Field Flight Performance Boards and Flight Status

What You Own

Flight status is a command decision before it is a Headquarters decision. You suspend. You convene. You endorse. Headquarters at CMC (ASM) takes final action on the outcomes carrying career weight.

The order is explicit on one point worth holding onto. An FFPB is not a disciplinary body and makes no disciplinary recommendation. If the same events also warrant discipline, you run the disciplinary track completely separately.

Suspension Comes First

Per MCO 1000.6MCO 1000.6 Chapter 1 Section 2 paragraph 10, you suspend from flying duty any Marine under your command who is unfit for it. Aeronautically designated personnel suspensions report in detail by letter to CMC (ASM). Temporary groundings you direct in the interest of good order and discipline are a different matter and do not report.

Appropriate reasons for suspension include.

• The Marine requests termination from flight status
• Demonstrated lack of general aeronautical ability
• Breaches of flight safety or regulations
• Failure to maintain flight standards
• The Marine is a respondent to an FFPB
• Demonstrated conduct contrary to good order and discipline

Aircrew suspend immediately on your direction. Incentive pay suspends effective the date of your letter directing the action. When a suspended Marine becomes fit again, you remit the suspension and report the remission to CMC (ASM) for aeronautically designated personnel.

Medical Suspensions Run on Clocks

• Aeronautically designated personnel count as medically incapacitated when hospitalized, on the sick list, or in a limited duty status.
• Temporary incapacitation keeps the Marine qualified until it passes 180 days. Disqualification and pay termination take effect the first day after the 180-day period.
• Permanent incapacitation, as determined by competent medical authority, terminates pay the first day after 365 days from the date of incapacitation.
• You are responsible for ensuring the pay terminates.

When an FFPB Is Mandatory

An FFPB is mandatory for any respondent party to a gross breach of flight discipline, or failing to meet the minimum standards of a major aeronautical performance requirement after a reasonable opportunity to correct the deficiency. Major requirements include instrument checks, NATOPS evaluations, tactical phase checks, and failure to attain annual flight time minimums.

An FFPB must also be considered when the respondent is the subject of a flight violation report or has shown a severe lapse in aeronautical judgment.

After a flight or flight-related mishap, review the aeronautical competence of everyone involved informally within 72 hours of notification. The special court-martial convening authority then decides whether to convene.

Board Composition

Board members other than the flight surgeon must be senior to the officer concerned. As a general rule no prospective witness or interested party sits on the board, with a narrow exception for the flight surgeon when no other flight surgeon is available.

The 90-Day Timeline

The schedule commences on the date of the incident and includes mailing time. Extension requests go to CMC (ASM).

Each additional endorsement you require or want adds 20 days. FFPB actions normally commence only after any judicial or adverse administrative actions resolve. Once you convene, report the convening immediately to CMC (ASM) by letter or naval message. CMC (ASM) coordinates with MMOA-2 to hold PCS and PCA orders on the respondent until the process completes.

The Six Outcomes

Probationary flight status is a significant career event. Revocation of flight status is administrative, neither punitive nor disciplinary, and the order says so plainly. Even so, the Marine Corps treats knowledge of it as material to a selection board's assessment, and the report and endorsements go into the OMPF for exactly this reason.

A Marine in a conditional or probationary period does not transfer from the parent command until the period completes satisfactorily. CMC (ASM) waives the requirement on request.

Due Process You Owe the Respondent

• The respondent presents whatever material they consider pertinent, calls witnesses, and makes statements.
• The board and the final report do not delay more than 30 days waiting on the material without CMC (ASM) authorization.
• The respondent reviews all material and statements the board received before the report forwards, and amends their own statement.
• Once the report is submitted, nothing new attaches before it reaches CMC (ASM).
• Legal rules of evidence do not apply, and no verbatim transcript is maintained or forwarded. Privacy Act rules apply throughout.

Aircrew Outside the FFPB Process

Aircrew not subject to an FFPB have flight orders terminated for a Marine request, unfitness or unsuitability, failure to meet physiological or psychological requirements, or reassignment to duties not requiring flight status. Terminate immediately in those cases.

Enlisted personnel receive at least 120 days advance notification before involuntary removal from flying duty through no fault of their own. Only CMC (ASM) waives the notification.

Common Pitfalls

1. Running discipline and the FFPB together. The order requires them completely separate.
2. Missing the 72-hour informal review after a mishap. It is the gate to the convening decision.
3. Letting the 30-day incident-to-report window slip without notifying CMC (ASM) of the reason and expected delay.
4. Convening only when revocation looks likely. The board exists to evaluate performance, including the cases ending in no further action.
5. Forgetting to terminate incentive pay on suspension. This is your responsibility, and it dates to your letter.
6. Transferring a Marine before a conditional or probationary period completes without the CMC (ASM) waiver.