A Republican senator is trying to relax the medical requirements for private pilots who fly small planes.
And that effort by Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma is drawing complaints from Democrats who say he's going back on a compromise that became law only two months ago.
Inhofe is an avid, 81-year-old pilot who's had a quadruple heart bypass. He's trying to eliminate a requirement that pilots have a statement from their doctor saying they don't have a medical condition that would interfere with their ability to safely operate a plane.
Congressional aides say Inhofe has proposed the change as part of House and Senate negotiations on a major defense bill. The aides weren't authorized to discuss the issue publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Inhofe has had several incidents over the years as a pilot, as recently as July when he veered off a runway in Ketchum to reportedly avoid hitting a deer.
In 2011, the senator ran afoul of the FAA when he landed a plane on a closed runway at a rural South Texas airport even though there was a giant yellow X and trucks on the runway. Workers on the ground scrambled to get out of the way.
He's had other close calls as well: In 2006, an experimental plane he was flying spun out of control while landing in Tulsa. In 1999, Inhofe made an emergency landing in a Tulsa suburb after the plane he was flying lost a propeller.
