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I think I lost a friend the other day. Why? Well, communications between people, in the best of worlds, is a problem at best. At worst, it causes considerable emotional upheaval; this, if it results in some kind of personal loss, leads in turn to many things—loss of appetite, withdrawing into oneself, a fear that anything one does will cause problems, and it’s possible that it may degrade physical skills and interfere with rational decision making. Amazing but true.
While the particulars in this instance aren’t important to anyone else, what this did get me to thinking about is how it affected me both in the cockpit and how I do my job as an examiner. Among other things, I found myself to be much more irritable when driving around town, less tolerant of what those other idiots on the road were doing … there, see what I mean? Where this is going is that emotions can play the devil with your daily life, much more than you might expect.
Pilots in particular must be aware of their physical and emotional states before strapping on an aircraft. Accident statistics show that pilots should be conducting preflight checklists on themselves as well as their aircraft—pilot impairment contributes to many more accidents than failures of aircraft systems. Those in a better position to know about these things than I am have devised a personal self-assessment checklist. The acronym is “I’M SAFE.” Let’s take a look at each of the items (see the AIM Safety of Flight section for further information).
· ILLNESS:
Even minor illnesses suffered in day-to-day living can seriously degrade performance of those aviating tasks essential for a safe flight. An illness can have fever and other distracting symptoms that get in the way of judgment, memory, alertness, and your ability to calculate; your mind is preoccupied by how miserable you feel! Even though those symptoms might be controlled with some medication, the medication itself may decrease your performance. The best rule is not to fly while suffering from any illness. Should this rule be considered too stringent for a particular situation, contact your friendly Aviation Medical Examiner.
· MEDICATION:
Not only can the illness itself cause problems, but also your performance as a pilot can be seriously degraded by both prescribed and over the counter medications. Many medications, such as strong pain relievers, cough suppressants, decongestants, tranquilizers, and sedatives, have major side effects that can impair a pilot’s judgment, memory, alertness, coordination, vision, and the ability calculate. Other medications, such as antihistamines, blood pressure drugs, muscle relaxants, diarrhea control agents, and motion sickness drugs, have side effects that can affect the same things. Any nervous system depressant, such as sedatives, tranquilizers, or antihistamines, can also make pilots much more susceptible to hypoxia.
The regulations prohibit pilots from performing required crewmember duties while using any medication—over-the-counter or prescription—that adversely affects their faculties in any way contrary to safety. The safest rule is not to fly as a crewmember while taking any medication, unless approved to do so by an AME. Remember, too, that the regulations prohibit a pilot who possesses a current medical certificate from performing crewmember duties while that pilot has a known medical condition or increase of a known medical condition that would make the pilot unable to meet the standards for the medical certificate:
§61.53 Operations During Medical Deficiency: No person may act as pilot in command, or in any other capacity as a required pilot flight crewmember while he has a known medical deficiency, or increase of a known medical deficiency, that would make him unable to meet the requirements for his current medical certificate.
· STRESS:
Stress from the pressures of everyday living can impair pilot performance, often in very subtle ways. Difficulties, especially at work or at home, can occupy one’s thought processes enough to markedly decrease one’s alertness. Distraction can interfere with judgment so much that one may take unwarranted risks, such as flying into deteriorating weather conditions to keep on schedule. Stress and fatigue (see below) together can be extremely hazardous. Most pilots don’t leave stress “on the ground.” Therefore, when more than usual difficulties are being experienced, a pilot should consider delaying flight until they are resolved.
· ALCOHOL:
Ongoing research has given us more knowledge about the hazards of consuming alcohol and then flying. As little as one ounce of liquor (a shot glass), one bottle of beer, or four ounces of wine (one glass) can impair flying skills, with the alcohol consumed in these drinks being detectable in the breath and blood for at least 3 hours. Even after the body completely metabolizes a moderate amount of alcohol, a pilot can still be severely impaired for many more hours by hangover, mild or otherwise. There’s just no way to increase the rate that alcohol is metabolized or to alleviate a hangover; you can fix the symptoms but not the impairment. Alcohol also makes a pilot much more susceptible to spatial disorientation and hypoxia.
A consistently high alcohol-related fatal aircraft accident rate should be a signal to us that alcohol and flying are a potentially lethal combination. The regulations prohibit pilots from performing crewmember duties within 8 hours after drinking any alcoholic beverage or while under the influence of alcohol. However, remember that due to the slow rate that alcohol’s metabolized, a pilot may still be under influence far more than 8 hours after drinking. Therefore, an excellent rule to follow is to allow at least 12 to 24 hours between “bottle and throttle,” depending on the amount of adult beverage consumed.
· FATIGUE:
Fatigue is still one of the most treacherous hazards to flight safety, since a pilot might not notice it until he makes some serious errors (it’s sneaky that way). Fatigue is best described as either acute (short term) or chronic (long term).
Acute fatigue is a normal occurrence of day-to-day living, the tiredness you feel after long periods of physical or mental strain, including strenuous muscular effort, immobility, heavy mental workload, strong emotional pressure, monotony, and sleep deprivation. As a result, coordination and alertness, so vital to safe pilot performance, are reduced. One prevents acute fatigue by getting enough rest as well as by exercising regularly and eating properly.
Chronic fatigue happens when one’s body hasn’t had enough time for a full recovery between episodes of acute fatigue. A pilot’s performance will continue to degrade and judgment becomes so impaired that he might take risks he might not otherwise take. For someone to recover from chronic fatigue requires an extended rest period.
· EMOTION:
Certainly, we all know that emotionally upsetting events, which include serious arguments, death of a family member, separation or divorce, loss of job, financial catastrophe, or — as in my case — losing a friend, can render a pilot unable to fly an aircraft safely. Anger, depression, and anxiety from such events not only decrease alertness but also may lead to taking risks that border on self-destruction. Any pilot who experiences an emotionally upsetting event should not fly until satisfactorily recovered from it.
In my case, I had a weekend during which I didn’t have to fly to recover from my upsetting experience. However, I did notice that how I related to everyone else took a beating! Be glad you weren’t an applicant coming to see me: my bite would have been as bad as my bark!
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Aviation Training