Nothing can get your heart beating like opening your mailbox to a letter from FAA’s Office of Aerospace Medicine. Nowadays, you can see what your mail is before it even arrives. Waiting all day for a Letter from FAA’s Office of Aerospace medicine – not knowing what it is – can make it that much worse. Maybe this article can give you some peace of mind before you get the letter and after. There are several reasons why you might be getting a letter from the FAA’s medical office. These reasons include a denial of your medical application, a request for more information, or an establishment of your eligibility.
Revocation of Your Medical
At the start, let’s be clear that a revocation of your FAA medical certificate will not come from the FAA’s Office of Aerospace Medicine directly, but will actually come from the FAA’s Office of Chief Counsel. Orders of Revocation will usually be sent via FedEx overnight delivery, USPS first-class mail, and USPS certified mail. Usually, you will know that a revocation of your medical certificate is coming – there will have been some interaction with the FAA beforehand. So, getting this letter is rarely a surprise.
Information Request
Historically, the first letter you would receive from the FAA’s Office of Aerospace Medicine in any medical certification matter would be a request for more information. We call these letter “information letters.” These letters would typically come after being deferred by your Aviation Medical Examiner (“AME”) or after the FAA reviews your medical application and wants to know more about your medical history. If you’ve been deferred by your AME, an information letter will typically arrive within a month to two months following deferral by your AME. If you were issued a medical certificate by your AME and the FAA wants more information about your history, the FAA can send you an information letter at any time during the duration of the medical certificate.
An information letter typically starts with words to the effect of “thank you for submitting an application for FAA medical certification. Based on a review of this information, we are unable to establish your eligibility to hold an airman medical certificate at this time.” The information letter will go on to identify the questions currently under review and then list the information required for submission. Most information letters will allow 60 days for submission of information.
Information letters are evidence gathering efforts by the FAA. The FAA needs evidence to justify either a denial or revocation of your medical certificate. Your admissions on your medical application and examination with your Aviation Medical Examiner are typically not enough to warrant an official action by the agency. So the information that you provide to the FAA in response to an information letter will be included in your airman medical file and will be utilized as a basis for the FAA’s doctors to either deny your application, recommend revocation of your medical, or issue a letter of eligibility.
Hotline Complaints
An offshoot of an information letter is a hotline complaint. Hotline complaints are inherently information letters – they have generally the same function. However, hotline complaints need to be approached a bit differently. A hotline complaint is usually initiated when an individual or entity reports you to the FAA for aeromedical concerns. Hotline complaints will usually put you in a defensive posture, so it is always best to consult with an aviation attorney before responding.
Denial Letters
You could also receive a denial letter in the mail. A denial letter, like most other letters, will come via first-class and certified mail (you will have to sign for it). You can read more about recent changes to denial process here. While the FAA denies that new denial letters have been implemented, it has been our experience that the FAA is more frequently sending denial letters to applicants as the first letter following a deferral. Therein, the FAA is initiating a denial but offering items required for reconsideration of the denial. The benefit here is that this avoids the 60 day clock, as you can submit the requested records at any time (so long as your application is still open for the duration of at least a third-class medical for your age) and the FAA will reconsider your file.
Of course, you could be getting a straight denial letter following submission of medical records. In this case, you will have 60 days to appeal a denial to the National Transportation Safety Board; or 30 days to request reconsideration by the Federal Air Surgeon in a non-final denial. It has been our experience that you can request reconsideration at any time – even if outside the 30 days. The 60 days for appeal to the NTSB is a hard deadline, however.
Lastly, you could be receiving an eligibility letter or special issuance authorization. The FAA will typically send you this letter after they have reviewed your records and found that you are eligible to hold a medical certificate. Congratulations!
If you are receiving a Letter from FAA’s Office of Aerospace Medicine, keep these tips in mind:
- You can usually ask for an extension on the 60-day deadline for an information request letter. You will need to make this request over the phone to the number provided on the letter; however, we usually recommend submitting the request in writing. You should still try to respond to the FAA within the requested 60-day timeline if you can. Only request an extension when you have a reasonable basis to do so.
- Providing records to the FAA could result in the FAA requesting more records. For example, if you send the FAA records about your history of anxiety and those records mention your history of ADHD, the FAA may very well send you a request for information about your ADHD, next. So, before you send records to the FAA, make sure you know what’s in the records. Try to anticipate what the FAA will do next once they receive your records and err on the side of being proactive with evaluations and letters from your doctors, etc.
- If you miss the 60-day deadline on an information letter, the FAA will send you a Failure to Provide denial. In this case, if you submit the records that they are asking for, the FAA’s Office of Aerospace Medicine will typically send your file back in to review. Note, however, that your medical may still remain denied (or revoked) during the time it takes the FAA to review your late submitted records.
Ultimately, analyzing your letter from FAA’s Office of Aerospace Medicine and determining your next step warrants discussion with an aviation attorney. Why? If you have received an information request letter or hotline complaint– you need to understand how the evidence (vis-à-vis your response) going into your file supports a denial or revocation. If you’ve received a denial or revocation – you need to understand how to appeal that decision and the bigger picture for your next steps toward certification.
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