JetBlue Case Shows Airline-Pilot Health Checks Not 100%

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U.S. aviation regulators rely on airline pilots to disclose mental-health treatment when they undergo medical screening as often as once every six months.

Still, it’s relatively easy for pilots — including Clayton Osbon, the JetBlue captain who was locked out of the cockpit by his co-pilot and tackled by passengers March 27 after becoming erratic — to conceal psychological issues, Richard Jennings, a doctor on the faculty at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, said in a phone interview.

“To a large degree, the aviation medical examiner has to depend on the honesty of the aviator,” said Jennings, who is authorized to perform pilot exams by the Federal Aviation Administration. “It’s just a snapshot.”

While the system may be flawed, overhauling it to more closely examine mental health isn’t warranted, Farhad Sahiar, director of aerospace medicine at the Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine in Dayton, Ohio, said in a phone interview.

The additional workload on physicians wouldn’t be worth the small number of unstable pilots it would identify, said Sahiar, a doctor who performs pilot exams for the FAA.

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