In-flight Oxygen: An Increasing Safety Risk- Flight Safety Foundation Corporate Advisory Committee Oxygen Working Group Report

摘要

Two recent aviation accidents have raised public awareness about aircraft oxygen systems. The ValuJet Flight 592 accident in the Florida Everglades on May 11, 1996, in which all 110 people aboard were killed, highlighted the dangers of transporting oxygen devices aboard passenger aircraft. The Payne Stewart Learjet 35 accident in South Dakota on October 25, 1999, intensified concerns about aircraft life-support systems. Both of these accidents rekindled a number of key questions regarding an appreciation of the hostile environment inherent in air travel. With the advances in aircraft technology and construction over the past 50 years, we seem to have become somewhat complacent in our regard for the precariousness of high-altitude air travel. Indeed, during flight the crew and passengers are encapsulated inside a vessel with a skin measured in millimeters, soaring through air that contains insufficient oxygen for survival. Any breech of that aluminum and Plexiglas skin could be catastrophic. Yet, in flight we presume all the comforts and safety of our own living rooms ― including the presumption of readily available oxygen ― rarely entertaining the notion of a life-threatening accident. One of the most crucial components during any high-altitude flight is the aircraft oxygen system. Proper installation, maintenance, and training of the crewmembers in the use of the onboard oxygen system is vital to counter an oxygen-related emergency, whether that be a sudden loss of cabin pressure or caring for a passenger who has fainted. As increasingly modern and sophisticated aircraft capable of higher altitude flight and greater distances of nonstop travel become available, one must ask if current oxygen systems are sufficient in scope and the training extensive enough to counter the new propensities for in-flight emergencies.