FlightSafety Introduces Hypoxia Awareness Training
Hypoxia is an insidious killer.
Golf star Paine Stewart was carried to his death five years ago in a slowly decompressing Learjet, both pilots rendered unconscious by lack of oxygen as it leaked away at altitude.
But the chances are they never knew anything was wrong.
Now FlightSafety is introducing Hypoxia Awareness Training in conjunction with the Mayo Clinic. Their portable training units—there are now three as the program enters final development—eliminate the need for a pressure chamber and rely instead on replacing oxygen with an increasing flow of nitrogen through a face mask as they simulate an ascent to 22,500 feet.
The symptoms of hypoxia become apparent as the pilot grows increasingly incapable of performing simple tasks, and time takes on another dimension. Sluggishness, apathy and lethargy are all common, often coupled with a deceptive sense of well-being.
"The goal here is to increase a pilot's awareness of what hypoxia will do, rather than train to recognize the symptoms," says Dr. Jan Stepanek, senior aviation medical examiner at the Mayo Clinic and here at NBAA to supervise hypoxia demonstrations. A trained pilot is more likely to identify hypoxia before it imposes its sense of well-being or apathy and takes over, he believes.
NetJets believes so, too. One of the hypoxia units is based in Columbus, Ohio, where it has trained 175 NetJets pilots over the last year.
"The feedback has been very enthusiastic," says Stepanek.
Unlike a multi-seat pressure chamber, the unit cannot simulate altitude or decompression, but narrows the focus instead to an individual's response to hypoxia. "You can do this and still go fly the same day," says Stepanek.
