Aviation medicine must return to AFAC

THIS NOTE WAS PUBLISHED ON APRIL 5, 2022

The Communications, Infrastructure and Transport Commission of the Chamber of Deputies is working on an initiative to modify the Civil Aviation Law, with the objective that the Federal Civil Aviation Agency (AFAC) is responsible for managing the matter in Mexico, so that international recommendations are met and the safety of air operations is protected.

The commission, chaired by the deputy Victor Manuel Perez Diaz, has held conversations with retired general Víctor Manuel Rico Jaime, a surgeon with a specialty and a master’s degree in Aerospace Medicine, as well as founder of the first program in this specialty at the Army and Air Force University in 1985, to work on this initiative.

According to general Rico Jaimethere are two main reasons that drive the creation of this proposal: the first one is to comply with the Convention on International Civil Aviation, better known as the Chicago Convention, which establishes that aerospace medicine is supervised by the aeronautical authority of each signatory country of the treaty.

The second reason is that, once this step is taken, the growth and development of aerospace medicine in Mexico will restart, in addition to the fact that the doctors belonging to this area of ​​AFAC, or third parties authorized to perform medical examinations, have the minimum training at diploma level to certify with professionalism and the best criteria aeromedical Staff Fitness, and with this, contribute to the safety of operations.

“If we want to be a country that is consistent with development and be honest, first of all we have to comply with the treaty. Returning aerospace medicine to the aviation authority is key to recovering the level that was lost many years ago, for the benefit of our country and the safety of aeronautical operations” emphasized Rico Jaime.

For his part, Octavio Amezcua, surgeon and pilot, member of the Mexican Association of Aviation Medicine and an expert in human factors, expressed that this decree proposal is a good idea for civil aviation in Mexico, since he considers that the medical examinations of psychophysical aptitude of aeronautical technical personnel and the issuance of licenses should be issued by the AFAC, since This is how it is established practically all over the world, following the recommendations of the International Civil Aviation Organization. He added that the person responsible for this area should also be a specialist in aerospace medicine, and not someone without knowledge in the field.

This is the second time that the commission focuses efforts to achieve this goal. Last year, the parliamentary group corresponding to the LXIII legislature, promoted a decree within the Chamber to return aerospace medicine to the aviation authority; however, the proposal was not approved.

Amezcua added that, in addition to modifying the Civil Aviation Law, It is necessary to create a specialized regulation for aeronautical technical personnel, because “The AFAC cannot take the same transport medicine regulation and make it its own to carry out the examinations of the aeronautical personnel, but rather it has to be adapted by specialists in the matter”.

Both specialists agreed that achieving this objective would help at the moment in which national aviation finds itself once morest the FAAsince it would solve the problem of who oversees the medical examination, an area in which the US authority found deficiencies during its audit of Mexican aviation and which led to the degradation of Category 2.