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action designed to produce a hearing to test the validity of that proposition was unsuccessful because, in the judicial view, the Administrator's expert opinions were not open to challenge, either at a hearing where other expert testimony or evidence could be submitted, or in any other form or forum. Of the hundreds of pilots whose careers have fallen victim to the age 60 rule since 1959, none has ever had the opportunity to defend his career at an FAA hearing.

Much has changed since 1959. Our world, and with it, our industry, and its technology have changed. Our knowledge or physiology, our health, and out life span as humans have all changes as well. The economic costs and consequences of the rule to have all who have been affected by it have, of course, changed. Information upon which the Administrator expressly relied in 1959 to support his conclusion and expertise has since, in many cases, become outdated or obsolete, if indeed it was all valid or up-to-date even then. Our national policy, and with it the national conscience toward the use of chronological age alone as an excuse for terminating careers has changed. And, of course, the FAA, its personnel, their background and experience, and indeed the relationship of our Association with that agency have also undergone substantial change. With a ingle exception, all of these changes reflect progress and improvement. Only the economic costs and consequences of the rule have worsened, and that worsening trend can be expected to continue at a rate which will continue to accelerate through the foreseeable future. The creation of ALPA's Age 60 Committee and the determination that it should move on this serious problem with all the force necessary to insure its final resolution have reflected, in part, the impact of these significant changes.

After nearly a decade of experience with the rule, and in the face of reliable projections showing that its continued application to al airline pilots, without exception, will leave ugly scars on our Nation's air transportation industry, there is now some reason to believe that the age 60 rule will finally be subjected to a long-overdue critical evaluation. Several carriers have expressed serious reservations about the rule, and are preparing to challenge it publicly. Members of the House of Representatives and the Senate have indicated grave concern for the use of an untested, unproven, arbitrary age cutoff to terminate productive, valuable careers. And there are indications that, notwithstanding its own investment of past support for the rule, the FAA is now preparing to join for the first time in taking a critical look at it. Whatever decisions are now to be made about the rule, and about the effects of aging upon airline pilots, will hopefully now be based on full exploration and examination in a public forum of all the relevant facts.

In the exercise of its professional responsibility to the public, to its membership and to the industry, your Association intends to insure that, whatever the ultimate result, that result will be one which reflects a fair accommodation of the public's right to the highest of degree of safety in air transportation with the equally vital right of airline pilots, like any other Americans, to due process of law-------a result which will permit the achievement of appropriate public objectives without doing unnecessary violence to your valued employment rights or to the full potential of your professional career.

The following is the Association's petition to the FAA
(print petition)

Transcription Notes:
REOPENED. No indentations needed.