According to an exclusive Washington Post report, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is investigating nearly 5,000 pilots who are suspected of falsifying their mental health records to hide that they were receiving benefits for conditions that could bar them for flying. The roughly 4,800 pilots under investigation are all military veterans.
The pilots were suspected of failing to report disability benefits they were receiving from Veterans Affairs (VA) as required by law. According to an FAA spokesperson, the administration has closed about half the cases it was investigating. The FAA has ordered about 60 pilots to stop flying on an emergency basis while their records are reviewed.
While pilots must pass regular health exam, the FAA relies on pilots to self-report conditions that can otherwise be difficult to detect, like depression or post-traumatic stress disorder. According to physicians who spoke to the Post, some veteran pilots minimize their ailments to the FAA so they can keep flying but exaggerate them to VA to maximize their disability payments.
“There are people out there who I think are trying to play both sides of the game,” aviation medical examiner Jerome Limoge said. “They’re being encouraged by VA to claim everything. Some of it is almost stolen valor.”
The FAA investigation has already faced heavy scrutiny for several reasons. The FAA used VA records for its investigation, leading to concerns about how that information was accessed and used.
Critics also accused the FAA of targeting veterans with its investigation, saying non-veteran pilots also falsify health records. One aviation law attorney told the Post it’s an open secret that “probably greater than 85% of pilots are lying on their medial forms.”
According to the Post, investigators discovered inconsistencies between VA and FAA databases more than two years ago. Despite this, the FAA has kept the investigation mainly a secret from the public until now.
