019/17

Recommendation Date
Recipient Name
CAA
Text
The medical practitioners associated with the care of the instructor, and many of the others spoken to during the course of the investigation, were unaware of their obligations under the Civil Aviation Act to inform the CAA about a licence holder who has a known or suspected medical condition that may affect their ability to conduct their duties safely. Despite the efforts of the CAA, this lack of awareness of the Civil Aviation Act appears to be wider than just among those involved with this case.

On 28 June 2017 the Commission recommended to the Director of Civil Aviation that he improve the mechanisms for informing medical practitioners of the requirement to report to the CAA any health issues with a CAA licence holder that may interfere with that person’s ability to exercise the privileges of their licence safely.
Reply Text
Notwithstanding past and ongoing effort to educate medical practitioners about their duty to report to the CAA any health issues with a CAA licence holder that may interfere with that person's ability to exercise the privileges of their licence safety it is acknowledged this activity needs to be ongoing and the results of the Commission's investigation highlight this need. Accordingly this recommendation is accepted and the work will continue on an ongoing basis. As this educational work will need to be enduring in its nature and will be undertaken on an ongoing basis it is not practicable to specify a final implementation date. In conducting this ongoing work will we however review the manner in which we have sought to educate medical practitioners in the past and look to identify additional pathways that may be complimentary to those previously used. This review will be completed by 1 December 2017.
Related Investigation(s)