Hypoxia and Aviation

Outline/Contents 1. Introduction 3 2. Literature Review 4
2.1 Hypoxia and Flying 4
2.2 Pressurized Atmosphere and Hypoxia 7
3. Methodology 10
4. Analysis/Discussion 11
5. Conclusion 15
6. Recommendations 16
7. Reference List 17

1. Introduction
The paper presents a review, analysis and a study on hypoxia faced by pilots at higher altitudes. The problems faced by pilots of commercial flights and the ways and means of dealing with them with the use of technology used in military planes will be the point of discussion and focus. The usage of technology that minimize the conditions of hypoxia at higher altitudes and reduction of its
Another accident in Washington DC due to Air Florida flight, alongside the crash of North West flight in Detroit could be some more examples, where pilots are blamed for the happenings, and hypoxia may be a cause for it. Hence, one cannot rule out the role of hypoxia in flight crashes as it impairs the pilots’ ability to deal with the situation (Good W.A: 1991, 104-105).
2.2 Pressurized Atmosphere and Hypoxia
As hypoxia affects the ability of the pilot to deal with the adverse situations, modern aircraft are capable of operating at very high altitudes. The capability is due to the attempt to prevent hypoxia with the pressurized atmosphere. However, due to any unforeseen circumstances as if ‘sudden loss of cockpit pressure presents a life threatening hypoxia situation, requires an immediate response’ (Lindeis A.E, Fraser W.D & Fowler B; 1997). To deal with the above-mentioned situations of rapid decompression situations that lead to hypoxia, the modern military aircrafts are having a system that gets the plane down to deal with the decompression and can be provided for commercial aircrafts also in the future. The rapid get down of the plan in the condition of decompression is to minimize the effect of or slow down the onset of hypoxia by descending to a safe altitude, where the decompression at higher altitude