As investigators try to determine why a pilot and passengers fell unresponsive on a small jet that ultimately crashed in Virginia on Sunday, the tragedy evokes a critical consideration for pilots when flying: oxygen
Because air is too thin to breathe at jetliner cruising altitudes, airplane cabins are pressurized. More dense air is pumped into the cabin so that passengers are breathing as if, for example, they were at 8,000 feet above sea level rather than 40,000. What happens if the cabin depressurizes? At the highest altitudes, the effects – including numbness, confusion, euphoria and a loss of consciousness – can take only seconds to set in. The pilot may feel no reason to act.
Greek safety investigators blamed the Helios Airways Flight 522 crash on “incapacitation of the flight crew due to hypoxia” because the cabin pressurization system was improperly set and because the crew did not properly diagnose multiple warning alarms. The symptoms set in, investigators wrote, while the captain and a ground mechanic were troubleshooting the problem on an aircraft radio. The Helios crash is an example of hypoxia setting in slowly as an aircraft climbs.
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