Convairator

http://tinyurl.com/b5txlx

Kalitta Charters enroute to YIP on the Learjet. Amazing that they actually made it out of this situation.

FlyJSH

Cleveland Plain Dealer, 3/05/09
Oberlin- The pilot's speech was slow and slurred. He couldn't control his Kalitta Learjet, and two Oberlin air traffic controllers knew he was in trouble.
The controllers, Stephanie Bevins and Jay McCombs, recognized the pilot was suffering from hypoxia - a condition caused by oxygen deprivation that has led to four fatal airplane crashes since 2004, U.S. aviation officials said.

Bevins and McCombs instructed the pilot to fly the cargo jet to a lower altitude, where he got enough air and quickly recovered. They were honored this week with the controllers association Archie League Medal of Safety Award for their work on the evening of July 26.
Bevins, 34, lives in Avon and has been a controller at Oberlin since 1998.
McCombs, from Amherst, has worked at the Oberlin Center since 1987. He has been a controller since 1982, when he was in the Air Force. In 1983, he won the Air Force Controller of the Year award.

"Over the radio, Jay McCombs tried hard to understand the slow, slurring words muffled among the blaring sirens sounding in the background," said Alex Caldwell, spokeswoman for the national air traffic controllers association. "The radio was poor and the pilot difficult to understand, leaving only unintelligible transmission and uncontrollable noise to be heard."

Bevins was first to recognize the symptoms of hypoxia, the condition that caused another Learjet to crash on Oct. 25, 1999, near Aberdeen, S.D., killing two pilots and four passengers, including golfer and U.S. Open champion Payne Stewart.
The pilot in the July incident, which occurred between 32,000 and 36,000 feet over Ypsilanti, Mich., seemed to be fighting to remain conscious.

His co-pilot was waving and moving his arm violently and uncontrollably as he also fought for oxygen.
McCombs knew the pilot was incapable of rational discussion, so he sharply ordered him to descend to 11,000 feet.
It worked.
"McCombs began bringing the aircraft to the lowest altitude available to help alleviate the oxygen problem," Caldwell said. "Unable to answer questions, the pilot was only able to respond to direct command."
McCombs said that at 11,000 feet, the pilot returned to normal and confirmed that he had been suffering from hypoxia.

The fact that the captain did not turn on the autopilot probably saved his life, Caldwell said. If the autopilot had engaged, it would have stayed at the deadly altitude until the plane ran out of gas and crashed.
Looking back, she said the impact of what happened didn't hit her until later.
"At the time, we just looked at the situation and figured out how to resolve it," she said. "Our biggest concern once he started descending was that he would not stop. He did and you can hear the difference in his voice. It was only later that we realized how scary it all was."
To hear the transmissions between the pilot and the controllers, visit http://tinyurl.com/b5txlx

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
[email protected], 216-999-4890

USMCFLYR

Hypoxia is one of the scariest things that we have going on in our community right now. I've lost two friends to hypoxia myself. Do the Lears not have some type of emergency O2 onboard?

USMCFLYR

FlyJSH

What was that claxon waring? Overspeed?

wrxpilot

They have O2 masks aboard. I wonder if this was a fast or slow depressurization?

USMCFLYR

That is what I figured. Our first EP for Hypoxia is Emergency Oxygen Green Ring (our supplemental oxygen) - PULL. We use to train in the old altitude chamber (think Officer and a Gentleman), but now they have this awesome new training device called the Reduced Oxygen Training Device (ROBD). We can sit in front of a computer console and "fly" the sim and they can take you right up to 40,000' if they want and with no side effects or regular dangers from the chamber.

USMCFLYR

UAL T38 Phlyer

I had a 8-10,000 fpm cabin climb in the Lear 35 one evening while at FL30-something. The Altitude claxon isn't all that different from the gear or overspeed (been 2 years since I've flown it, so I've forgotten a little).

The Capt started messing with the cabin pressurization switches while I yelled "Get your mask on!!" The stock masks in the Lear are crap...VERY uncomfortable, very flimsy, and difficult to don correctly/quickly. I should point out he was a civilian background, and had never been in an altitude chamber.

I got my mask on and put the controller in Manual and managed to catch it before it went above 25,000 cabin altitude.

The cabin outflow valve in the Lear family is a piece of plastic, and can fail quickly to leave a 3-inch hole in the cabin and outside air. You could lose all pressurization in as little as 3 seconds, by my estimate, at FL410.

And my point about the Capt above was many civilians have no idea how quickly you can become incapacitated in the rarified air above FL250, particularly in the 30s and higher, because they've never been exposed to it in the altitude chamber. Time of useful conciousness at FL410 is about 10 seconds without the mask.

I've said this before on a different post: wear your mask as required by the regs, and if you can get a chance to use the FAA's free program to ride in a military chamber, do it. Call the FAA at Oklahoma City and ask about the program, and they will set you up with the closest military installation.

Ewfflyer

Those guys are so lucky! That is definately a scary example of how bad it gets. At the end, didn't that sound like a different voice like the FO finally came on the radio? The capt voice did come back at the end and it did sound better though.

wrxpilot

I've done the program, and agree it's an eye opening experience. Very worth doing.

FalconDrvr

Are you serious? Have you ever seen a outflow valve from a lear? They are most definitely not a weak point and they are not made out of plastic. It's always amazing the general lack of system knowledge some pilots have.

This incident was the result of a slow loss of cabin pressure and that's all I can say.

The claxon you hear is a cabin altitude warning not overspeed. You can notice in the tape that he is able to silence the horn. You can not silence the overspeed and the two have different sounds.