WASHINGTON, D.C./October 14, 2026 – Today, Special Counsel Charles Baldis formally presented Dr. Brett Wyrick, Deputy Federal Air Surgeon at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), with the Office of Special Counsel’s 2026 Outstanding Public Servant Award. OSC announced the award on July 30, 2026, National Whistleblower Day.
In connection with the presentation, Special Counsel Baldis issued the following statement:
“I am pleased to present Dr. Brett Wyrick with the 2026 Outstanding Public Servant Award.
“Dr. Wyrick saw a risk to the people who fly, and to the people who keep them safe in the air, and he would not look past it. As Deputy Federal Air Surgeon, he identified that medical officers in the FAA’s Office of Aerospace Medicine were too few for the work before them. Certificates and clearances for pilots and air traffic controllers were falling behind. Hundreds of airmen continued flying while flagged medical issues had not been fully reviewed. Some personnel were discouraged from reporting an illness, injury, or new medication because a report could ground them for months. New controllers, hired to ease shortages in the towers, were waiting on medical clearances that should not have taken so long.
“He put that warning on the record because safety in the national airspace is not an internal matter. It belongs to everyone who boards a plane, and to the families waiting for them on the ground.
“His disclosure moved the FAA to hire additional medical officers and to clear these cases with more care and more speed. Those changes made a real difference. That is what this award recognizes: not simply the difficulty of speaking up, but the good that followed from it.
“On behalf of the Office of Special Counsel, I thank Dr. Wyrick for his service to the flying public.”