The FAA is revising its certification procedures and rules to make it easier for pilots grounded by mental health issues to regain their licenses and encourage those needing help to get it, federal air surgeon Dr. Susan Northrup said yesterday at the Business Aviation Safety Summit in New Orleans. Currently, 30 to 40 percent of applications reviewed by the medical division “have a mental health component,” Northrup said, yet only between 0.1 and 0.2 percent are denied licenses or recertification for medical reasons. The FAA is eager to “dispel the myths” about the impact of mental health conditions on certification, “so we can destroy the barriers to treatment,” she said.

In 2010, the FAA approved four SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) antidepressant medications for pilot use, and pilots who report taking them “have been doing remarkably well,” she said. In December, the FAA ended the requirement for annual neurological follow-up tests, and the agency is now considering adding seven additional SSRIs to the approved list. 

Northrup said that for grounded pilots with applications on file, the agency is decreasing wait times, but she admitted, “They are still unacceptable at this moment, particularly for [pilots filing] initial SSRI” documents. The recent hiring of an additional psychiatrist to review applications should help reduce the backlog, she added.