Find out why the FAA was formed. I can tell you that it was due to concern over airline incidents. I can even post this link: https://www.faa.gov/about/history/brief_history/

The FAA was formed a bit more than year before the age 60 rule was adopted. There were a ton of other air safety rules that were adopted in the same timeframe.

I can even dig up some of the committee reports and post the links, such as 'The Airport and its neighbors' from 1952, headed by Jimmy Doolittle and tell you to read the section on page 59 titled, 'crew selection'. With a link to the report: http://www.dot.state.mn.us/aero/plan...sneighbors.pdf
I can tell you that this report was part of the impetus to form the FAA and a lot of the ideas within it were adopted by the FAA.
From this report, the Aero Medical Association (now the Aerospace Medical Association) was directed to form a Committee on Pilot Aging in 1953. Unfortunately, it'll take me a while to locate the reports so you'll just have to remain unconvinced.

I can post this late 1980s article where the author wrote in paragraph 4: According to testimony before Roybal`s committee, the age 60 rule was the decision of the FAA`s first administrator, Elwood ``Pete`` Quesada, who was presented with the choice of retiring pilots at age 50, 55, 60 or 65. Quesada picked 60, and the rule went into effect in 1960.
Age-60 Rule For Pilots Hit - tribunedigital-chicagotribune

I can't find the link to the letter from Rev Hesburgh, president of Notre Dame, to Quesada (they were also friends), where he recommended a maximum age for airline pilots of 50. Unfortunately, a lot of these documents are scanned .pdfs which make them hard to locate with google searches.

Much of the groundwork for the age 60 rule was done under the Civil Aeronautics Administration (the predecessor of the FAA). This makes it a bit more difficult to locate some of the better documents that I read, The same goes for the Congressional Record where some of this stuff is documented - the database isn't easily searchable prior to 1989.


I gave you a few links and leads. You can dig deeper if you choose. Or not believe any of the above statements/links/leads and remain unconvinced. I hope I've provided enough curiosity on your part to dig deeper. If not, no worries.