jerryleber

Looks like the word is getting out about the FAA 'Medical'. Pandora's box?


“The FAA has known for two decades that tens of thousands of pilots are probably flying with serious undisclosed medical conditions, based on past investigations and audits, and experts who have testified before Congress.”

“Joseph LoRusso, a Colorado-based aviation-law attorney whose firm has fielded “hundreds” of queries from military veterans under FAA scrutiny since July 2022, said it is an open secret that “probably greater than 85 percent of pilots are lying on their medical forms” because they don’t want to flag conditions that might drag out approval or renewal of their licenses.”

"The FAA has known about flaws in its medical screening process since 2005, when inspectors general at the Transportation Department and the Social Security Administration — in an investigation dubbed Operation Safe Pilot — uncovered a scam that had run undetected for years.

About 3,200 pilots in northern California were collecting Social Security disability benefits, claiming they were too sick to work, but reporting to the FAA that they were medically fit to fly. Many worked as commercial pilots even though, under the law, those receiving disability compensation from Social Security can only work limited hours.

The U.S. attorney’s office in San Francisco prosecuted 45 of the most serious cases for fraud and related charges, winning convictions or guilty pleas in all of them. Officials said they could have prosecuted hundreds of additional pilots, but the cases would have clogged the justice system."

“The exams run short, often less than an hour, and the vast majority of exams are approved. The aviation medical examiner’s goal is to get pilots in the air and keep them there, physicians said.”