The new ENAC regulation on medical fitness for flight crew comes into force at the Institutes of Aerospace Medicine. The new regulation, in line with the directives on quality and the simplification of services within the public administration, transposes and fully implements at national level the Regulation adopted at European level by the European Commission and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), and will enable the Air Force’s Aerospace Medicine Institutes, as well as all Italian aeromedical centres, to streamline and optimise the procedures hitherto used for the medical fitness assessment of flight crew in both military and civil aviation. Among the key changes is the entrusting of the overall screening of personnel to a qualified aviation doctor, who will assess on a case-by-case basis the type of specialist investigations that may be required. The new procedure, which has been in place within the Italian Air Force Medical Service since 9 June, was officially ratified this morning at the Institute of Aerospace Medicine in Rome in the presence of the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Italian Air Force, Air Vice-Marshal Paolo Magro, and Mr Alessandro Cardi, ENAC’s Central Director of Technical Regulation. On this occasion, Air Brigadier Domenico Abbenante, Director of the Institute of Aerospace Medicine in Rome, was presented with ENAC’s Aviation Medical Centre certification. The certificates for the Institute of Aerospace Medicine in Milan and the Aeromedical and Psychophysiological Centre in Bari were collected by the Head of the Italian Air Force Medical Service, Inspector General Piervalerio Manfroni. “This is an important step for ENAC and the Air Force, two institutions that care deeply about the aviation sector and, above all, the safety of flight personnel,” stated the Deputy Chief of the Air Force General Staff. The procedure forms part of a comprehensive reorganisation of the medical examination process for flight personnel, with new responsibilities and tasks assigned to the aviation medical officer, who, in the role of Aviation Medical Examiner (AME), all the cross-disciplinary skills and high-level specialisation that the Armed Forces’ medical officers constantly maintain and update within the aerospace sector.
