United States Department of Transportation
i
Estimated Accident Risk for BasicMed vs. Medically Certified U.S. Pilots
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2021-06-01
[PDF-547.85 KB]
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Abstract:Safety information is lacking for the U.S. BasicMed flight rules in effect since May 1, 2017, which provide an alternative to formal aeromedical certification. The current study aims to compare the accident risk level for BasicMed pilots with third-class medically certified pilots. BasicMed pilots, as of December 31, 2019, and a comparison group of pilots holding third-class medical certificates were matched to accidents in the National Transportation Safety Board’s database and to reported flight hours and other certificate data in the Federal Aviation Administration’s pilot medical database. After appropriate data exclusions to optimize the validity of the analysis, the study compared 28,904 BasicMed pilots and 110,400 third-class pilots. Accident proportions, person-time rates, and estimated rates per 100,000 flight hours were calculated. Accident odds ratios (ORs) were also computed and explored. The estimated overall accident rate per 100,000 flight hours for the BasicMed group was 7.3 compared to 7.0 for the medically certified pilots. The fatal accident rate per 100,000 flight hours was 1.6 for the BasicMed group and 1.4 for the medically certified pilots. The differences in overall and fatal accidents were not statistically significant. No statistically significant differences were found when multiple age subgroups were compared. Also, logistic regression models adjusted for relevant confounders revealed no significantly elevated accident ORs between the BasicMed and third-class certified pilot groups overall. This study could not detect a significant overall difference in aviation safety outcomes, such as accident rates or ORs between BasicMed pilots and pilots holding third-class medical certificates. However, given the study’s limitations, generalizations should not be made that because significant differences were not detected, no differences exist. The power to test the effect of medical certification changes might be insufficient due to the number of relatively recent flight exams in the BasicMed group. The results do provide some evidence that the BasicMed rules do not otherwise select for a risky group of pilots and that further research of the issue is warranted..
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