Articulo publicado en Business & Commercial Aviation (Feb. 2008)
President Bush signed the Fair Treatment for Experienced Pilots Act (H.R. 4343) into law on Dec. 13,2007, thus raising the mandatory retirement age for airline pilots from 60 to 65. The bill, Introduced by Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), House Transportation and Infra-structure Committee chairman, passed unanimously through both houses of Congress. The law stripped the pilot retirement age provisions out of the FAA reauthorization bill into a stand-alone bill. With enactment of this law, we ve changed a half-century-old age discrimination rule that has left skilled veteran pilots at a disadvantage to international competitors, said Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), House Transportation Committee ranklng member and co-sponsor of the bill. In December, Mica called on Oberstar to pull the pilot retirement age provision out of the FAA reauthorization bill, then still stalled in the Senate, but Oberstar was not in favor of creating a stand-alone bill. H.R. 4343 marks an about-face for the committee chairman. The FAA and industry applauded the act, whose passage obviales a lengthy rulemaklng process and allows experienced pilots to continue flying.
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The Reality
Experience adequately adjusts for deterioration in an agings pilots mental or physical attributes neccesary for flying…to a point
On Dec. 13, 2007, President Bush signed into law the Fair Treatment for Experienced Pilot Act. The name of the legislation is right on the mark, and presumably puts the age 60 debate for airline pilot finally to rest. In the months leading up to a vote on this bill a special interest group bought full-page advertisement ***in what?*** warning airline passengers that allowing pilots to fly beyond age 60 would lead to more accident. Central to the controversy is the question of whether pilots safety performance changes significantly during the process of aging.
Even though business aviation pilots were generally unaffected by the age 60 controversy, the underlying issues still pertain very much to their operations. The many safety reasons expressed by opponents to extending airline flying privileges past age 60 included a perceived higher risk of incapacitation, either sudden or subtle, which would place the aircraft and passengers at risk; a decline in cognitive abilities resulting in dangerous judgment errors that could compromise safety; and medical and psychological testing procedures that are unable to adequately identify pilots at risk for adverse health events. Other sources cite the increased susceptibility of older pilots to fatigue as a major concern. Conversely, those advocating extending the mandatory retirement age argued that forcing senior but fit experienced pilots from the cockpit ultimately reduces safety.
While there is an abundance of personal opinions and anecdotes relating to this topic, there also has been intense focus of research on it over the past two decades that has generated much data for understanding the relationship between pilot aging and safety performance.
Prominent among the contributors was Robin Wilkening, a researcher at the Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. The Age 60 Rule: Age Discrimination in Commercial Aviation, authored-by Wilkening and published in Aviation Space and Environmental Medicine, the journal of the Aerospace Medical Association, noted that between 1972 and 1988 the worlds airlines flew more than 190 million jet hours without realizing a single accident involving pilot incapacitation. The latest estimated risk of cardiac incapacitation occurring at a critical point in a flight is less than one event among more than 20 million flight hours, with the risk of an accident occurring once every 400 years.
Meanwhile, Flight Safety and Medical Incapacitation Risk of Airline Pilots, a 2004 study by Stuart Mitchell and Anthony Evans of the United Kingdoms Civil Aviation Authority and also published in Aviation Space and Environmental Medicine (March 2004), concluded, The evidence suggests that the incapacitation risk limits used by some [nations], particularly for cardiovascular disease, may be too restrictive . . . and may adversely affect flight safety if experienced pilots are retired on overly stringent medical grounds.
In fact, both of these studies noted the most common cause for sudden incapacitation among airline pilots was not cardio-vascular disease but rather acute gastrointestinal illness, which accounts for approximately 60 percent of the cases. The authors pointed out that this malady is quite unrelated to age.
As to concerns expressed about aging pilots suffering cognitive decline that poses a cockpit hazard, a study published recently in The International Journal of Aviation Psychology determined that, Differences in pilot cognition appear to be gradual across the age range. A linear decline best describes pilot cognition differences [when present] between 28 and 62 years of age, a finding that agrees with many of the other research projects on this topic.
According to Age Restrictions for Airline Pilots: Revisiting the FAAs Age 60 Rule, a report by the Library of Congresss non-partisan Congressional Research Service, there are several questions that need to be answered to resolve the issue of age vs. experience in the cockpit: First, to what extent does experience mitigate or compensate for age-related declines in performance? Second, are pilot medical examinations, proficiency checks, periodic observations and monitoring programs adequate to detect performance deficits on an individual basis? Third, whats the point at which mental skills and abilities critical for pilot performance becomes so deteriorated that it increases-risk to an unacceptable level?
Competing special interest groups have used accident statistics to support their positions for and against increasing the mandatory pilot retirement age. However, applying such data to determine exact insights into the relationship between pilot age and safety is a dubious exercise. Why? Accident statistics do not reflect an absence of information critical to safe flight, such as the sudden formation of a catastrophic microburst during an approach. Nor do they hold when making apples and oranges comparisons, such as FAR Part 121 accident rates with those of Part 135 operators. After all, a career-long Part 121 pilot seldom had to deal with non-precision approaches into non-radar, uncontrolled airports buried in mountain valleys whose runways lack approach path guidance and provide no reliable means of calculating the runway braking conditions.
An additional problem inherent with general accident statistics is that they tend to ignore the fact that certain phases of flight are riskier than others and using flight hours as a common denominator can skew that. For instance, while a 10-hour nonstop flight involves the same airborne time as 10 flights of one-hour each, the former does not have nearly the same risk exposure as the latter operation.
Statistics also fail to account for old-fashioned luck — good and bad — and other random factors. Is a pilot accident prone if a deer strays into his path during a landing rollout one night at a remote airfield and two years later a tug backs his stabilizer into a hangar door while hes talking to the line supervisor on a busy metropolitan ramp? Maybe its good luck that has helped keep our safety records spotless.
Many of us have flown with crewmembers whom we regarded as accidents in waiting. Fortunately todays CRM world emphasizes the role of the entire crew in keeping the flight safe. And because of that, deficient pilots can be kept safe by attentive flight crew colleagues. As a result, of course, the statistics wouldnt reflect the true vulnerabilities of the deficient pilot. In addition, there may be a reluctance among younger pilots to report safety-related incidents involving the performance of older, senior pilots. The statistics would be ignorant of that safety reality as well.
So, with these and other limitations inherent to the use of accident statistics in mind, research studies on the subject of pilot age vs. experience can be illuminating.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health have carefully studied the accident records of various pilot groups to determine if age-related changes affect crash and error risk. This research team well understands the limitations of accident-based studies and has worked to minimize them. As a result the rigor of their methodology is respected and their impartiality lends credibility to their conclusions.
For Human Factors in Aviation Accidents Involving Older Pilots, a study whose findings appeared in the February 2002 edition of Aviation Space and Environmental Medicine, they examined 3,306 pilots who in 1987 flew commuter or air taxis and were between 45 and 54 years of age. They analyzed accident records of these pilots for the years 1983 through 1997, during which time the pilots accumulated 12.9 million flight hours and experienced 165 aviation accidents, yielding a rate of 5.1 accidents per million pilot flight hours. (They excluded 11 glider accidents and seven balloon accidents by the pilots, but made note that 11 pilots were involved in two accidents during the period.) The 165 accidents were divided into two groups based on the pilots age at the time of the accident: 40 to 49 years old, and 50 to 63 years old. The average flight time of this group was considerable, nearly 10,701 flight hours, and on average, the pilots had flown 147 flight hours in the previous 90 days.
So what did they discover about the two accident groups? First, the mishaps were similar with regard to circumstances, such as time of day, location, type and phase of flight, type of aircraft and basic weather conditions. Mechanical failure and loss of control were the leading accident categories, each accounting for about a quarter. The researchers did note that poor crew inter-action and inattentiveness were more common in younger pilots, while flawed decision making was more prevalent in older pilots.
Overall, about one-fourth of the pilot errors in this study were attributable to inattentiveness, and about a fifth each to flawed decisions, mishandled aircraft kinetics and mishandled wind or runway conditions. The Johns Hopkins team concluded, Neither crash circumstances nor the prevalence and patterns of pilot errors appeared to change significantly as pilot aged from the 40s to 50s and early 60s.
According to the studys authors, There may well be a compensatory effect of experience on flight proficiency, which increases with age. This, of course, is the same argument used by many airline pilots who were approaching the formerly mandatory retirement age of 60. They opined that their vast experience more than adequately adjusts for any deterioration in other mental or physical attributes necessary for flying.
The Johns Hopkins research team further examined the relationship between age and safety in Age, Flight Experience and Risk of Crash Involvement in a Cohort of Professional Pilots, an article published in the American Journal of Epidemiology. The authors found that Total flight experience showed a significant protective effect against the risk of crash involvement. With adjustment for age, pilots who had 5,000 to 9,999 hours of total flight time had a 57 percent lower risk of a crash than their less-experienced counterparts. . . .The protective effect of flight experience leveled off after total flight time reached 10,000 hours.
A recent study by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Stanford University School of Medicine examined this same issue, though using flight simulator performance instead of accident records. The study, published in Neurology, a periodical of the American Academy of Neurology, examined the performance of 118 general aviation pilots aged 40 to 69, in which their flight performance was scored in terms of (1) executing air-traffic controller Communications, (2) traffic avoidance, (3) instrument scan, (4) executing an approach to landing and (5) a flight summary score over a three-year period. The stud/s authors concluded mere is an advantageous effect of prior experience and specialized expertise on older pilots performance.
The Johns Hopkins research team believes there may be a positive effect on safety records due to medical examinations and proficiency checks, which screen out pilots who are unable to meet the necessary certification standards. Furthermore, the aging pilot population is further weeded out as pilots encounter chronic diseases, deficiencies in safety performance, violations and early retirement. The study noted that the apparent attrition rate of the pilots (based on the fact that the individual no longer had a current medical certificate) was quite high, on the order of 46 percent. This of course is of prime interest to the business aviation community because at present flight proficiency and medical checks are the primary methods for determining whether or not a pilot remains in the cockpit.
The FAA sponsored an extensive research project examining the relationship between age and accident risk. The project became popularly known as the Hilton Study, since the prime contractor was Hilton Systems. The study found no evidence of increased accident rates among air carrier pilots as they approached age 60. The researchers also examined accident data for older private pilots who were fairly experienced and remained rather active in flying, and concluded there was only a slight hint of increased accident risk for pilots beyond age 63, and no indication of increased risk below that age.
Dana Broach, Kurt Joseph and David Schroeder of the FAA3s Civil Aeromedical Institute produced a report titled An Analysis of Professional Air Transport Pilot Accident Rates by Age. The study, requested by the U.S. Senate, found there was no significant difference in accident rates between ATPs with Class 1 medicals aged 60 to 63 and those aged 55 to 59. However, when pilots holding Commercial certificates and Class 2 medicals were included, the 60- to 63-year-old group had an accident rate that was significantly higher than that of the younger pilots with comparable ratings.
The statistical problem with the second finding was that the older pilots were flying in Part 135 operations, which historically have a much higher accident rate than do Part 121 ops, while the younger pilots were flying with either Part 121 or Part 135 carriers. The authors did question whether the findings supported the idea that the rigors of attaining an ATP and Class 1 medical mitigated age-related declines, or the aged Part 135 group studied was simply too small to provide valid data.
Japan and Israel conducted multi-year studies on the aging pilot issue. Japanese regulators found that no pilots over age 60 had been involved in any of the 101 crashes that occurred during the three-year study period and concluded that their countrys medical evaluations adequately identified those pilots no longer fit to fly. As a result, healthy Japanese commercial pilots aged 60 to 63 remain eligible for professional flying. Meanwhile, the Israeli Civil Aviation Authority took a step by step process, first allowing age 60-plus pilots to fly just as first officers, then as cruise captains. Based upon the excellent safety and fitness records of these older pilots, the Israeli regulations were changed to allow pilots aged 60 to 65 to fly as PIC.
In November 2006, ICAO increased its upper age limit to 65 for commercial pilots of two-pilot aircraft, on the condition that only one pilot per flight crew is older than 60 and that pilots beyond 60 must undergo an aeromedical exam every six months. In addition, 31 of the 33 countries within the membership of the Joint Aviation Authority now allow pilots to fly until age 65. And then last December the United States followed suit.
Currently, Canada, Australia and a few smaller nations have no upper age limit for commercial pilots. In Canada, more than 1,300 airline pilots are older than 60. The commercial operators in those countries rely solely on a pilots medical certification and demonstrated flight proficiency to assess his or her continued fitness to fly. Of course, the business aviation sector also relies on those same two screening processes to determine whether a pilot is still fit to fly.
Are those adequate determinants? The Congressional Research Services report noted, There is some concern about relying solely on a pilots medical certification and demonstrated flight proficiency to assess his or her continued fitness to fly. There are some possible drawbacks to such an approach. Sophisticated medical and psychological testing to detect latent age-related degradation of pilot-related cognitive abilities are not conducted during medical exams, and agreed-upon measures of cognitive ability related to piloting are generally lacking. Furthermore, available cognitive tests may not be sensitive enough to detect subtle cognitive deficits that may only manifest themselves under certain conditions.
The literature on aging shows that the variations in cognitive function among individuals increases greatly as age increases. A study on pilot cognition by Loyola-Marymount and UCLA found, It is impossible to extrapolate those results to pilots older than 62 years. It is entirely possible that decline in cognition accelerates after 62. It also found, There was no appreciable acceleration of change in rate of cognitive difference with pilot age. This makes it extremely difficult to predict an individuals functional level.
According to the Aerospace Medical Associations official policy statement on this issue, There is not one age when all cognitive capabilities decline for everybody. The prevailing data strongly suggest that the quest for determining a specific cutoff age that could be applied generally is likely to be futile. The association suggests that enhanced cognitive screening and neuropsychological testing may show promise for accurately evaluating older pilots, but admits that a considerable investment would be needed to implement non-age-based criteria for determining the fitness of older pilots.
Business aviation has long recognized the value of experienced pilots in the cockpit, and operators have eschewed a set cutoff age, as they should. Nevertheless, as we age, we do suffer deterioration in important sensory, perceptual, cognitive and motor skills that are important to piloting. One of the hardest parts of the age vs. experience issue is to determine the point at which the decline is substantive enough to constitute an increased risk and must be addressed. Currently, the line of demarcation is quite gray, even for aeromedical and safety experts. Accordingly, members of the Aerospace Medical Association and other researchers support a rational, practical and evidence-based approach to the aging pilot issue — a sensible tactic all should embrace.
So, how can business aviation managers ensure their pilots will continue to operate safely as their hair goes from dark to silver? Be alert to changes in a pilots ability to learn, memory retention, tolerance to fatigue, sleeping habits and physical condition, among other things. Monitor training and pilot performance. Keep an eye on crew pairing and flight assignments, and adapt flight schedules as seems sensible.
If you perceive or suspect a serious decline, youll likely need expert aeromedical resources to help make a medically sound decision; also helpful is a strong working relationship with training vendors who can make objective assessments that will withstand scrutiny.
And once it is time for a valued pilot to retire, the operator had better have a process in place that is clear, firm and respectful. It can be emotionally taxing to walk away from so rewarding a Job, and the manager needs to be cognizant of that, and of the service the pilot has provided year in and year out under all kinds of conditions. Good pilots are precious, whatever their age, and deserve a dignified, graceful exit. But at some point – however hard to define – exit, they must. As must we all. Until then, its all our Jobs to keep things safe.
Articulo publicado en ALA (Feb. 2008)
Se aumentará la edad de retiro de los pilotos a 65 años
Diciembre parece ser el mes del cambio para la legislación referente a la edad de retiro de los pilotos. En diciembre de 1959 nació la regla de edad 60. Antes de 1959, sin embargo, no existía un límite de edad para el retiro de los pilotos. Con la nueva era de los jets en el horizonte, en ese tiempo el Presidente de American Airlines, C.R. Smith, quería que sus pilotos de mayor edad dejaran de volar. Sus abogados le comentaron a la Administración Federal de Aviación (FAA), al momento de reescribir los estándares médicos, que no había bases para establecer una edad arbitrariamente.
Se reporta que la FAA firmó expeditamente una orden administrativa, estableciendo la nueva edad de retiro a los 60, aunque los abogados de la FAA y la Fundación para la Seguridad de Vuelo (FSF) no favorecieron la orden. La FSF, que es una entidad independiente no política, objetiva y muy respetada, generó un reporte antes del cambio administrativo de las reglas por parte de la FAA. Después de tomar en consideración los efectos de las nuevas aeronaves jet de transporte, la FSF recomendó específicamente no cambiar los estándares médicos de los pilotos.
En diciembre de 1959 entró en vigor la nueva regla para establecer la edad de 60 años como edad de retiro obligatorio. Durante 40 años, la regla de la Edad 60 permaneció sin cambios ni enmiendas.
Un día después de que la casa de representantes aprobara unánimemente una medida para aumentar la edad de retiro obligatorio de los pilotos comerciales norteamericanos a 65 años, el senado votó su aproba¬ción para la legislación, y también envió la iniciativa al escritorio del presidente. Algunas veces el senado de los Estados Unidos puede actuar con rapidez. Por otro lado, algunos argumentarían que han pasado ya casi cinco décadas.
El expedito proceso político dio como resultado que el Presidente Bush firmará la ley HR 4343 el 13 de diciembre, conocida como Ley de Tratamiento Justo para Pilotos Experimentados, que enmienda el título 49 del Código de los Estados Unidos, para modificar los estándares de edad para los pilotos bajo Operaciones FAR parte 121, elevando la edad de retiro obligatorio de 60 a 65 años. Los pilotos que vuelan aeronaves privadas bajo operadores de FAR parte 91 y 135 no tienen una edad de retiro obligatoria, pero dado que algunos operadores en la parte 91 y 135 se apoyan en aspectos de parte 121 para guiar sus políticas de departamento de vuelos, los miembros de la NBAA deberán tomar nota de esta legislación.
Actualmente, para operadores de aeronaves nacionales privadas, la regla de edad de 65 no afecta a los operadores de alquiler parte 135 o 91 partiendo de un punto de vista de regulación. Las restricciones a pilotos que operan aeronaves después de alcanzar los 65 años solamente aplica a transportadores aéreos parte 121. La restricción no aplica a operadores de transporte no aéreo.
El problema se ha vuelto más complejo, sin embar¬go, debido a la decisión de muchos departamentos de vuelo privado para requerir retiro temprano a sus pilotos como política corporativa. Esta acción ha generado un número de acciones legales involucrando a la Comisión de Oportunidades Igualitarias de Empleo (EEOC) y la Ley de Discriminación en Empleo por Edad (ADEA). Bajo esta regla, los empleados son protegidos contra discriminación basada en la edad. El resultado final de estos litigios aún está por determinarse.
Para operadores internos, se ha prestado atención al tema de la edad 60 en forma de un cambio de reglas de la Organización Inlemacional de Aviación Civil (1CAO). Las nuevas previsiones se volvieron aplicables el 23 de noviembre de 2006, y establecen lo siguiente:
• Un estado contratante que haya emitido licencias de pilotos no permitirá a los habientes de éstas a actuar como pilotos al mando de una aeronave involucrada en operaciones de transporte aéreo comercial de carácter internacional si el habiente de dicha licencia ha cumplido ya los 60 años o, en el caso de operaciones con más de un piloto donde el otro piloto es menor a los 60 años de edad, 65 años.
• Recomendación: – Un estado contratante que haya emitido licencias de pilotos, no permitirá a los habientes de éstas actuar como copilotos de una aeronave involucrada en operaciones de transporte aéreo comercial de carácter internacional si el habiente de dicha licencia ha cumplido ya los 65 años de edad.
• Nuevamente, este cambio en la regla tiene un bajo impacto directo sobre operaciones privadas de parte 91, pero sí afecta a operadores comerciales, incluyendo ope¬radores de parte 135. Básicamente, la nueva regla declara que, cuando se requiera más de un piloto, uno de los dos deberá ser menor a los 60 años de edad, y el otro deberá ser menor a los 65 años de edad, sin presentar problemas médicos durante los 6 meses anteriores al vuelo.
Debe hacerse notar que hay países que no se adhieren a las reglas de ICAO. Más aún, no todos los países pun¬tualizan la diferencia entre operaciones privadas y operaciones comerciales en la misma forma en que los Estados Unidos o ICAO lo hacen. Por lo tanto, todas las tripulaciones de vuelo que operen de forma internacional deberán siempre revisar los requerimientos d su país de destino, antes de realizar el vuelo.
De acuerdo con notas periodísticas, el congresista estadounidense James Obersldr (del Esado de Minnesota) –quien apoyó a la Ley de Tratamiento Justo a Pilotos con Experiencia- extrajo la medida de una más amplia ley de Reautorización de la FAA, aprobada por el congreso en septiembre, cuando se volvió evidente que el senado no iba a actuar en su versión de reautorización de la FAA antes del final de año.
NBAA reportará con más detalle sobre este tema tan pronto como la información se encuentre disponible. Para mayor información, contacte al Grupo de Servicio de Operaciones de la NBAA en
info@nbaa.org, o visite http://web.nbna.org/public/ops/adm/age60.php.
