Klako
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2006
- Posts
- 171
The federal law mandating that all airline pilots must retire at the arbitrary age of 60 was never intended to be a vehicle to enhance aviation safety. Safety is the ruse that the FAA has used to deflect criticism of it’s “Age 60 Rule” as being discriminatory and unfair to older pilots. The FAA defends the “Age 60 Rule” solely on the grounds that no one has come up with a study proving that pilots will be safer beyond their 60th birthday. The Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Marion Blakey, says that the available safety data and latest medical research are insufficient for the agency to begin the steps necessary to change the age 60 rule. Thus the FAA's official position is that, in spite of numerous scientific studies, it has insufficient evidence to prove that an airline pilot would be as safe or safer if allowed to fly beyond age 60 and therefore all airline pilots must be grounded on their 60th birthday. What a pitiful distortion of logic that the FAA uses to deprive otherwise qualified persons their right to perform in their lifelong career. If the Federal government wants a law that denies an otherwise qualified person to practice in their profession, then that government must prove that there are enough scientific reasons for such a law to exist. It is the federal government’s burden to prove that all airline pilots suffer an unacceptable decline in their ability to fly beyond age 60 which poses an unacceptable safety risk to the flying public. This proof is something that Congress has repeatedly directed the FAA to come up with for over 20 years but the FAA has failed produce such proof. That proof simply dose not exist.
