U.S. Airlines have a terrifying safety problem (legally not qualified pilots)

When you have a regular job, it's not ideal, but probably not dangerous to fake it until you make it. Telling a prospective boss you know Excel really well or have a lot of SalesForce experience when you don't probably won't result in your office crashing to the ground killing hundreds.

It's more problematic if you're a food worker who lies to pass a health check or a retail clerk who comes to work with what may or may not be covid. Those white lies (or blatant mistruths) put people at risk, but compared to some professions, the dangers are minimal.

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Yes, a lot of Americans probably have gotten colds, the flu, or even covid because a worker felt he or she had to come in despite being ill. It's also likely that there have been a lot of terrible PowerPoint presentations and YouTube videos because people exaggerated (or outright lied) about their skills. 

Still, while those dangers are real, they're not anywhere near as terrifying to people who patronize those businesses as any person would be if they learned their pilot might not be legally qualified to fly a plane.

That seems implausible given how tightly regulated airlines are, but nearly 5,000 U.S. pilots are being investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for “falsifying their medical records to conceal…mental health disorders and other serious conditions that could make them unfit to fly,” View From the Wing reported.

Now, some good news for airline passengers

While it's terrifying to think that your pilot might literally not be medically qualified to fly your plane, only 600 of those being investigated fly for commercial airlines like (but not necessarily including) Southwest, Delta, United, American, Spirit, JetBlue, Frontier, and any other U.S. passenger carrier. The rest of the pilots being looked into fly cargo planes, private jets, and other types of planes.  

"These are military veterans collecting disability benefits 'that could bar them from the cockpit,'" View From the Wing's Gary Leff shared. "Yet they have reported to the FAA 'that they are healthy enough to fly,' failing to report these benefits as required."

So far, only about 60 pilots have been grounded as part of the investigation.

"Veterans Affairs investigators discovered the inconsistencies more than two years ago by cross-checking federal databases, but the FAA has kept many details of the cases a secret from the public just as they hid that there were 300 near collisions in a year," according to the website.

Federal contracting records obtained by The Washington Post show the FAA’s Office of Aerospace Medicine allotted $3.6 million starting last year to hire medical experts and other staff to reexamine certification records for 5,000 pilots who pose “potential risks to the flying public.

…In many of the cases closed by the FAA, pilots have been ordered to correct their records and take new health exams; some have been temporarily grounded while the results are reviewed...Aviation authorities also learned that some pilots did not disclose their VA disability benefits because FAA-contracted physicians advised them to withhold the information, officials said.

 The report did not name any airlines specifically.

Pilot medical issues were the cause of 9% of fatal aviation accidents during a 10-year period from 2012 to 2022, according to Leff. 

The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) has been lobbying the FAA to allow the impacted to pilots to resubmit their medical forms without penalty.

Leff noted that medical forms are challenging because some issues -- like mental problems or problems with alcohol and drugs -- may not show up readily during an exam. That encourages pilots to lie for fear of being grounded, even though there are programs designed to protect their jobs while those issues are dealt with.