Administrative law judge William R. Mullins rejected former Continental Airline pilot Newton Dickson’s claim that Dr. Michael Berry, now a top Federal Aviation Administration physician, improperly used a phony diagnosis of epilepsy to medically ground him after he complained about pilot fatigue and inadequate training, both cited as contributing factors in the fatal crash of Colgan Flight 3407 in Buffalo.
However, Greg Winton – the Rockville lawyer who represented Dickson – told me that Mullins’ ruling did not address the fact that there was “absolutely no clinical evidence” to support Dr. Berry’s diagnosis. Winton says he plans to appeal.
Dr. Brian D. Loftus, a board-certified neurologist who testified at the National Transportation and Safety Board hearing in Houston last week, said that there was less than a one percent chance that Dickson could have experienced a tonic-clonic epileptic seizure (formerly called a grand mal seizure) and exhibit no symptoms.
Dickson, who now works for the Transportation Safety Administration, maintains he has never had epilepsy. One of his TSA co-workers told Mullins that he has never seen any seizure activity during their 40-hour weeks together over the past two years.
Also present in the Houston courtroom was retired Delta pilot Wayne Witter, who successfully challenged his own medical grounding by Dr. Berry, but was not permitted to testify on Dickson’s behalf.
