain to stop and the suffering to stop. And in their state of mind at that particular time, if they do actually complete whatever action they're looking at completing, the only thing they're thinking about that time is finally that the pain is going to stop. So it's really not about the death, it's about stopping what's hurting them at the time.

We talked often about, there's a common saying in the industry that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. So it's real important to listen to the words that they're using. And using that terminology is important that, hey, you're about to make a permanent decision that you can't take back for a situation that may or may not be over in a month or six months or a year, but it is going to eventually end. Hope is the key. Any way you can just provide just a little bit of hope. And that doesn't mean saying, I'm going to fix your problems or it's always going to get better, because we don't know that. So we don't want to make false promises either. But just providing hope that there is some help out there and it's available. All you need to do is one, you ask for it, and that's kind of what we're doing now. We're talking about it. Then you have to take that positive step of actually doing it. I can't make you get therapy, but I can give you every resource and encourage you to go out and do that on their own.

If you start talking about kind of warning signs, talking about it is probably one of the biggest. So take any suicidal talk seriously. A lot of times we do that with kids. Kids will make off the cuff comments and it's very easy to just go, that's my kid being my kid. At least ask the question. It warrants further discussion anytime there's talk about death among anybody, whether it's a coworker or a spouse or a child. The big warning signs, anybody that's showing a lack of hope, feeling of self-loathing or worthless. One of the big things to watch out for when it can be a little bit confusing, typically, your suicidal people are typically depressed, lots of mood swings up and down. One thing to watch out for, like I said, it can be a little confusing, is all of a sudden a person that was previously exhibiting those types of behaviors all of a sudden has a sense of calm, that looks like maybe they've turned a corner and gotten the help that they needed and everything's kind of going good.

The thing to watch out for with that sometimes, especially for when you had someone that you were worried about was having suicidal thoughts is maybe they've just finally made that decision to go ahead and die by suicide, and that gives them a kind of false sense of peace because now in their mind, the pain is about to stop, the suffering is about to stop. So especially with big radical mood changes over very short periods of time, it just needs to warrant a follow-up kind of question. What's going on in your life? Make sure there hasn't actually been any big changes. And like I said, it can be confusing because someone who's been going through manic episodes all of a sudden is calm and you're like, what's going on here?

But some of the big dos and don'ts, you definitely want to be yourself. Just let them know you care. They want to talk to another human being. They want somebody to listen to their story and give them some hope. If they're talking, that's good. It's when they're not talking that you have to worry. Be sympathetic. This isn't the time to be throwing out judgments. Again, they want somebody to understand their story and just kind of understand the pain and suffering that they're going through at that time. And then like I said, the most important thing is ask. If you're having concerns that someone that you're either working with or dealing with or a family member or whatever is contemplating some kind of suicidal thoughts or ideation or plans or wherever it is on the spectrum, don't be afraid to ask the question.

A couple of the big don'ts, don't argue with them. They are probably not thinking rationally at that point, so you can't really have a rational argument with someone who's not thinking rationally. So don't get into an argument. Never promise confidentiality when you're talking about suicide because you're more than likely going to have to break that promise because literally a life might be on the line. You don't want to make a promise that you know you're not going to be able to keep. So just be real careful about that. Don't offer to fix the problem. The problem might not actually be fixable. It's not your job to fix the problem. Your job is to get them the resources that they need to fix their own problem. That's kind of the goal. It's really not about what the problem is, it's just about how badly it's hurting them right now in this timeframe.

Big one, man, don't blame yourself. You can do everything right. You can do everything right and still not have a good outcome. You can get them the help they need. You can even take them to the emergency room and then they release in 24 hours and something bad happens. So it's real important to not take this on yourself, understand that you did everything you could. Sometimes bad things are going to happen. But in your own mind, if you've kind of done these things already, the onus is always going to be back on them. We're humans and we're going to feel guilty when something like that happens, but it's important not to do that.

Realize that our LIFT team, we've got a ton of suicide resources. We've got a mental health professional that's on staff. Although he's not there, he doesn't see pilots as patients, if we have someone who we think is suicidal, he can do kind of an immediate critical assessment to see really what the threat level is. So if you're in that situation, if you can't get ahold of us, call the union, we can get you connected with that person and he can kind of give you some thoughts and ideas on how to handle that going forward. But we've got a whole section on the app just about suicide. There's a ton of resources out there. The 988 hotline is new. If you're not sure if it's serious, call 911. If you've got time, call us and we'll get you connected with the right resource.

Casey Casteel:

Let's say we're talking and I'm concerned about my friend. I feel like I've reached the end of what I can offer. And I call your team, I say, "Hey, can you give my buddy a call, kind of a wellness check call?" Is that a good idea? Do you guys do that?

Ty Dimeff:

Absolutely. It's actually one of the unique things about our team compared to some of the other airline unions' pilot services team. Most of them will not do cold calls, and we do. And we made the decision early on because the fear was you do a cold call on somebody and they're like, "Why are you calling me? Don't call me again." They hang up the phone. And we're like, you know what, that's an acceptable level of risk for us. We would rather make someone angry than to miss somebody that would benefit from a cold call. So yeah, if you've got someone that you're concerned about, just realize when you make that call, you get the confidentiality. So we're not going to tell that individual who reached out, although they may know based on the timing and when the call comes. But absolutely, we will cold call anybody at any time. Our goal is to keep everybody alive. That is the number one, that's always been our tasking, it's our number one priority. We'll make anybody angry that needs to be made angry if that's what it takes to make sure that we save the one person that needed that call. But yeah, if you've got somebody that you're worried about, you can always reach out to us.

Matt McCants:

That's good to know. And to kind of circle back to just saying something to somebody and the difference that that can make, there's a very powerful book out there called Cracked, Not Broken by Kevin Hines who talks about the day he decided to try to take his own life by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge and survived. Can you talk a little bit about that day and what he writes about there?

Ty Dimeff:

Yeah. The biggest thing that came out of his story when I read it was the importance of just asking the question. Obviously paraphrasing a long story in his book, but he made the decision when he woke up that morning that if just one person asked me how I was doing, that I wasn't going to do what I had planned to do that day. From the time that his parents came in the room in the morning, and he was, I believe he was a teenager, a late teenager, maybe early 20s at the time, parents didn't ask anything. He got on the bus. None of the patrons on the bus asked. And why that's important is because he was crying. He actually had tears coming down his face. And all the way to the point where he got off the bus, no one asked. And in his own mind, he was just begging someone, please just ask me how I'm doing. Because if they had, he would've gone. He would've allowed them to take them to the emergency room, check into a facility, and kind of go back on his medication, get the help that he needed.

All the way up to the point he got off the bus, walked up to the bridge, just about to the spot where he was ready to jump. And the story that he tells is he hears somebody kind of holler behind him, turns around and it's a tourist coming up asking if he would take his picture against the backdrop of the bridge. And in his mind, he was just begging just somebody notice that I'm in distress, and it didn't happen. And he made the jump. Obviously, he survived enough to he wrote the book and it's a fascinating story. But the biggest thing that I took out of that is just, like I said, and I said it a hundred times, I'll say it another a hundred times, is don't be afraid to ask if you're having concerns about someone that you might be thinking about taking their own life.

Casey Casteel:

The Pilot Relief Fund has been around for a few years now, but only recently came under Project LIFT. Let's talk a little bit about that resource and how it can help our members.

Ty Dimeff:

Yeah. So the SWAPA Pilot Relief Fund provides charitable grants of up to $5,000 for SWAPA pilots and staff. It is 100% funded by pilots and staff. We're at about a 30% participation rate. We've got just a little over a million dollars in the fund. We recently just raised our max grant amount from 4,000 to 5,000 because we've got a very healthy balance. It's managed by a third party, it's the Emergency Assistance Foundation. And that's mostly for tax, legal reasons that they handle all the registrations and applications and verification that it's a valid reason to get the grant and things of that nature. The basic thing to note I would say about the SWAPA Pilot Relief Fund is that it's not means tested. There's no income limits on what you can and can't make to qualify for the grant. Which if anybody's ever made against the Southwest Airlines Catastrophic Fund, which is a great fund, but there is some means testing in there, so a lot of times pilots won't even qualify because we make too much money.

So we wanted to find a way with the old, we had that old PMA system that when young first officers would, something happened medically and they were going out and they weren't making the money, it was just a way to get them a little extra cash from their fellow pilot. The good thing about our program, like I said, it's not means tested. You just need to show that you've had some kind of a financial hardship, whether that's medical, a natural disaster, death in the family. So a lot of times we'll see it if the pilot passes away, we'll get the spouse to apply for a grant to get them kind of an immediate $5,000, which obviously comes in really handy. So it's just a matter of really applying and then just showing some kind of financial hardship that you've suffered based on some of the categories that are available under the SPRF website.

The other part of that program is called the IRP, the Immediate Response Program. And that's whenever FEMA declares a particular county in the United States a disaster area, that frees up immediate $500 grant. Usually they can get you that within about 48 hours. But there's no means testing, no hardship testing at all with that. It's just 500 bucks because you live in an area that's been declared a natural disaster area. So it's a very quick $500 just to provide some immediate assistance for whatever you happen to be going on. The only caveat to that is you have to actually have a physical residence in the FEMA declared county in the state that you live. It's a fairly simple registration process, but we do highly recommend to reach out to Chris Brown. He's a Denver first officer. He's our SPRF liaison. And he will go through it and make sure that you've actually got yourself onto the correct category. Make sure you've got the right wording in there on showing the hardship that you need. Really it's just one more way to make sure that you're going to get the best chance of an approval.

We have very few denials of the grant program. Usually it's they time out because you didn't finish it, or they just need some more information, and then it just never gets resubmitted. So there's very few completed, fully completed applications that get denied because Chris does a great job making sure that he's got all the required information in there.

Matt McCants:

Yeah, you guys do a great job of explaining when this is open and when it closes. And let's be clear, it doesn't matter what your financial predicament is. When there is a natural disaster that happens where you live, any support is worth getting, even if it's just to talk to you and your team to explain some of the other resources that may be out there if you're not aware of them. So it's one of those other things that you should not be afraid to look you guys up and see what you can do to help.

Ty Dimeff:

Yeah, definitely. Because this would be one of those huge situations where there could be some overlap of teams. If you're going through a natural disaster, there might be some trauma involved, there might be some counseling involved, more than just trying to get a charitable grant from the fund. So definitely reaching out to us to make sure that we're getting you all the help that you need if you're going through some kind of natural disaster. Just to highlight that, natural disasters do fall under the Critical Incident Response Team umbrella, so they will probably be the first people to contact you. But if it's something they think is more applicable to hand off to us, then they'll do that, but they'll make that determination. But as far as the SPRF, you got your Project LIFT team that can walk you through that process.

Matt McCants:

Yeah. And Chris, if you're out there, thanks for everything you do. We saw your name quite a bit last year with Hurricanes Milton and Helene. Those are the ones that come to mind, but we know there's a lot of time and effort that goes into this, so thank you, Chris.

Casey Casteel:

Okay. So Ty, any last words for our membership? Anything else you would like to add?

Ty Dimeff:

I mean, we get excellent support from both the union and the Company. This is a jointly funded committee. It's all run by SWAPA pilots, it's all SWAPA line pilots, but the Company covers half of our budget because they see the importance of it. So the support that we get both from our union and from the Company, it can't be overstated. We've heard SWAPA leadership for years say, "If your son or daughter falls down and scrapes their knee, we want SWAPA to be the first place you call." And we really do take that to heart. Call us. If it's not us, we'll get you connected to whoever you need to be connected to. Like Casey said, we work closely with Benefits and HIMS and Pro Stans and pretty much every other committee here. So if you're just not sure who you need help with, then just call and we'll get you connected with the right one.

Lots of different ways to get in touch with us. The Project Lift app, we've kind of talked about that. Like I said, Project LIFT services is what you'll search for on the App store. The password is SWAPA, S-W-A-P-A, all lowercase. You can always call us at the hotline, 855-737-LIFT, that's 5438. Again, there are kind of the hotline issues. Be patient with it. It is an app-based hotline. It does ring all of our 12 phone numbers on the team sequentially, so that phone could be ringing for four to five minutes. So don't give up on it. If somebody is available, we will answer at the end of that time. And my phone's the last one that rings as the chair. So if it gets by me, you will have the opportunity to leave a confidential voicemail and somebody will reach back out to you very quickly if you do actually leave a voicemail. You can always get us at LIFT@swapa.org. We're option number five on the main SWAPA phone number tree. And then you can always call us individually. All of our phone numbers are on the LIFT app under the team. There's posters in all the crew bases, lounges that have our pictures and bios and phone numbers and email addresses. If you're just more comfortable talking to us individually, then just call us individually. Lots of ways to get in touch with us so that the help is there.

Matt McCants:

We'd like to thank Ty for reading the membership in on all the support that his committee provides. One of our jobs is professional pilots is to accept no unnecessary risk. So think about that the next time it crosses your mind that you or a fellow pilot might have a mental health concern. If this information can help just one pilot take the right steps to preserve their career, it will have been worth it. If you have any questions or feedback for this podcast or any of our comm products, please reach out to us at comm@swapa.org. We really do want to hear from you.

Casey Casteel:

Finally, today's bonus number is 217,000. That's the amount in dollars that was paid out to SWAPA Pilots and families in 2024 when Disaster struck their homes. This was made possible through the SWAPA Pilot Relief Fund, which relies on the generous donations of our pilots to provide help when you need it most.