A US group called Pilots Against Age Discrimination (PAAD) has asked a Senate Committee to lift the rule requiring pilots to retire at age 60.Speaking before the Committee, PAAD chairman Paul Emens said changing the age 60 rule will "reduce the nation's critical shortage of pilots" as well as "drastically increase the level of experience brought to commercial aviation".
In May 1998, the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) published an article indicating that _large numbers of captains will be retiring from most US carriers and that this will cause "a sudden surge of poor-caliber pilots...dragged from the bottom of the system, perhaps all the way to the majors". Nonetheless ALPA supports the age 60 rule, maintaining that the solution to pilot shortages is not to alter the initiative. The FAA's director of flight standards service, Nicholas Lacey, says: "The age-60 rule represents the FAA's best determination of the time when a general decline in health-related functions and overall cognitive and performance capabilities may begin and reach a level where a pilot's judgement and physical ability _may begin to decline and therefore jeopardize safety."But Emens attests the hiring of fresh "straight out of aviation colleges" pilots should cause the safety concern.
Source: Flight Daily News
