The Insidious Passenger and Pilot Killer - Episode 229
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ส.ค. 2024
- Hypoxia is a significant danger in aviation and an insidious killer of passengers and pilots. Special guest Miles O'Brien hosts a discussion with aviation experts Todd Curtis, Greg Feith, and John Goglia that covers how hypoxia impacts all forms of aviation.
They discuss personal experiences with hypoxia and share insights from several hypoxia-related accidents.
Hypoxia is a condition where the human body is deprived of oxygen which can reduce mental function. Hypoxia can be particularly hazardous for pilots because someone experiencing hypoxia may not be aware of its symptoms or its effects on their performance.
One high-profile incident in 1999 took the life to golfer Payne Stewart. He was a passenger in a Learjet 35 that took off from Orlando Executive Airport and became non-responsive to air traffic control. Fighter jets intercepted the plane and determined the crew was unconscious. After 1500 miles the jet ran out of fuel and crashed over South Dakota.
Greg, Todd, Miles, and John have all experienced hypoxia in controlled altitude chambers. They share their experiences, which include feelings of euphoria, reduced mental capacity, reduced physical performance, and even a case of high-altitude bends.
Key to understanding hypoxia is the concept of time of useful consciousness, which is the amount of time a person can spend at altitude without feeling the effects of hypoxia. That period of time gets smaller as altitude increases. Age, stress, and other factors may shorten those times.
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Music: “Inspirational Sports” license ASLC-22B89B29-052322DDB8
Fantastic show, exquisite panel of EXPERTS! Keep it up boys 👏
I love watching you guy's. The four of you guy's are the ultimate all star crew! I am a middle aged private pilot. I love technology. I definitely noticed whenever I have conversations with pilots about glass cockpits, auto land systems, whole airplane parachutes I usually get different responses from different demographics. Younger seem to always be in favor of technology while the older demographic respond with comments like "you don't need a pilot license, you need a computer technology degree or younger guy's don't want to pilot they want to be lazy and have a computer do the work or a parachute is a weak pilot's way out. In the early day's I had a flight instructor that said to me, flying is just risky and being a good pilot is mitigating those risks to provide a safe flight for your passengers. So why not have safety devices and systems to mitigate some of that risk. I think a mandate for technology especially for safety wouldn't be a bad idea but I also think there would always be the certain groups that would resist at every chance
If you listen to the radio traffic from Kalitta flight 66 (in 2008), you'll get a terrifying appreciation of how dangerous hypoxia is. Fortunately, that flight landed safely after ATC insisted that they descend. It's like listening to an extremely drunk person become sober very quickly.
You'd think that we could have a cheap always-on portable device that measures air pressure, carbon monoxide concentration, and perhaps oxygen levels themselves. If the levels change in certain ways, it could alert before consciousness becomes too impaired so the pilot can don the mask immediately, declare an emergency, and descend.
I find the safest way to avoid hypoxia is to only fly in either X-Plane 12 or MSFS 😉 Good to see Greg back 👍 Thanks again guys .. always enjoy your vids.
Great topic! I'm not a pilot so this might not be a brilliant question' If one of the pilots leaves the cockpit the other has to have an oxygen mask on? Do they actually do that? Would they do it on a short flight? How about in a case where the other pilot becomes incapacitated?
Always excited to see a new video from you guys!
I’m a GA hobby pilot who flies a 182. In addition to the CO monitors in my Sentry and my headset (Bose and Lightspeed both have those), I also employ a portable CO monitor, and a pulse ox device. My preflight checklist requires me to turn the monitor on, and measure my baseline pulse ox at field elevation. Then, my cruise checklist once I’m at altitude has me affirmatively looking at the portable CO monitor to see the number (it’s always zero, knock on wood). And I check my pulse ox. I don’t trust my Sentry and headset alarms because there is no way to test them and see if they’re actually working or not. They hopefully are. But my 3-system redundancy gives me good odds of avoiding a carbon monoxide incident. As for my pulse ox, if I’m at 7500 feet I notice that it starts to reduce a little, though not to a level that requires action. At 9,500 it might start dipping, at which point I need to either get oxygen or reduce altitude.
Why is useful consciousness only 9-15 seconds at 40,000 feet? One can hold their breath longer than that. So why does altitude so rapidly make you lose consciousness? I would imagine they would be brething air with low oxygen levels and their oxygen saturation level would slowly drop instead of just losing consciousness in 9 seconds. Please help me understand.
The partial oxygen pressure is such that the oxygen leaves the blood enters the air in the lungs and leaves the body,
Greg Feith, you're the hottest 60s year-old I've ever seen, and so hot in Mayday!
He's 66. It's hard to believe he'll be 67 next month. He's aged gracefully. 😊 And you're right BTW.
He also has a beautiful smile.
THANKS, FLIGHT GENTLEMEN WE ARE SMARTER AND WE NEED TO SHARE IT..........WHAT HAPPENS WE WHEN DONT SHARE........THERES AN
ACCIDENT AND IM IN IT.......HMMMM PAUL JOHN OTTAWA ONTARIO CANADA......