Fingers Crossed Safety Systems
When all you have is hope
Has the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) abandoned its 1% rule?
This is a guideline in aviation medicine to establish if a pilot’s medical condition poses an unacceptable threat to public safety. If the condition has greater than a 1% chance of causing the pilot an incapacitation event within the next 12 months, the pilot is considered unfit to fly.
Calculating this risk requires extensive medical testing and professional analysis on an individual pilot. The process is usually triggered after a pilot suffers a severe medical event or injury. For example, being rendered unconscious automatically invalidates a pilot’s medical until extensive screening can satisfy the 1% rule. This can take years of specialist appointments and even legal proceedings to prove to CASA you are fit to fly.
The annual Class 1 Medical (biannual for over 60’s) required by commercial pilots is not designed to satisfy the 1% rule. Rather, it is a screening process used to highlight any need for further investigation. Abnormalities in blood pressure, urine samples, ECG etc necessitate more extensive testing. Sickness or injury for greater than 7 days also needs a Designated Aviation Medical Examiner (DAME) clearance to return to work.
What effect has COVID-19 had on pilot health?
During the initial pandemic response, a positive test for COVID-19 incurred at least 14 days quarantine. A pilot would have their medical suspended until a DAME could verify fitness to return to work. As the numbers increased CASA eventually issued an exemption to the rule and allowed pilots to perform their own self-assessment checklist.
Now, however, we are aware of a number of sub-clinical conditions following even mild cases of COVID-19, and adverse events of the vaccine, that are a very real threat to a pilot’s health. A growing number of aviation doctors are suggesting this is a significant increase to the risk the travelling public accepted pre-COVID. It is an event that warrants extra screening and there has been plenty of research to develop the screening protocols necessary.
How is CASA mitigating the increased risk?
Charter boat? What charter boat?
There’s no denying this is a complex issue. To do the job properly, every pilot who has had COVID-19 or a COVID-19 vaccination would need to submit to a cardiac MRI to detect sub-clinical myocarditis/pericarditis. At the very least, blood testing to detect micro-clotting would indicate the need for further testing. This has been formally proposed to CASA.
The implications of the results of such testing is the next headache. Will we end up with a significant number of grounded pilots? What is the duty of care for those pilots? Research suggests early detection and treatment may indeed save lives. When the airlines are already short of pilots, how will they continue to operate without them?
The bigger question is: How can we afford to ignore it?
Safety systems are built on identifying and addressing safety issues. A robust safety culture encourages active participation of all its members to see and report safety concerns. In the lead up to almost every major airline disaster, someone was aware of an issue. Had that concern been communicated and addressed, many lives could have been saved.
Ignoring a safety signal can be catastrophic, particularly in a high risk environment like aviation.
Ignoring a safety signal, as an airline, can cost lives and destroy your business.
Ignoring a safety signal, as the regulator of aviation safety, is criminal negligence.
Have all our airlines and regulators adopted a new safety system?
The FCSS? The Fingers Crossed Safety System HOPES nothing goes wrong. It relies on a pilot with an unknown sub-clinical condition being rescued by another pilot with an unknown sub-clinical condition not having a problem at the same time. That is like departing with two faulty engines because they are unlikely to glitch at the same time.
Are we waiting for a catastrophe?
The catastrophe has already occurred. The airlines and regulator have destroyed the system that keeps aviation safe. They are willfully ignoring the warnings. They have silenced and terminated the whistle blowers. They have demonstrated exactly what not to do. If members of the aviation community follow their example, every layer of defense against a major accident will be systematically removed.
It’s happening. You only need to look.