The Office of Special Counsel has cited a whistleblower for disclosing “significant delays” in medical reviews of airline transport pilots, commercial pilots, and private pilots.
That resulted in hundreds of them “holding medical certificates who may not have been medically qualified to fly,” the OSC said in notifying Congress and the White House; the OSC redacted the whistleblower’s name but identified the person as a medical officer in that office.
The whistleblower alleged that the delays deterred the pilots—and air traffic controllers, who also are subject to medical certification—”from disclosing illness, injury, and medications that may affect medical eligibility, and risked a shortage of employees responsible for controlling national airspace,” it said.
It said that in response to OSC’s referral of the disclosures to the FAA for investigation, that agency “found that medical officers were required to review only 400-600 certificates — or less than 0.01% of the 445,613 medical certificates issued . . . The FAA also acknowledged that during this period, it prioritized hiring more than 1,500 air traffic controllers, which led to an increase in medical applications from controller candidates while AAM staffing levels remained stagnant.”
While the FAA did not agree with the whistleblower’s assertion that understaffing was the cause, following the investigation it increased staffing in the office by 26 to 78, and “also implemented measures to improve the efficiency of...
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