Air Traffic Controller Medical Requirements
A civil air traffic controller needs a medical certificate, and it has to stay current. The standard is the one set by the state that issues the licence. Passing an employer's aptitude tests is not that certificate.
· by Michal Zembol
The licence depends on it
The privilege to provide an air traffic control service comes from the licence. A current medical certificate is one of the conditions of holding that privilege, and of training towards it. An offer of employment does not replace the certificate. How the licence, the rating, and the unit endorsement fit together is Licence, Rating and Unit Endorsement.
The examination is done by a doctor the state authorises for that purpose. The employer may also send candidates for its own medical as part of selection. Those can be the same examination, or two steps in the same campaign. The vacancy notice says which.
It is separate from the aptitude tests
Selection tests sample attention, memory, and the other abilities the job uses in real time. A medical examination asks whether your health meets the standard for the licence. Passing one does not pass the other. The skills those tests are aimed at are in What Skills Are Tested in ATC Assessments?
Eyesight, colour vision, and hearing are examined because the work uses a radar picture or the view from a tower, and a radio. The rest of the examination is the state's list. A condition that is acceptable for one state's certificate can be handled differently under the next state's rules.
The United Kingdom uses a Class 3 certificate
In the United Kingdom the certificate is a Class 3 medical. The UK Civil Aviation Authority says anyone wishing to become an air traffic controller needs that certificate as part of the licensing requirements. The initial examination is carried out by an aeromedical examiner at an aeromedical centre. The same page says that examination includes:
- a physical examination by a doctor
- eyesight tests, including colour vision
- a resting electrocardiogram
- a lung-function test
- a hearing test
- a urine test
- a blood test for lipids
The same page gives the validity. Under 40 the certificate is valid for 24 months. From 40 it is valid for 12 months. The student licence page requires a current UK Class 3 certificate before a student licence is issued. Those periods, and that sequence, are the United Kingdom's.
It has to stay current
A certificate that has expired does not keep the privileges going. The CAA's renewal page says a holder who becomes aware of a decrease in medical fitness, from injury or illness, which may leave them unable to exercise the privileges of the licence, has to inform their aeromedical examiner. The same duty applies when they become aware that they are pregnant. Informing the examiner is not the same thing as losing the certificate. The examiner decides what follows.
A campaign can refuse an application, or stop a course, when the certificate is not issued. That decision belongs to the licensing authority and to the employer's rules for that intake. It is not a result you can read off a general description of the job.
Another state uses another standard
The Class 3 certificate above is the United Kingdom's, under the medical part of the controller licensing rules it applies. A state that copied those European rules uses a certificate of the same name. The United States does not. The FAA sets the medical standards for the controllers it employs, and a UK Class 3 certificate is not that document.
Before you rely on a limit, check which authority published it and the date of the page. A figure from one country's manual is not the figure on the next country's form.
What this article does not say
It does not list the conditions that pass or fail an examination. It does not give eyesight numbers, and it does not say that a certificate from one state is accepted in another. The standard, and what happens if you do not meet it, are in that state's current medical rules and in the vacancy notice for the campaign.