REPORT: 600 U.S. Airline Pilots Suspected of Being Unfit to Fly

According to the US press, which cited officials and internal data, 600 US pilots with commercial pilot’s licenses are being looked into for falsifying their medical reports.

In a statement to the newspaper, FAA spokesman Matthew Lehner said that the agency has been investigating 4,800 former military personnel who are now airline and commercial pilots and may have provided “incorrect or false information” as part of their medical applications.

The pilots were flagged after investigators at the Department of Veterans Affairs cross-checked federal databases and found aviators who were receiving veteran benefits for serious conditions like mental illness while concealing their true medical histories from the FAA to keep flying.

Pilots are encouraged to self-report problems like depression or post-traumatic stress disorder even though the FAA relies on screening to uncover safety issues and the testing are frequently superficial. Doctors who perform the checks were quoted in The Washington Post as saying.

According to officials who spoke to the publication, many of the pilots who are being investigated are either too ill to fly or are cheating the taxpayers by inflating their infirmities in order to obtain greater compensation. Starting last year, the FAA distributed $3.6 million to conduct further tests on thousands of pilots who were assessed to be “potential risks.”