Can a colour blind person have either a private pilot, a commercial pilot or an air traffic controller licence according to the ICAO regulations?
It is very rare for someone to be colour “blind” i.e. cannot see any colour at all. Most of those with a deficiency can see some colours quite well but not all colours or all shades of colour. The ICAO medical provisions in Annex 1 — Personnel Licensing, state that an applicant ‘shall be tested for the ability to correctly identify a series of pseudoisochromatic plates’. Such a test displays different numbers (or shapes or letters) that are made up of dots that are coloured differently from background dots. Colours are chosen so that individuals with a colour vision deficiency cannot differentiate the number from the background. Individuals who fail this test can nevertheless be accepted for licensing if they can “readily distinguish the colours used in air navigation and correctly identify aviation coloured lights”. Depending on the country in which the application is made, this secondary test may take the form of a device (called a “lantern”) that requires an applicant to identify di
