My Payne Stewart Moment

In that vast wasteland we call television, a clever commercial has been making the rounds lately. It depicts a hapless sad sack in a crumpled white suit bumbling through a nighttime cityscape setting off fires, floods and other assorted mayhem. The catchline is "risk never sleeps." It sure enough doesnt, but the other essential element of accidents is opportunity. Consider this: In two years time, Cirrus Design will have sold more than 1000 turbocharged SR22s, each capable of effortless cruise in the mid-20s. The risk, of course, is hypoxia, and 1000 airplanes is enough opportunity to give an insurance executive ulcers.

Key Takeaways:

• The increasing prevalence of high-altitude aircraft heightens the risk of hypoxia, which traditional training methods are often insufficient to address.
• A specialized "hypoxia awareness training" using reduced oxygen at sea-level helps pilots recognize early symptoms and instills a decisive response, as demonstrated by the author's successful experience during a skydiving event.
• Despite effective training, pilots are highly susceptible to "denial" during hypoxic events, often prioritizing tasks over acknowledging severe symptoms, which the author personally experienced to a dangerous degree.
• Recurrent training is crucial to counteract this innate denial and reinforce immediate, decisive action (like emergency descent or oxygen use) when experiencing hypoxia symptoms, along with awareness of potential human factors compromises in oxygen systems.

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