AAMedP-1.10 interchangeability of NATO aircrew medical categories

What it is

AAMedP-1.10 is a NATO Allied Aeromedical Publication: the technical procedure NATO nations use so that one nation's military medical service can accept another nation's medical category for an aircrew member's flying status, without reassessing that person from the ground up. It sits under STANAG 3526, the agreement nations ratify to adopt the arrangement; the STANAG is the commitment, this publication is the procedure that commitment puts into practice. Edition B, Version 1, was promulgated in March 2021.

The document addresses NATO nations' own military medical services, in the language of a "parent nation" (the aircrew member's own nation) and a "host nation or NATO unit" receiving them. It creates no obligation for a company: nothing in the text speaks to a supplier, a manufacturer or a contract, and there is no route by which a software or compliance vendor becomes bound to it directly.

What stays with the parent nation

Three things never transfer to a host nation: the standards used for primary medical selection, any decision to permanently disqualify someone from flying, and the determination of a longer temporary flying disability. A host nation accepting an aircrew member on exchange or temporary duty works within the category the parent nation already issued, expiration date included, rather than forming its own view on these.

What changes hands during a posting

Aircrew posted away from their parent nation for an extended period travel with a medical statement, the latest flight physical report, and material useful for post-accident identification. The host nation's own flight surgeons run periodic physicals during the posting, against the host nation's own standards and schedule, and send a copy of each report back to the parent nation. Aircrew of the NATO Airborne Early Warning and Control Force E-3A Component are a named exception: their periodic examinations follow the standards in that component's own Flight Surgeon's Manual, a document outside our catalogue. Whatever the host nation's flight surgeons find, they may apply their own standards only to a new medical problem that arises during the posting, not to reopen the category they were given.

Grounding, return to flying status, and records

Any physician or dentist may temporarily ground an aircrew member under their own national procedures, and where none is present, another healthcare professional may do so; only a flight surgeon can clear someone to return to flying duties, and a case that looks long-term or permanent goes back to the parent nation to decide. Transfer of medical records between nations follows each nation's own law; where consent is required and withheld, the parent nation gets nothing more than a bare statement of fitness or unfitness.

Where nations have already diverged

Two nations recorded reservations when this edition was promulgated. One found its own military directives already ran a stricter off-duty rule than the one named in the STANAG this publication sits under, and could not apply that figure to its own officers without amendment; the other applies the principles of the edition but records that it does not yet have the people or materiel to implement it in full. Ratifying the STANAG this publication sits under is not the same as identical practice in every nation.

No one is certified or assessed against AAMedP-1.10. It creates no scheme with an accredited body, a notified body or a customer audit; it standardises recognition of a medical judgement another nation's own service has already made.