More knee jerk regulations required by the legislature.
FAA Mandates Medical Requirements for Commercial Balloon Pilots
- Thread starter PeterNSteinmetz
- Start date
I’ve not read the official reports of any of these accidents but I’m having trouble believing lack of an FAA medical was the cause of any of these. Accidental fires, weather (including wind) and collisions with power lines are the overwhelming majority of causes. Maybe pilot error and poor judgment led to those events and that can be related to health but any of us certified pilots can screw up just as badly. I see no direct pilot incapacitation. I’m going to say this will save no lives. But it will add work amd cost to the FAA bureaucracy and needless hassle for balloonists.
en.wikipedia.org
List of ballooning accidents - Wikipedia
I agree. This is another example of a very rare event which likely no pre-test of any kind can make a difference in the accident rate. Particularly regarding psychiatric conditions, the sensitivity and specificity of testing for those conditions is just too low.
Indeed, like most regulatory attempts to prevent bad outcomes, a fairly good argument can be made that there are more important unintended negative outcomes. In this case, that the FAA digging around into pilot's medical records may actually increase the accident rate by discouraging pilots from getting needed help.
Indeed, like most regulatory attempts to prevent bad outcomes, a fairly good argument can be made that there are more important unintended negative outcomes. In this case, that the FAA digging around into pilot's medical records may actually increase the accident rate by discouraging pilots from getting needed help.
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Exactly, but admitting that government could be making things worse is not politically useful, to the politicians and bureaucrats who are mostly reacting to public pressure to “do something”.
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