Aviation Medical "Fraud"

How is it that airmen are able to hide their medical conditions from
the licensed medical doctor examining them, but not from Congress?



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AVwebALERT News Alert -- March 27, 2007
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http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archives/11/840-full.htm

House Committee Probes Aviation Medical "Fraud" (http://www.avweb.com)
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James L.
Oberstar, D-Minn., today released a committee oversight report that
identifies widespread fraud among pilots who hide serious medical
conditions from examining physicians to retain medical certification
for their FAA pilot licenses.

Larry Dighera wrote:
How is it that airmen are able to hide their medical conditions from
the licensed medical doctor examining them, but not from Congress?

The article says, but I guess you'd like
someone to write you an executive summary (:

They compared SSN disability recipents with
pilot's licenses. A few naughty individuals
had disabilities that would prevent them from
truthfully obtaining a valid medical, yet they
had one.



-------------------------------------------------------------------
AVwebALERT News Alert -- March 27, 2007
-------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archives/11/840-full.htm

House Committee Probes Aviation Medical "Fraud" (http://www.avweb.com)
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James L.
Oberstar, D-Minn., today released a committee oversight report that
identifies widespread fraud among pilots who hide serious medical
conditions from examining physicians to retain medical certification
for their FAA pilot licenses.

On Tue, 27 Mar 2007 14:44:39 -0800, Jim Stewart
wrote in :


They compared SSN disability recipents with
pilot's licenses. A few naughty individuals
had disabilities that would prevent them from
truthfully obtaining a valid medical, yet they
had one.

Does it say how many instances of this they found as a percentage of
total current airman certificate holders?

On Tue, 27 Mar 2007 14:44:39 -0800, Jim Stewart
wrote in :


They compared SSN disability recipents with
pilot's licenses. A few naughty individuals
had disabilities that would prevent them from
truthfully obtaining a valid medical, yet they
had one.


Does the article happen to mention how many airmen filed disability
insurance claims before seeking FAA medical certificates? Of does it
fail to differentiate between those and those airmen who became
disabled subsequent to their medical examinations?

I wasn't aware that medical disability information was a matter of
public record; interesting.

Larry Dighera wrote:
How is it that airmen are able to hide their medical conditions from
the licensed medical doctor examining them, but not from Congress?

Obviously they can't. The airmen were either:

1) Committing fraud against the Social Security Administration,
2) Committing fraud against the Federal Aviation Administration,
3) Neither of the above.

There are too many problems with the committee's report[1] that it is
difficult to know where to start. Here's an attempt:

A) Claiming that after examining the records of 40,000 airmen (over 6%
of all airmen), the 45 that they _charged_ with fraud (about 0.1%)
constitutes a "widespread" problem. Looks like 99.9% compliance to me.

B) Confusing "charged" with "convicted".

C) Assumes case (2) above rather than (1) but fails to give the reasons
to prefer one over the other.

D) Assumes incorrectly that post-mortem results are reliable indicators
of fraud rather than, say, simple oversights or honest mistakes.

E) Assumes incorrectly that the post-mortem drug results numbers can be
extrapolated. Such an extrapolation is valid only if those who are
medically unfit are just as likely to crash as healthy pilots. But of
course if that were the case then there would be no safety value in
denying unhealthy pilots from flying! So if the rate of accidents of
unfit pilots is presumed to be an unknown amount greater than that of
fit pilots (e.g. 1000 times higher) then, for example, if 10% of fatal
accidents appear to involve unfit pilots then only 0.01% of all pilots
are unfit - not 10% of all pilots!

F) After introducing the ~0.1% number that were charged with fraud, then
discards it and uses the incorrectly extrapolated ~10% number to claim
"wide spread" fraud. Under what definition, outside of the rhetorical
and political realm, is 99.9% or even 90% compliance considered evidence
of widespread non-compliance?

G) One of the "unclear on the concept" recommendations is to require
pilots to state whether or not they are receiving medical disability
benefits. If the applicant was willing to lie about other aspects then
why does anyone think the applicant would suddenly find honesty with
that requirement?

[1] http://transportation.house.gov/Medi...e%20Report.pdf

Larry Dighera wrote:
On Tue, 27 Mar 2007 14:44:39 -0800, Jim Stewart
wrote in :


They compared SSN disability recipents with
pilot's licenses. A few naughty individuals
had disabilities that would prevent them from
truthfully obtaining a valid medical, yet they
had one.



Does the article happen to mention how many airmen filed disability
insurance claims before seeking FAA medical certificates? Of does it
fail to differentiate between those and those airmen who became
disabled subsequent to their medical examinations?

I wasn't aware that medical disability information was a matter of
public record; interesting.

Who said it was? There's nothing to stop two
federal agencies from comparing databases, as
long as they don't disclose the information in
the databases to the public.

I'm *not* in favor of such fishing expeditions,
but just the same, the government has a long
history of doing them.

Jim Stewart writes:

They compared SSN disability recipents with
pilot's licenses. A few naughty individuals
had disabilities that would prevent them from
truthfully obtaining a valid medical, yet they
had one.

How many of the pilots committing fraud had been incapacitated in flight by
the conditions they hid from the FAA?

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

Jim Stewart writes:

They compared SSN disability recipents with
pilot's licenses. A few naughty individuals
had disabilities that would prevent them from
truthfully obtaining a valid medical, yet they
had one.

How many of the pilots committing fraud had been incapacitated in
flight by the conditions they hid from the FAA?

Why, you hoping to be called up front to push buttons and turn knobs?


bertie

Bertie the Bunyip writes:

Why, you hoping to be called up front to push buttons and turn knobs?

Because if they aren't being incapacitated by these conditions, perhaps the
conditions should not be disqualifying in the first place.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

Bertie the Bunyip writes:

Why, you hoping to be called up front to push buttons and turn knobs?

Because if they aren't being incapacitated by these conditions,
perhaps the conditions should not be disqualifying in the first place.

What maybe like the way your's incapacitates you?

bertie