Lack of oxygen in cabin might have led to Virginia aircraft crash, consultants say

RICHMOND, Va. — A lack of oxygen is a number one concept for why an unresponsive enterprise jet flew off beam and over the nation’s capital Sunday earlier than it crashed in rural Virginia. But federal investigators are simply starting to search for solutions, and consultants cautioned in opposition to leaping to conclusions.

The Cessna Citation took off from Elizabethton, Tennessee, headed for Long Island’s MacArthur Airport. Once over Long Island, it inexplicably rotated and headed south, flying straight over Washington, D.C. earlier than crashing in Virginia, okay illing the pilot and three passengers.

“By far the most likely suspect is some sort of a pressurization issue,” stated William Waldock, a professor of security science who teaches plane accident investigation at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona.

“It went up to 34,000 feet and basically stayed there – all the way up, all the way back,” Waldock stated. “The turn (away from New York and back south) is a little perplexing. But it kind of depends on what kind of autopilot system the aircraft had.”

The Sunday crash wasn’t the primary time a flight ended up removed from its vacation spot underneath mysterious circumstances.

WHAT IS HYPOXIA?:

Hypoxia is the situation that happens when somebody’s mind is disadvantaged of sufficient oxygen. If untreated, it may be deadly.

In aviation, hypoxia can occur if a non-pressurized aircraft flies above 10,000 toes with out supplemental oxygen or if there’s a fast decompression throughout a flight, or a malfunction of the oxygen or pressurization methods, in response to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Oxygen stress decreases as altitude will increase. It’s the rationale planes are pressurized and why mountaineers carry supplemental oxygen on high-altitude climbs. It’s additionally the rationale flight attendants clarify to passengers methods to use oxygen masks within the unlikely occasion that cabin stress is misplaced throughout a business flight.

THE EFFECTS OF HYPOXIA

“It’s something that happens slowly. It’s almost like you’re getting groggy, and you just can’t, you can’t piece things together. And eventually you lose consciousness,” stated Anthony Brickhouse, a former member of the National Transportation Safety Board who’s now an affiliate professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and director of its Aerospace Forensic Lab in Daytona Beach, Florida.

Waldock, Brickhouse’s colleague in Arizona, added that the pilot would have had about 45 seconds to a minute to placed on an oxygen masks.

“Whatever hit him, hit him fast enough to where the pilot didn’t really have too much time to get on the emergency oxygen system,” Waldock stated. “That type of aircraft usually has a an emergency mask for the pilot, called a pressure-demand mask, that actually force feeds oxygen into your lungs. At 34,000 feet, you really can’t move air volume in and out.”

The fighter jet pilots who caught up with the enterprise jet stated its pilot seemed to be slumped over and unresponsive, in response to two US officers briefed on the matter. The officers weren’t licensed to debate particulars of the navy operation and spoke on situation of anonymity.

The undeniable fact that the pilot could possibly be seen by the home windows might imply that the plane didn’t have a “catastrophic” pressurization failure, Waldock stated. If it had, the inside home windows would have frosted over from rapidly altering stress at 34,000 toes. Plus, there possible would have been different harm to the aircraft, which stored flying.

Brickhouse, the opposite Embry-Riddle professor, stated that plane are sometimes set to fly on autopilot “so if the pilot goes hypoxic or loses consciousness, that aircraft is just going to fly whatever route it was programmed to fly,” he stated.

Brickhouse stated it’s unclear why the aircraft all of the sudden rotated in New York and headed south once more. He stated it’s doable the pilot was disoriented and will have “tried to reprogram a flight computer or something like that.”

“That’s definitely something that investigators will be looking into,” Brickhouse stated.

Flight monitoring websites confirmed the aircraft suffered a fast spiraling descent, dropping at one level at a fee of greater than 30,000 toes (9,144 meters) per minute earlier than crashing within the St. Mary’s Wilderness.

Waldock stated the aircraft possible ran out of gasoline, given its fast descent and the dearth of a really massive fireplace on the crash website.

“There’s quite a few, over the years, pressurization-issue accidents that look very similar to that type of behavior,” he stated.

OTHER CRASHES INVOLVING HYPOXIA:

– One of essentially the most well-known crashes involving hypoxia was the 1999 crash of a Learjet that misplaced cabin stress and flew midway throughout the nation on autopilot earlier than working out of gasoline and crashing in a South Dakota pasture, killing skilled golfer Payne Stewart and 5 others.

– Among a number of theories within the 2014 disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 carrying 239 passengers and crew was a gradual or sudden decompression, inflicting a lack of oxygen, that would have killed everybody on board. If oxygen ranges dropped, a loud, automated warning would have alerted the pilots to placed on their oxygen masks and instantly descend beneath 10,000 toes, the place there may be sufficient oxygen to breathe with out support. But aviation consultants stated in that case the aircraft ought to have stored flying robotically towards Beijing and been seen on radar.

– Greek investigators stated pilots on a Cypriot airliner didn’t notice an automated pressurization system was set to “manual” when a lack of cabin stress and oxygen led to hypoxia and the aircraft’s crash in Greece in 2005, killing all 121 individuals on board.