AAMedP-1.6 temporary flying restrictions due to exogenous factors

What it is

AAMedP-1.6, Temporary Flying Restrictions Due to Exogenous Factors Affecting Aircrew Efficiency, is a NATO Allied Aeromedical Publication covered by STANAG 3474. Its subject is a single question: how long should an aircrew member stay off flying duty after something happens to them that is not an illness, but can still temporarily affect their fitness to fly. The document standardises the minimum period NATO nations apply after each such factor, so that one nation's aviation medicine service does not send an aircrew member back to flying duty on a materially different basis than another's. The current edition, Edition A, Version 2, was promulgated in July 2026 and supersedes Edition A, Version 1.

The document is explicit about who it is for and who it is not for. Its own Application clause states it is "primarily intended for military operational aircrew although it also has utility for" civilian air-operative personnel. It is addressed, in its own words, to "those responsible for the medical supervision of aircrew" - in practice, flight surgeons and the national aviation medicine services they work within - not to a manufacturer, a designer, a test house or a commercial contractor of any kind.

How it binds

AAMedP-1.6 is covered by STANAG 3474, which the NATO Letter of Promulgation records as carrying "the agreement of Allies to use this publication." That is the mechanism by which the document acquires force: a nation ratifies the STANAG and then applies AAMedP-1.6 through its own aviation medicine service. It is not a document a contract invokes or a tender names, and it creates no obligation that reaches a supplier, manufacturer or contractor directly. Once a nation has agreed to use it, it applies continuously, as part of the ordinary medical supervision of aircrew throughout a flying career, rather than at a design, procurement or acceptance milestone.

What the document covers

The publication works through a series of clauses, each covering one category of exogenous factor, unrelated to illness, that can temporarily affect an aircrew member's fitness to fly - arising, broadly, from medical care an aircrew member receives, from physiological or environmental exposure encountered in training, and from other events during service unrelated to underlying illness. For each category the document sets a minimum period during which flying duty should not resume, and in a number of clauses it requires an individual determination of fitness by a flight surgeon before it does.

This is the most clinically sensitive document in NATO's aeromedical family reviewed so far, and this page does not reproduce the specific factors it lists, the periods attached to them, or any clinical criterion a flight surgeon applies. That detail belongs to the national aviation medicine service using the document and to the flight surgeon making an individual clinical judgement about one aircrew member; it is not something a compliance platform interprets, restates, or should ever be used to check. Nothing on this page is medical guidance, and it should not be used by any reader to judge their own fitness to fly. Anyone who needs the substance of a clause should go to the document itself, obtained through the channel below, and to their own aviation medicine authority.

How it is evaluated

There is no certification, notified-body assessment or external audit under AAMedP-1.6, and the document names no accredited body. Whether an individual aircrew member returns to flying duty is a clinical determination a flight surgeon makes for that person, as part of ordinary medical supervision, not a conformity check performed against an organisation.

Standards it references

AAMedP-1.6 is covered by STANAG 3474, the NATO agreement recording "the agreement of Allies to use this publication," which is the cover instrument rather than the technical content. Its own Linkages clause names two related documents without invoking either as binding: STANAG 3114, the agreement covering aeromedical training of flight personnel, and AAMedP-1.2, the Allied Aeromedical Publication that sets out that training. The document states that its own subject "are not covered in other NATO publications but may be mentioned elsewhere."

Getting the document

NATO publishes AAMedP-1.6 free of charge through the NATO Standardization Document Database. We do not sell it or hold a copy for distribution; the NSDD listing for AAMedP-1.6 is the source.

Standards it references

• STANAG 3114Background
• AAMedP-1.2Background