This made me think on this recent event:
“ Stowaway found in South Africa plane wheel at Amsterdam airport”[1]
Amazing to survive without oxygen and probably not decent clothes at that altitude for that long.
“ Stowaway found in South Africa plane wheel at Amsterdam airport”[1]
Amazing to survive without oxygen and probably not decent clothes at that altitude for that long.
There is thinking that those oxygen masks should be removed from planes. They have likely never saved a life, but they have caused at least one crash after the oxygen generators ignited.
The main point of the oxygen masks though is primarily to keep all passengers alert and ready as it is essential that at all times an evacuation can be performed in under 90 seconds. When the passengers are not able to reason correctly due to hypoxia, that's effectively impossible. This is what could kill you and your fellow passengers if you fail to put on your oxygen mask in a pressurization failure incident.
Which incident are you referring to with the oxygen generators igniting? Not this one I hope?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ValuJet_Airlines_Flight_592
> However, the NTSB quickly determined that just before takeoff, 144[15] expired chemical oxygen generators, each slightly larger than the size of a tennis ball can, had been placed in the cargo compartment in five boxes marked COMAT (company material) by ValuJet's maintenance contractor, SabreTech, in violation of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations forbidding the transport of hazardous materials in passenger aircraft cargo holds.
Because that's not exactly the fault of the ones that were installed on the plane itself.
Well, I certainly didn't. In training (military) I did a pressure chamber day with 33,000ft breathing (lots of fun, do it if you ever get the chance). They took us to 12,000 in a big chamber and then fed us a reduced oxygen via masks to simulate 33,000ft. After about a minute I certainly felt effects, but I was very much awake long long after 15 seconds. I was playing solitaire on an iPad thing. After everyone noticed their personal symptoms they switched us over to pure O2. Some experienced tunnel vision and such. All I ever felt was as slight headache and that I was doing worse at the ipad game. I was awake enough to remember the Sargent who walked up and down the chamber looking us in the eye to see if we were awake. He was scary.
Also, in this thread, I think you all know this, but wanted to make sure - a chemical oxygen generator "burns" to produce oxygen. The exothermic reaction is started with a small explosive; burning means its producing oxygen. Of course, in the 592 crash, they weren't properly packed with heat shielding, so catching other things on fire (plus the excess oxygen) was the cause of the crash. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_oxygen_generator
It would make more sense to determine why the incident occurred and modify the design of the oxygen generators to avoid that scenario in the future, which is what I assumed happened.
You can easily hold your breath or stay underwater for longer than 15 seconds.
While they were climnbing they gradually lost consciousness. One of the non flight crew ended up being the only conscious person on board. When his air ran out, he lost consciousness.
The flight ended when all kerosine was used, by flying into a hillside.
The lack of oxygen for a long period though can have severe consequences or even kill someone.
That is at least in the mountain where you need more oxygen as you are moving but staying few hours in any condition at 30-40k feet still does seem a problem to me.
https://climbtallpeaks.com/how-high-can-you-climb-before-you...
SmarterEveryDay did a good video about hypoxia training that demonstrates the very rapid onset and severe effects of hypoxia at cruising altitudes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUfF2MTnqAw