GAO Releases Report on Safety Effects of Modifying the Age Standard for Commercial Pilots

Report concerns aviation issues only, but raises questions to whether this type of thing will extend into the maritime arena as well, especially in the choppy wake of COSCO BUSAN and U.S. Coast Guard’s NAVC 04-08.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released the following correspondence: Aviation Safety: Information on the Safety Effects of Modifying the Age Standard for Commercial Pilots. GAO-10-107R, October 30. According to the correspondence, the GAO released a draft of this report to the Department of Transportation and NTSB for review and comment. Both agencies had no comments. Additionally, they said, “We are sending copies of this report to the appropriate congressional committees, the Secretary of Transportation, the FAA Administrator, and the NTSB Chairperson. The report will also be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at http://www.gao.gov.

Finally, we found the following passage to be of particular interest: “Therefore, it is premature to conclude that the increase in the age limit for pilots to age 65 will or will not have an impact on a pilot’s performance and aviation safety. As stated in the act, carriers are required to monitor the performance of all pilots with a special emphasis on pilots who have attained 60 years of age.”

Click HERE to read the correspondence.