FAA Ordered to Explain Flight Ban for Pilots on Antidepressant

The Federal Aviation Administration owes an explanation to pilots taking a certain antidepressant for categorically denying them medical certifications needed to fly, an appeals court said Friday.

The FAA’s denial of a special issuance medical certificate to a pilot taking Remeron—a brand name for mirtazapine—to treat his anxiety was arbitrary and capricious, the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said. The agency hasn’t “adequately articulated a rationale” for banning any pilot using mirtazapine from receiving such a certification, the opinion added.

Michael Solondz worked as a commercial pilot for almost two decades before an anxiety diagnosis. He initially took Lexapro, which the FAA has conditionally approved for pilots, to manage his illness but negative side effects caused him to switch to Remeron, which the agency bans.

Solondz sought medical clearance, but the FAA denied it based on his Remeron use. The agency said medical studies show mirtazapine poses an excessive drowsiness risk.

But the FAA didn’t “articulate a clear connection” between that risk and its refusal to consider whether an individual pilot suffers from that side effect, Judge Cornelia T.L. Pillard wrote for the court on Solondz’s consolidated appeals. The agency’s antidepressant protocol—which requires six months of use before evaluating an approved drug’s effects on a pilot—"underscores the disconnect between the cited evidence and the rule,” she added.

The FAA said it had conditionally approved additional antidepressants. The “key missing piece of information” is how it decided that the other drugs, “which apparently also carry some risk of drowsiness in some people,” don’t merit a categorical bar when mirtazapine does, Pillard said.

It isn’t clear how the agency “resolved apparent contradictions” between its bar and some of the medical studies it relied on, Pillard said. “We cannot fill in the blanks by supplying a reasoned basis for the FAA’s policy that the agency itself has not given,” the opinion added.

Judges Bradley N. Garcia and Judith W. Rogers joined the opinion.

Stinson LLP represents Solondz.

The consolidated cases are Solondz v. FAA, 2025 BL 222838, D.C. Cir., Nos. 24-01105 and 24-01284, 6/27/25.