Removal of Check Pilot Medical Certificate Requirement

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Parts 91, 121, and 135</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2019-0360; Amdt. Nos. 91-375, 121-392 and 135-145]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AL12</RIN> <SUBJECT>Removal of Check Pilot Medical Certificate Requirement</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This action finalizes the substantive relief proposed in the notice of proposed rulemaking entitled <E T="03">Removal of Check Pilot Medical Certificate Requirement</E> . It removes inconsistencies applicable to the qualification requirements for check pilots and flight instructors in domestic, flag, and supplemental operations and flight instructors in commuter and on-demand operations so that check pilots, check flight engineers, and flight instructors can continue to perform their functions in aircraft without a medical certificate unless they are serving as required flightcrew members. It also removes the medical certificate requirement for flight instructors in commuter and on-demand operations who perform their functions in aircraft and are not serving as required flightcrew members. Removing the conflicting medical certificate requirement enables the utilization of pilots who are otherwise qualified to function as check pilots, check flight engineers, and flight instructors in aircraft. Finally, this final rule updates related terminology. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective July 18, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Joshua Jackson, Aviation Safety Inspector, Air Transportation Division, Flight Standards Service, Federal Aviation Administration, 800 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20591; telephone: 202-267-8166; email: <E T="03">joshua.jackson@faa.gov</E> . </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Executive Summary</HD> As discussed in the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM), <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> the regulations establishing the requirements for flight instructors and check airmen in parts 121 and 135 are unclear regarding the medical certificate requirements when flight instructors or check airmen perform their duties in aircraft. The regulations indicate that flight instructors conducting flight training and check airmen administering checks in aircraft must hold a third-class medical certificate when not serving as a required flightcrew member. Elsewhere, however, the regulations also state that no medical certificate is required unless the flight instructor or check airman is serving as a required crewmember. Additionally, part 135 check pilots (aircraft) were held to different medical certification standards than part 121 check pilots and flight instructors and part 135 flight instructors. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> This final rule resolves the discrepancy in the pertinent regulations by clarifying that flight instructors, check pilots, and check flight engineers (FEs) must hold the appropriate medical certificate only when serving as required flightcrew members in an aircraft. The final rule also includes nonsubstantive nomenclature changes and reorganizes certain sections of parts 121 and 135. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">Removal of Check Pilot Medical Certificate Requirement</E> notice of proposed rulemaking, 84 FR 25499 (Jun. 3, 2019). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  Specifically, § 135.337(b)(5) states that a check airman (aircraft) must hold at least a third-class medical certificate unless serving as a required crewmember and the exception in § 135.337(e) that a check airman who does not hold the appropriate medical certificate may serve as a check airman, but not a required flightcrew member, applies only to check airmen (simulators). This differs from how the regulations treat part 121 check airmen and flight instructors and part 135 flight instructors. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Authority for This Rulemaking</HD> The FAA's authority to issue rules on aviation safety is found in Title 49 of the United States Code (49 U.S.C.). Subtitle I, section 106 describes the authority of the FAA Administrator to promulgate rules and regulations. Subtitle VII of title 49, Aviation Programs, describes in more detail the scope of the FAA's authority. This rulemaking is promulgated under the authority described in section 44701, General Requirements; section 44702, Issuance of Certificates; and section 44703, Airman Certificates. Under these sections, the FAA prescribes regulations and minimum standards for practices, methods, and procedures the Administrator finds necessary for safety in air commerce. In addition, section 44701(d)(1)(A) specifically states the Administrator, when prescribing safety regulations, must consider the duty of an air carrier to provide service with the highest possible degree of safety in the public interest. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Background</HD> As discussed in the NPRM, all pilots serving in title 14 CFR part 121 and part 135 operations are required to complete certain flight training  on a regular basis to ensure each pilot's competency in operating the specific aircraft. The checks are conducted by check pilots:  <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> airmen approved by the FAA who have the appropriate knowledge, training, experience, and demonstrated ability to evaluate and to certify the knowledge and skills of other pilots. The role of the check pilot is to ensure that the flightcrew member has met competency standards in a particular aircraft before the check pilot releases the flightcrew member from training and that the flightcrew member maintains those standards while remaining in line service. Similar responsibilities and objectives exist for check FEs in part 121. <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> Check pilot qualifications are set forth in §§ 121.411 and 135.337, as applicable. Check FE qualifications are set forth in § 121.411. <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 14 CFR 121.433, 135.347, 135.351. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 14 CFR 121.441, 135.293, 135.297. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  The FAA notes that the NPRM proposed only to change verbiage in part 135 from “check airman” to “check pilot,” as well as their plural forms. As discussed in section IV.D.1. of this preamble, the FAA is expanding this terminology change to include part 121. Therefore, for purposes of this preamble, the FAA uses the terms “check pilot” and “check flight engineer,” as applicable, rather than “check airman” unless referring to past regulations that use “airman.” </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>  14 CFR 121.419, 121.425. </FTNT> The flight training is conducted by a flight instructor who is designated by a part 121 or part 135 certificate holder and has the appropriate knowledge, training, experience, and demonstrated ability to instruct flightcrew members in a flight training segment of that certificate holder's training program. Flight instructor qualifications are set forth in §§ 121.412 and 135.338. Under parts 121 and 135, flight training and checking can be accomplished in an aircraft or in a flight simulation training device (FSTD). As such, the qualification requirements for flight instructors, check pilots, and check FEs correspond to whether the training and checking is conducted in an aircraft or an FSTD. In an FSTD, flight instructors, check pilots, and check FEs typically do not occupy a flightcrew member station during training or checking. Rather, they typically occupy an instructor station from which they can oversee the simulation. Even when flight instructors, check pilots, or check FEs occupy a flightcrew member station in an FSTD, they are not subject to flightcrew member requirements that apply to operations conducted in the national airspace. <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>  Under § 1.1, a flightcrew member is “a pilot, flight engineer, or flight navigator assigned to duty in an aircraft during flight time.” </FTNT> When performing flight instructor, check pilot, or check FE duties in an aircraft, that person may serve as a required flightcrew member. Specifically, a flight instructor, check pilot, or check FE is a required flightcrew member if (1) required by the regulations under which the flight is being conducted ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> when a safety pilot is required under part 91 or when a person receiving instruction is not qualified to act as pilot-in-command (PIC) and, therefore, the flight instructor acts as the PIC) or (2) required by the type certificate of the aircraft. <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> In these scenarios, the person may serve as a required flightcrew member only if, in addition to meeting the requirements to hold the respective position of flight instructor, check airman, or check FE, the person is also qualified to serve in the flightcrew member position, which includes medical certificate requirements. <FTNT> <SU>8</SU>  Letter of Interpretation to Willmot White from Carl Schellenberg, Assistant Chief Counsel, Regulations and Enforcement Division (Oct 5, 1978). Letter of Interpretation to Ivan Grau from Rebecca B. MacPherson, Assistant Chief Counsel for Regulations (Oct. 1, 2010); Letter of Interpretation to Louis Glenn from Rebecca B. MacPherson, Assistant Chief Counsel for Regulations (Dec. 1, 2009). </FTNT> Prior to 1996, the FAA required medical certificates for flight instructors and check airmen  <SU>9</SU> <FTREF/> performing such functions, even if they were not serving as required flightcrew members. <SU>10</SU> <FTREF/> This was largely because the primary means of training occurred in an aircraft until the implementation of significant changes in training ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 126k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━