The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been investigating nearly 5,000 pilots suspected of falsifying their medical records, The Washington Post reported.
Documents and interviews showed that approximately 4,800 pilots, who are military veterans, allegedly concealed receiving benefits for mental health disorders and other serious conditions that could make them unfit to fly, the Post reported Sunday.
The law requires pilots to disclose such medical benefits.
The Post reported that physicians and former FAA officials say many veterans minimize their ailments to the agency so they can continue flying but then exaggerate them to Veterans Affairs to maximize their disability payments.
The VA inspector general's office also is investigating many of the 4,800 pilots to determine if any should be referred to the Justice Department to face charges of defrauding the benefits system, two senior U.S. officials told the Post.
Officials also said that some pilots did not disclose their VA disability benefits on the advice of FAA-contracted physicians.
"There are people out there who I think are trying to play both sides of the game," Jerome Limoge, an aviation medical examiner in Colorado Springs, told the Post. "They’re being encouraged by VA to claim everything. Some of it is almost stolen valor."
About 600 of the pilots being probed are licensed to fly for passenger airlines, a senior U.S. official told the Post. Most of the other pilots hold commercial licenses allowing them to fly for hire, including with cargo firms, corporate clients, or tour companies.
The outlet reported that VA investigators discovered the inconsistencies more than two years ago by cross-checking federal databases.
FAA spokesman Matthew Lehner told the Post the agency has been investigating pilots "who might have submitted incorrect or false information as part of their medical applications."
Lehner added that the FAA has closed about half of those cases and has ordered about 60 pilots to stop flying on an emergency basis while their records are reviewed. He said those suspended pilots "posed a clear danger to aviation safety."
The Post reported that in many of the closed cases, pilots have been ordered to correct their records and take new health exams. Some have been temporarily grounded while the results are reviewed.
Although pilots must pass regular token government-contracted health exams, the FAA relies on flyers to self-report conditions that can otherwise be difficult to detect, the Post reported.
About one-third of the country’s 110,000 commercial pilots learned to fly in the military, the outlet said.
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.