FAA Surgeon Quits in Unfit Pilots Dispute

The Federal Aviation Administration’s top medical officer resigned Monday amid criticism that he had certified commercial pilots who were not medically fit to fly.

At the same time, the FAA said it would “revamp the personnel structure and . . . procedures” in the federal air surgeon’s office because of findings by a special industry panel of inadequate record-keeping on pilot certification cases.

FAA Administrator Donald D. Engen said in a written statement that Dr. Frank H. Austin Jr., the federal air surgeon, was being reassigned at his own request “in an effort to end polarization in the aviation community over the medical certification process.”

Backlog Reduced

Engen praised Austin for reducing the backlog of pilot appeals in medical certificate cases and for making a “positive change . . . by applying state-of-the-art medicine to certification decision-making.”

Austin, a veteran Navy doctor and pilot who became federal air surgeon in October, 1984, was reassigned to the FAA’s office of air safety. His duties in that office were not clear Monday.

In recent months, Austin has been intensely criticized by physicians at a number of major airlines and the Air Line Pilots Assn. They charged that commercial pilots were being certified by the FAA despite serious medical problems.

The industry physicians said pilots had been provided special waivers by Austin, even though they had significant heart problems or other ailments. In some cases, the airline doctors said, they refused to let the pilots fly despite their FAA certificates.

Special Panel Formed

The dispute, which came to a head during a congressional hearing on Dec. 10 at which Austin was sharply criticized, led Engen to form a special industry panel to review the pilot medical certification process.

Austin was reassigned after the panel reported problems in the way Austin’s office was handling certification cases, sources familiar with the findings said. Specifically, those sources said, the panel uncovered cases in which pilots were cleared for recertification without adequate documentation to show them to be medically fit.

Engen acknowledged that the industry panel “did uncover inadequacies in medical certification record-keeping” and said he would correct the situation immediately.