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Quote:

Originally Posted by N9373M (Post 1722375)

Just read your thread. Very interesting. Did you considering talking to the NTSB? :) Ms. Hersman, Chairman, July 28, 2009 – April 25, 2014

Every time I think of Deb I'm like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG_6CopW9GQ

But no, me and Deb weren't like that back then. In fact I didn't even know who headed the NTSB. I was only introduced to her by Shyguy, and that was after she rejected him for Hoss. The incident with the donkey was much later, and fortunately did not result in severe injury.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lstorm2003 (Post 1722305)

Altitude hold was enabled. But then one of the pilots bumped the control column and disconnected only the altitude hold feature. No one noticed. The rest is history.

Yes. Very similar to Aeroflot 593, but that event started with a bit more negligence.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tanker-driver (Post 1721233)

There is new training out there not requiring the use of the chamber. Not sure exactly how it works, but several guys in my unit have done it. I imagine it involves controlled exposure to a low oxygen environment. In any case, some sort of high altitude training should be required for anyone operating a pressurized airplane. Learning to recognize your own symptoms (everyone's are slightly different) to hypoxia is an eye opening experience.

The Navy uses Reduced Oxygen Breathing Device (ROBD) to supplement it's hyperbaric chamber rides done during Aviation Preflight Indoctrination. I went through the Aviation Swim/Physiology refresher last year and the chamber was not part of the syllabus anymore, but ROBD was. Essentially as Rickair pointed out in a previous post, an aviator sits down in the sim with helmet and mask on and the O2 levels are lowered to the mask and replaced with higher concentrations of nitrogen while flying a prescribed profile including comms with ATC.

My $.02: The training is invaluable and reinforces those items learned in the chamber without the categorization of high risk training. At the end of the day for me it was about symptom recognition and understanding how I interpret those while flying. Being hypoxic and knowing you're hypoxic are inherently two different things. If there was a civilian equivalent type of training, I'd highly recommend it to those who have never done any type of chamber ride or practical hypoxia training, it would be money well spent.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FDXLAG (Post 1721720)

Particularly when there are professional pilots who would ham fist the identical situation. There are lesson to be learned and opportunities to improve equipment. Judgements can wait.

Make sure your mask works before you go.

Put your mask on at the first sign of pressurization trouble.

Get down fast...but personally I'd try to coordinate with ATC first unless the cabin was in the 30's. Declaring an emergency will keep you from get violated, but may not keep you from hitting an aircraft below you.

Hope I'm not on your plane. Handle the slightest indication with seriousness and expedite down!

Turn off an airway if you're on one . Plus the other obvious emergency descent stuff. Set 10-15000' in the altitude select. Autopilot on. And you'll wake up at your preselected altitude if your O2 is broken. If time allows, select TCAS to 'below' so you can see traffic. Squawk 7700 and somewhere in there just state "callsign and emergency" after you've flown the plane and navigated.

Just did this in the sim yesterday. Took 4 minutes to get from FL410 to 10000'. And with spoilers deployed and thrust idle, it took 2m15s from the point altitude was captured till we received stick shaker. We had gear warning, stick shaker, and I think something else to wake us up. Then even when it stalled the autopilot had a trimmed airframe and because it was trimmed it had a gentle porpoise and had a 1300fpm descent.

But take these scenarios seriously IMO