Determining a pilot’s fitness for duty can pose a challenge for business aviation operators, and a lack of any FAA guidance on the issue compounds the problem, said Dr. Quay Snyder at the Flight Safety Foundation business aviation safety summit (Bass) in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., last month. “The FAA medical certificate is practically worthless,” asserted Snyder, president of Aviation Medical Advisory Service. “Take the exam, pay your fee and pick up your certificate with a side of fries,” he told the audience. “The medical only calls attention to items pretty much self-reported.” What about disqualifying issues unknown to or more closely guarded by pilots?

Last year the NTSB listed fitness for duty related to the use of prescription drugs and over-the-counter remedies as one of its top 10 concerns following a 22-year study. Snyder said, “The use of impairing drugs by pilots involved in fatal accidents rose to 23 percent from 11 percent” during the period the study covered. Snyder also pointed to a “national epidemic in which eight percent of the U.S. population is dependent upon opiates of some sort. Pilots are not exempt from these numbers.”

Fitness for Duty Plan

“There’s nothing in our SMS to guide us through the process even though the pilot is the [system component] most likely to fail,” he pointed out. A survey conducted at last year’s Bass revealed more than half of the audience members were employed by companies with no formal procedure to handle fitness-for-duty issues. A smaller percentage of those surveyed said their company handles these matters ad hoc. “I don’t want to see more FAA regulations either. They won’t help anyone,” lamented Snyder. He suggested better tracking of training events might be useful, so long as everyone in the department is evaluated the same way. Some non-traditional techniques, such as talking to the pilot involved, might be a better way to identify fitness problems. He recalled a case where one pilot asked the other for assistance applying the brakes during a rejected takeoff. A subsequent medical diagnosis determined the pilot was displaying the early onset of Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Snyder cited many compelling reasons to create a fitness-for-duty plan. First, an unfit pilot represents a huge safety liability, putting the other pilot, cabin crew and passengers at risk, and that is to say nothing of the aircraft itself. Of course, denial by the pilots is always a concern as they worry about keeping their jobs, and other pilots generally are reluctant to snitch on a colleague. Snyder told the audience, “These aircraft are certified for two pilots for a reason. Operating with just one is dangerous.”

He concluded, “A pilot who has been performing just fine in a flight department doesn’t suddenly change [his behavior] without some underlying reason. The goal is [always] to get the pilot back to flying, or at least identify and remove the hazard from the department” while the pilot seeks treatment. “We need to be ethical and fair to everyone,” Snyder concluded. “We need to optimize health, which reduces the costs everywhere, and leadership teams need to support that concept. Evaluations must be confidential and comprehensive and handled with dignity and respect for the employee.”