[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Pages 3984-3986]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        PILOT'S BILL OF RIGHTS 2

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I would like to make a comment about some 
legislation that we introduced last week that is going to be of supreme 
interest to a relatively small number of

[[Page 3985]]

people--those people in America who are general aviation pilots. It 
actually affects other people too. This is something which is very 
significant, and I want to talk about it for a minute.
  It is important to pilots and aviation enthusiasts all over the 
Nation. But over the course of my time, I can recall when there were so 
few of us who were active commercial pilots, and those individuals who 
had problems--particularly in our State of Oklahoma--would all come to 
me because they knew I had understanding of this. So people have come 
in for help.
  One such person was Bob Hoover. Bob Hoover arguably may have been the 
best pilot of his time. He is still flying today. I guess he is in his 
nineties by now. But about 10, 15 years ago, one inspector didn't like 
something he did, and he took away his license.
  There are literally thousands of people who make their living as 
airline pilots. In the case of Bob Hoover, he is the guy who would go 
up in a Shrike--Chris, do you know what a Shrike is? A Shrike is a 
twin-engine airplane. I used to own a Shrike. It is made by Aero 
Commander. He would put a glass of water up here on the top of the 
dash. He would do a barrel roll, and the water would not tip over. This 
guy was just incredible.
  Anyway, it took an act of Congress that I introduced and passed to 
get him back into the air. That is why this is so important to a lot of 
people.
  I never realized, even though I personally helped a lot of people who 
were having problems with their regulations and with an alleged offense 
by the FAA until it happened to me--when it happened to me, all of a 
sudden I realized just how frustrating and drawn-out the process could 
be.
  In 2011, I introduced the Pilot's Bill of Rights. I did that to 
address some serious deficiencies in the relationship between pilots 
and the FAA. There are a lot of really great people, certainly, in the 
FAA. The occupier of the chair right now and I both are aware of this. 
In Oklahoma City, we have several hundred such people. They are easy to 
get along with and are not overbearing. But any bureaucracy can have a 
few people who merely want to create problems and say no.
  So we introduced the Pilot's Bill of Rights--this was in August of 
2012--to ensure that pilots, like everyone else, would be treated 
fairly and equitably in our justice system. I think pilots are the last 
group of people who fall into that category we see so prominently in 
other countries where you are guilty until proven innocent.
  Anyway, we passed the Pilot's Bill of Rights, and there are a few 
things in there that did not get the congressional intent that was 
originally meant to be. To remedy this, we introduced S. 571. It is the 
Pilot's Bill of Rights 2. It is bipartisan. Right now, we are sitting 
on 12 Republicans and 12 Democrats who will be cosponsors of this bill. 
There are eight sections in the bill, three general subject areas.
  First, the legislation reforms FAA's overly burdensome medical 
certification process by expanding an existing exemption for light 
sport aircraft pilots to include more qualified, trained pilots.
  Let me speak for a moment on the safety concerns. There is a small 
minority of people who think that expanding an exemption like this 
automatically decreases safety. That is not true of this bill. I have 
the numbers to show it.
  In 2004, the FAA issued a medical exemption for pilots of light sport 
aircraft. These are aircraft which weigh less than 1,320 pounds and 
only have two seats. They had several restrictions. In the entire 
country, there are about 9,500 of them. It has been over 10 years since 
the FAA issued this exemption, and since then, not a single accident by 
a light sport aircraft has occurred that was related to a medical 
deficiency.
  A joint study was done by the AOPA, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots 
Association, and the EAA, the Experimental Aircraft Association, on the 
46,000 aviation accidents that occurred from 2008 to 2012. Of those, 
only 99 had a medical cause as a factor. That is less than one-quarter 
of 1 percent of all accidents. Of those 99, none would have been 
prevented by the current third-class medical screening exemption that 
was in the process at that time.
  Extending that medical exemption for light sport aircraft to include 
planes weighing up to 6,000 pounds with up to six total passengers, 
including the pilot, would add airman and aircraft to an existing FAA-
approved medical standard--without degrading or creating substandard 
safety. This approach has been endorsed by the Flying Physicians 
Association and the AOPA Medical Advisory Board. Both organizations are 
made up of pilots who are also medical doctors.
  This bill does not change the certification standards to obtain a 
pilot's certificate, and all pilots still have to possess a pilot 
certificate and pass the required practical test in flying. The bill 
does create consistency for aviators across the country, where 
inconsistency has been felt.
  The second thing is--in fact, I would say this: We have documented 
cases where you have two people who have the same medical problem--one 
in Detroit and one in Tulsa, OK--and they are treated completely 
differently by the medical doctors where they are examined.
  The second thing it does is it extends the due process rights 
preserved in the original Pilot's Bill of Rights to all FAA certificate 
holders. This would be other people who are holding FAA certificates, 
and it is not necessarily a pilot's certificate.
  When Congress passed the original Pilot's Bill of Rights, we intended 
to allow pilots to appeal a decision by the FAA to the National 
Transportation Safety Board, the NTSB, and then pilots could appeal to 
a Federal court. We did this because the review by the Federal district 
court is a de novo. That means they start with the pilot getting a 
whole new trial, not using the same evidence as was used before the FAA 
or the NTSB.
  In two separate cases, Federal district courts ruled that my original 
bill did not require a full hearing of the facts. This legislation 
explicitly spells out the option to appeal an FAA enforcement action to 
Federal district court for a guaranteed de novo trial, meaning a new 
and independent review of the facts is guaranteed for these 
individuals.
  This legislation also increases transparency for all FAA certificate 
holders subject to an investigation or enforcement action by holding 
FAA accountable for communicating with certificate holders. The FAA is 
now required to articulate a specific description of an accident or 
incidents under investigation to parties involved in the investigation 
and provide specific documentation relevant to the investigation.
  While this is something that has happened in many cases, it has not 
happened in all of them. This bill ensures that certificate holders--
these are pilots who are under investigation--are afforded basic 
fairness. They know why they are being investigated. They have the 
appropriate documentation to prepare a proper defense and can respond 
to the FAA from a position of knowledge and certainty in all cases.
  I speak from personal experience. This happened to me when I was 
trying to land in South Texas. They claimed I was not cleared to land. 
It took me 4 months to get a recording of the particular person who 
happened to be at the approach control and cleared me to land.
  I am a U.S. Senator, and it took 4 months for me to get it, so I 
figured others might not ever be able to wait this out, and they would 
have lost their certificate. As I say, it is not a big deal to the 
general public, but it is to anyone who is a pilot.
  I am expanding the original Pilot's Bill of Rights to increase 
transparency for pilots and certificate holders so they have 
information and resources to defend themselves should it be necessary.
  The third thing it does is it expedites the updates of the notice to 
airmen--a NOTAM. A NOTAM is a notice to an airman, and it is something 
that has historically been the responsibility of the FAA. If there is a 
problem on a runway where we are going to land--if

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it is going to be closed or they are doing repairs or something like 
that--they have to publish a NOTAM, in theory. However, in practice, it 
doesn't work that way.
  In my case they claimed there was a NOTAM indicating that the runway 
I had to land on was closed. However, there was never a NOTAM. They 
said there was a NOTAM, and you just have to take their word for it.
  The Pilot's Bill of Rights No. 1 was supposed to force the FAA to 
publish NOTAMs in a common place where people would know where they 
are, and they just have not done it. Now we have strengthened that to 
say if a NOTAM action is not placed where it can be found, then they 
cannot use that as an enforcement action against a pilot. So that 
should resolve the problem.
  Fourth, the Pilot's Bill of Rights 2 extends liability protection to 
individuals designated by the FAA, such as aviation medical examiners, 
pilot examiners, and other individuals. That was the intent of the 
original one, but it was not specific. This has given a lot of 
individuals willing to serve as designees a disincentive. My bill 
removes the disincentive, ensuring increased access to medical 
professionals and designees to sign off on check rides and 
flightworthiness of experimental aircraft and all of that. So they 
would get the same protection.
  It is kind of the Good Samaritan law. There are a lot of times when 
pilots are notified and asked to use their aircraft to help some worthy 
cause. I can remember one time down on the island just off of Caracas, 
Venezuela, it had been wiped out by a tornado. This was many years ago. 
So I took 14 airplanes down there to help those people out. If 
something happened to one of the airplanes and caused someone's injury 
or something, then they would not be protected. They didn't have a Good 
Samaritan law. A lot of people will not do this. People have actually 
lost their lives because they didn't get the help they needed because 
people would not volunteer their equipment to help people. So we have a 
Good Samaritan law and that should take care of that problem.
  Many times I have seen when people are inspired as a volunteer--I 
have done the same thing myself--but there is a disincentive to do 
that. So the Pilot's Bill of Rights 2 is sensitive to the needs of 
pilots, airmen, and the general aviation community, and they have 
worked closely with me on it.
  I have to say that the OPA and the EAA have worked all the way 
through this thing and they are fully supportive, as are all their 
individuals. In fact, I don't know of anyone in the aviation community 
who is not fully supportive of this.
  We have introduced this bill. It is bipartisan. It is something that 
Senators Manchin and Boozman--they are the cochairs of the Senate 
General Aviation Caucus, and they are cosponsors of this bill.
  I encourage Members--hopefully this will go to the commerce committee 
and we will be able to get a hearing on it very soon.
  The House Members are waiting for it to come over, and we are anxious 
to get this bill passed. I know this is something that is not of 
concern to an awful lot of people in this country, but I can tell you 
it is a big concern to people who are pilots.
  I yield the floor.

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