The FAA Initially Disqualifies 1 in 5 Pilots Who Report Mental Health Care. The Senate Just Voted to Fix That.

The US Senate passed two bills this week that change how the Federal Aviation Administration handles pilots and air traffic controllers who report a mental health condition. Both passed by unanimous consent, meaning no senator objected or forced a recorded vote. Neither has passed the House yet, and neither takes effect until a matching version clears both chambers and reaches a president's desk.

One of the two carries a person's name: the John A. Hauser Mental Health in Aviation Act. Hauser was a University of North Dakota aviation student from Chicago who died by suicide during a training flight to Fargo in October 2021. In a note to his family, he asked them to try to change the FAA's rules so other young pilots would not go through what he went through.

What the two bills actually do

• The Hauser bill directs $15 million a year from fiscal year 2026 through 2029 to recruit and train more FAA-approved aviation medical examiners, plus $1.5 million a year for a public campaign aimed at reducing the stigma around getting treated.
• The Aviation Medication Transparency Act of 2026 requires the FAA to publish, and update at least once a year, a plain-language public list of medications pilots and controllers can safely take, alongside its existing 'Do Not Issue' and 'Do Not Fly' lists.

Both bills target the same underlying problem. Pilots and controllers are required to disclose mental health treatment to keep their medical certification, but the FAA's review of that disclosure is slow enough, and unpredictable enough, that many people avoid seeking care rather than risk their license.

Reuters, which first reported the Senate vote, noted that the issue drew renewed attention after an off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot was charged in late 2023 with trying to disable a jet's engines mid-flight. He later told police he was in the middle of a nervous breakdown. Under current rules, a pilot can also be grounded for three months simply for changing the dosage of an antidepressant or anti-anxiety medication, separate from any disqualification for the underlying condition.

It is hard to say how unusual that 20% figure is. Other safety-sensitive licensed jobs, commercial truck driving and train engineering among them, do not publish comparable disqualification rates, so there is no clean baseline for aviation. What is measurable is the FAA's backlog and the shortage of psychiatric staff behind it, which the agency's own expert panel flagged.

“Their careers should never be threatened because they weren't properly informed about which medications they're allowed to take, or simply sought the mental health care they need.”

Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., who co-sponsored the Hauser bill with Duckworth, framed the same gap in workforce terms rather than clinical ones. Bureaucratic delays and outdated FAA processes, he said, keep qualified people sidelined for months at a time during an existing shortage of pilots and controllers. The Allied Pilots Association, which represents roughly 17,000 pilots at American Airlines, welcomed both bills through its president, Nick Silva, who said pilots have faced barriers navigating the medical certification process for far too long.

A comedian's show and an unconfirmed assist

Part of the attention on this legislation traces to an unlikely source. The second season of Nathan Fielder's HBO series 'The Rehearsal' examined why co-pilots stay silent when a captain behaves dangerously, and argued that FAA disclosure rules are part of why. John Goglia, a former member of the National Transportation Safety Board, told The A.V. Club that congressional staffers described the show as a push behind a Hauser bill that had stalled in the House for years before it aired.

Fielder himself was more careful. He said he never got the congressional hearing he had hoped for and learned of the staffers' reaction secondhand, unsure how much credit belonged to the show. No lawmaker's office has confirmed on the record that the series changed the bill's timeline. That claim is one former regulator's impression, not a documented cause.

John Hauser's parents, Anne Suh and Alan Hauser, put their reaction in more direct terms after the Senate vote. They said in a statement carried by a North Dakota television station that they were proud and humbled the bill now bears their son's name, and that they believe it will help other pilots and controllers seek care more easily.

A companion mental health bill already passed the House more than a year ago, in September 2025, under a different pair of sponsors, Reps. Sean Casten and Pete Stauber. That means the two chambers still have to reconcile differing versions, or the House has to take up the Senate's exact text, before anything reaches a president's desk. Neither bill has an enactment date.