A Plea for Just a Little Respect For Pilots

Published by: Charles on 15th Dec 2010 | View all blogs by Charles

A client of mine landed a dream job about eight months ago. He flies as the personal pilot for a young, vibrant, female rock star, in her private jet. He is in the middle of a world tour with her. His medical expires on December 31.

My client had the misfortune of having a heart attack with bypass surgery several years ago, from which he has recovered. He went through the FAA protocol to obtain a special issuance of a Conditional Second Class Medical, which requires that, when he flies for compensation or hire, carrying passengers or cargo, he must have a second fully-qualified pilot aboard. This is not a problem since all of the aircraft he flies require a two-pilot crew.

When an airman is granted a Conditional Second Class Medical Certificate through the special issuance process, he or she must annually perform a treadmill test, blood studies, and a PET scan of the heart, and must submit all of the medical records and the original test results and scans to the FAA, for review and approval before they can go to their AME for their flight physical. FAA advises these airmen to submit their results a month or two prior to expiration of their certificates to avoid backlogs.

Well, my client's completed application was received by the Aero Medical Institute before the end of October. But all the FAA will tell me or my client is that his application is in the que for review by the specialist doctors hired by FAA to review these reports. This year, "due to how busy we are", the doctors are not providing time frames to anyone as far as where they are in the renewal process or when they might expect to hear back from FAA regarding their ability to obtain permission to renew their medical certificates.

I asked the nice lady dispensing this less-than-helpful information what would happen if the specialists didn't get to my client's now almost two-month old application by December 31st? She immediately replied: "Well, then his medical would simply expire." In the world of bureaucracy, this is a perfectly-logical and correct answer. In the real world, where pilot jobs are scarce and dream jobs are even scarcer; where a change in pilots requires getting a new pilot (and his or her co-pilot) sent through a multi-week training course which may cause the aircraft to be grounded, and which may, in turn, cause a world-wide concert tour to be disrupted, it is an unacceptable, and unbelievably-disrespectful answer.

Pilots spend their lives training, becoming educated and knowledgeable, acquiring skill and judgment in an unforgiving environment. They are entitled to respect by the agency which oversees the certificates which represent their ability to make a living. Time and time again, the FAA personnel seem to be completely out of touch with the realities of corporate aviation in today's world. My client's current predicament is but one symptom of this epidemic lack of respect for pilots.

It is not asking too much for the FAA to at least tell people when they might reasonably expect an answer to a vital question. It is not asking too much for the FAA to put in place some form of safety net to protect a pilot should the process that the FAA put in place to review his or her medical records break down through no fault of the airman.

Would it hurt anyone to say that a pilot who is simply attempting to renew his or her medical certificate be given a brief extension of his or her second class privileges for, say, two weeks after the FAA has completed its review of the airman's timely-submitted medical records? The public has already been protected by requiring a second, fully-qualified pilot to be on board the aircraft. If, God forbid, my client were to have a heart attack in flight, the second pilot could land the plane three weeks from now, just as safely as he could today.

The FAA's attitude that the agency is the only one allowed to miss deadlines and not perform its job, while the pilots who are totally at their mercy are not entitled even to the courtesy of a heads up as to whether their dream jobs may be kicked out from under them is an attitude that needs to change. It is unacceptable and disrespectful.