Oct. 23, 2024

At the 2024 NBAA Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition (NBAA-BACE), experts, including Federal Air Surgeon at the FAA Dr. Susan Northrup, shared the latest updates on the agency’s mental health programs and medical certification policies, including groundbreaking initiatives and resources aimed at enhancing support and improving access to care for business aviation professionals.

“Our goal is to return individuals to flying or controlling as soon as it is safe to do so in a consistent, transparent and timely way,” said Northrup, adding the goal isn’t met yet, but the agency is making progress. “We also want to provide people the tools they need early in their career, so they don’t reach a crisis.”

Northrup provided an overview of the recent recommendations from the Mental Health and Aviation Medical Clearances Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC), which was established to provide recommendations to FAA that prevent pilots and controllers from reporting and seeking care for mental health issues.

The ARC report identified barriers to pilots and air traffic controllers seeking mental health care, including culture, trust, fear, stigma, financial, process and knowledge gap. It also included two dozen recommendations unanimously agreed to by ARC members, which included industry, academia, medical, unions and more.

ARC recommendations fell into five main categories:

  • Employ safety management system principals in medical certification
  • Consider society’s safety expectations
  • Publish practical guidelines for applicants – in process, published soon
  • Improve aviation medical examiner (AME) training and oversight
  • Incorporate mental health awareness training into job training and testing events

View the ARC report.

“One ARC recommendation was to make talk therapy unreportable to the FAA,” said Northrup. While the agency is working on this recommendation, Northrup said progress is slower going than anticipated.

“Coming up with a national definition of ‘talk therapy’ has been challenging, but peer support programs don’t have to be reported,” meaning pilots and controllers have an unreportable option to talk out issues now, she added.

Northrup, along with Mark Larsen, NBAA director of safety and flight operations, both emphasized the importance of collaboration between industry and FAA to implement recommendations and other initiatives to enhance mental health care support.

Meanwhile, the FAA is already educating pilots, working toward early intervention and evolving standards, including ADHD fast tracking and decreased decision times. The FAA also recently rolled out a new AME decision tool to help increase the number of AME-issued medical certificates.

Larsen described NBAA’s efforts in providing mental health resources and advocating in the development of mental health policy, and shared that airlines typically have peer support programs available, and the size of those organizations allow for anonymity. With the average flight department having only one or two aircraft, anonymity is not a reality for most business aircraft operations.

In addition to fear of stigma and other barriers, Larsen spoke to challenges pilots face even getting an appointment with an AME.

“It can be weeks to even get an appoint with a local AME and their understanding of the FAA requirements on mental health issues might not be accurate or complete,” said Larsen.

Larsen attributed improvements in the treatment of pilot and controller mental health to a shift in overall culture, not just in aviation, which has made seeking mental health care more acceptable.

Learn more about mental health treatment in aviation.

Any person who attends an NBAA convention, conference, seminar or other program grants permission to NBAA, its employees and agents (collectively "NBAA") to record his or her visual/audio images, including, but not limited to, photographs, digital images, voices, sound or video recordings, audio clips, or accompanying written descriptions, and, without notifying such person, to use his or her name and such images for any purpose of NBAA, including advertisements for NBAA and its programs.

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