FAA Grounds Pilot Who Passed Out and Crashed in Atlantic Ocean

The head of the Federal Aviation Administration has grounded Thomas Root, the pilot who was rescued from the Atlantic Ocean after passing out at the controls of his plane three months ago, the agency announced Friday.

Root, a Washington communications lawyer, said that he will comply with the suspension of his medical certificate by FAA Administrator James B. Busey.

But he said: “I don’t need the FAA to tell me it would be dumb to fly.” Root said he does not know what caused him to lapse into unconsciousness on July 13 while his plane flew on autopilot for 800 miles until it ran out of fuel.

Busey took the action because Root has refused to supply all relevant medical documents, including psychiatric records from his treatment in Hollywood, Fla., after his flight, the FAA said.

Root suffered from a gunshot wound that he said must have occurred when a pistol he kept in the cockpit discharged, apparently as the plane hit the water off Bermuda. However, the gun’s manufacturer has said it is not possible that the gun could have discharged in that manner.

Root said that he no longer owns a plane and has not flown since the incident, which occurred during a business flight from Washington, D.C., to Rocky Mount, N.C.

“It would be a very foolhardy thing for me to do to go flying without knowing what caused the blackout,” Root said.

In a letter dated Wednesday, FAA counsel Donald P. Byrne ordered Root to surrender his pilot’s medical certificate, which is required, along with a pilot’s certificate, in order to fly.

Root’s pilot’s certificate was not suspended, and he said that, if allowed, he would try to keep it current by flying with an instructor.

Byrne told Root that the administrator had ordered the suspension as an emergency measure and that “safety in air transportation or air commerce requires the immediate effectiveness of this order.”

The letter said that Root had 10 days to appeal to the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the incident.

Root has challenged in court the board’s effort to obtain his psychiatric records, contending that Florida law protects their confidentiality. He said that turning them over to the FAA probably would waive his right to deny their use to the safety board, because both are government agencies.

Root’s attorney, Gene Propper, said that the hospital had refused to release the psychiatric records but had inadvertently sent them to the safety board, along with other medical documents.

Propper said that the records cover a mandatory interview Root had with a psychiatrist before he was released from the hospital.