The FAA is charged by Congress with issuing certificates to qualified persons. These certificates are federal licenses. One such license is the medical certificate, issued by the FAA’s Office of Aerospace Medicine (“AAM”) under 14 CFR part 67, Medical Standards and Certification. In accordance with section 67.3, a person who meets the medical standards in part 67 is entitled to the applied-for medical certificate. Part 67 does not provide for an expiration dates on medical certificates; instead, medical certificate validity periods are listed in part 61, section 61.23(d) specifically.
Sometimes, medical certificate applicants find themselves outside the “four corners” of part 67. Such persons can still apply for (and be issued) medical certificates under the discretionary issuance section 67.401. However, such persons are typically then subjected to an alternative set of eligibility requirements that exist only in a policy document called the Guide for Aviation Medical Examiners (“GAME”). While the GAME is publicly available, it is directed at AAM designees, and AAM changes it regularly without advance notice to the public.
AAM has begun in the last few years to sometimes impose a “drop-dead” date in the Limitations section of some “special issuance” medical certificates. Typically this limitation takes the form “Not valid for any class after…” AAM seldom explains to the certificate holder the basis for the imposition of this limitation. Nor is there any basis in part 67 for a date limitation on a medical certificate. (Section 67.401(d)(1) states that AAM may “Limit the duration of an Authorization.” It does not provide for limiting the duration of a medical certificate).
These date limitations are a relatively new phenomenon, begun without public notice. And their use is not documented anywhere, including in the GAME, which has led to wide variability in their application. As new civilian pilots, we learn that medical certificates are issued without expiration dates. Instead, we were taught to refer to 14 CFR section section 61.23(d), a Flight Standards rule, which contains a table that sets forth medical certificate validity periods and describes the way a first class medical certificate, for example, becomes valid for second class privileges after a period of time, and then third class.
“Drop-dead” date limitations on medical certificates directly interfere with the regulatory validity periods listed at section 61.23(d). These section 61.23(d) regulatory validity periods are even referenced on all medical certificates: standard text included on all medical certificates states “The holder of this certificate must…comply with validity standards specified for first-, second-, and third-class medical certificates (14CFR § 61.23).”
Indeed, the holder of such a medical certificate may wish to comply with these validity standards, as required by both the rule and the text on the medical certificate; but be prevented from doing so as a result of AAM’s unexplained imposition of this undocumented and extra-regulatory limitation. Byimposing these “drop-dead” date limitations, AAM is interfering with the section 61.23(d) regulatory validity periods, which are applicable to all medical certificates.
For these reasons, I have applied for a regulatory grant of exemption that provides that medical certificates issued under it will not contain “drop-dead” date limitations but will instead comply with the uniform regulatory validity periods at section 61.23(d).
The author is a former FAA headquarters-based aviation safety inspector, where he served on staff at the Air Transportation Division, AFS-200, for fifteen years. He led a successful effort to reform the Office of Aerospace Medicine’s blanket ban on considering insulin treated applicants for first class medical certification. He currently has the privilege of serving as a captain at a major U.S. passenger airline.
