Plane crash today

SkylinesSuck

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It's always disturbing when this happens while we are working. I'll post only what's already on the news as not get myself in trouble, but it's pretty straight forward. Cessna Citation jet got intercepted over DC. Fighter pilots saw the occupants slumped over/passed out almost certainly from hypoxia a la Payne Stewart. They probably ran out of gas and crashed not far outside my airspace which we watched while keeping other planes out of the way. The fighters caused sonic booms going to intercept which got lots of attention. It's just always disturbing.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/washington-dc-area-explosion-sound-caused-military-jet-department-defense

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/lo...e-department-reports-no-incidents-2023-06-04/
 
I'll also say without details when all the freaking out started and before the intercept, my thoughts were in a bad place. I took my sons to the 9/11 memorial at the Pentagon just yesterday after seeing the changing of the guard at Arlington.

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Hope this doesn't come across as insensitive, but how does this happen? Hypoxia is a well understood physiological issue with established means of avoiding it.
 
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Hope this doesn't come across as insensitive, but how does this happen? Hypoxia is a well understood physiological issue with established means of avoiding it.

When it happens slowly (insidious) it's harder to catch and may be too late. One of the symptoms of hypoxia is a sense of euphoria.
 
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Hope this doesn't come across as insensitive, but how does this happen? Hypoxia is a well understood physiological issue with established means of avoiding it.

I did the altitude chamber before my F15 flight specifically to teach you about hypoxia and to identify the signs, but also what to do. If you failed up put your mask back on and turn your oxygen to 100% pressurized, you failed and weren't allowed to fly above a certain altitude which would have meant I couldn't go. They give you a math test to do while you do it to distract you a bit. Even knowing it was coming and watching for signs, your head gets fuzzy and you lose focus on what you know you are supposed to do. Saying you feel drunk doesn't do it justice. One chick had the instructor sitting there yelling at her to put her mask on and push O2. She just stared at him for a while and almost failed. She got it last second though.
 
When it happens slowly (insidious) it's harder to catch and may be too late. One of the symptoms of hypoxia is a sense of euphoria.

I did the altitude chamber before my F15 flight specifically to teach you about hypoxia and to identify the signs, but also what to do. If you failed up put your mask back on and turn your oxygen to 100% pressurized, you failed and weren't allowed to fly above a certain altitude which would have meant I couldn't go. They give you a math test to do while you do it to distract you a bit. Even knowing it was coming and watching for signs, your head gets fuzzy and you lose focus on what you know you are supposed to do. Saying you feel drunk doesn't do it justice. One chick had the instructor sitting there yelling at her to put her mask on and push O2. She just stared at him for a while and almost failed. She got it last second though.

That makes sense as to how it goes that far once it starts, but I was thinking more how they got into conditions to cause hypoxia to begin with. I've never flown but with all the instrumentation they have I would have thought there'd be something to alert the pilot of a problem with cabin pressure and annoy the hell out of him until he descends to whatever is considered safe (I hike at 14k and can think well enough...) well before it became a real problem.

having to root-cause stuff all the time at work is hard to turn off even when its not in my field and I have no skin in the game.
 
Catching the early symptoms is exactly what they teach you to try and do, but definitely easier said than done, especially when your mind is focused on other tasks and you aren't expecting it. But as far as alarms and stuff go, yes, they have those. Why they didn't stop this situation I have no idea. One of my relatives is super high up in the NTSB and I'm sure one of his guys of not he himself are down there right now trying to figure exactly that out.
 
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That makes sense as to how it goes that far once it starts, but I was thinking more how they got into conditions to cause hypoxia to begin with. I've never flown but with all the instrumentation they have I would have thought there'd be something to alert the pilot of a problem with cabin pressure and annoy the hell out of him until he descends to whatever is considered safe (I hike at 14k and can think well enough...) well before it became a real problem.

having to root-cause stuff all the time at work is hard to turn off even when its not in my field and I have no skin in the game.

I can't say for certain if pressurized jets are required to have an alerting system for pressure loss, though they do have gauges to show cabin pressure and pressure differential.

The other possibility is rapid decompression which sucks the air out of your lungs and you only have seconds to put your mask on. However, those events are usually caused by structural damage and may even ice over the windows.

Also from the story, it sounds like only one pilot was on-board which increases the danger of this kind of event.