Get Your Mask On

On September 5, 2014 the chairman of the TBM Owners and Pilots Association, Larry Glazer and his wife, Jane were on board a Socata TBM 900 single-engine turboprop that crashed into the ocean off the coast of Jamaica. According to the NTSB preliminary report, about an hour and a half into the flight from Rochester, New York to Naples, Florida, the pilot became unresponsive after reporting an indication that is not correct in the plane. The fighter jet pilots who escorted the aircraft to the Cuban airspace border suspected possible hypoxia.

IFR Staff

Friday, November 14, 2014 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

Hypoxia poses an insidious and dangerous threat to pilots, even highly experienced ones, by impairing judgment and creating a false sense of well-being, making self-diagnosis unreliable.
Pilots flying regularly above 10,000 feet should use a fingertip pulse oximeter to monitor blood oxygen saturation, with levels below 90% requiring immediate action.
In any suspected hypoxia or cabin pressurization emergency, the immediate priority is to don supplemental oxygen masks quickly (within 10-15 seconds) before attempting to diagnose or solve the underlying problem.
Oxygen masks must be readily accessible and pre-plugged, and pilots should practice donning them quickly, making it the first step in high-altitude emergency checklists.

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On September 5, 2014 the chairman of the TBM Owners and Pilots Association, Larry Glazer and his wife, Jane were on board a Socata TBM 900 single-engine turboprop that crashed into the ocean off the coast of Jamaica. According to the NTSB preliminary report, about an hour and a half into the flight from Rochester, New York to Naples, Florida, the pilot became unresponsive after reporting an “indication that is not correct in the plane.” The fighter jet pilots who escorted the aircraft to the Cuban airspace border suspected possible hypoxia.

On August 30, 2014 Ronald Hutchinson, a retired executive from Harley-Davidson, was on board a Cirrus SR22T which crashed into the ocean off the Virginia coast. According to the preliminary NTSB report, the aircraft took off from Waukesha, Wisconsin at 10:43 CDT and climbed to 21,000 feet. The aircraft maintained this attitude for an hour before descending first to 17,000 feet, then to 15,000 feet and finally to 13,100 feet.