Can you be a pilot with a mental illness?

Can you be a pilot with a mental illness?

FAA policy on depression and other mental health conditions. To fly, pilots must have a medical certificate approved by an FAA aviation medical examiner (AME). Under the current guidelines, depression, anxiety, and similarly categorized psychological conditions don’t lead to automatic disqualification.

Can I be a pilot if I have anxiety?

The FAA will consider certification of pilots and controllers who have been diagnosed with depression or anxiety and treated with medication after certain conditions are met.

Do pilots suffer from depression?

Boston, MA – Hundreds of commercial airline pilots currently flying may be clinically depressed, according to an anonymous survey of nearly 1,850 pilots conducted by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

What personality type are most pilots?

For the most part, pilots are extroverts. They tend to enjoy socializing, seek excitement and exhibit more aggressive behaviors than others.

Can you be bipolar and a pilot?

Certain medical conditions such as a psychosis, bipolar disorder and severe personality disorder automatically disqualify a pilot from obtaining an FAA medical certificate and prohibit them from flying.

Can someone with ADHD become a pilot?

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder ( ADHD ), formerly called Attention Deficit Disorder ( ADD ), and medications used for treatment may result in cognitive deficits that would make an airman unsafe to perform pilot duties.

Do pilots commit suicide?

Most cases of suicide by pilot involve general aviation in small aircraft. In most of these, the pilot is the only person on board the aircraft. In about half of the cases, the pilot had used drugs, usually alcohol or anti-depressants, which would normally have led to a flying ban.

Is being a pilot unhealthy?

Airline pilots work in conditions that lead to circadian dysrhythmia, mild hypoxia, and exposure to reduced atmospheric pressure, low humidity, noise, vibration, cosmic radiation, and magnetic fields. These occupational exposures may present physiological challenges to the long-term health of airline pilots.

Are pilots intelligent?

Pilots tend to be intelligent but are typically not intellectually oriented. They like “toys”– boats, cars, motorcycles, big watches, etc. They are good at taking things apart, if not putting them back together. Pilots are concrete, practical, linear thinkers rather than abstract, philosophical, or theoretical.