FAA uninterested in pilot heart attacks

[Colonel]

Are Canadians allowed to watch Tucker Carlson?

[Colonel]

No one ever mentions this, but I suspect that every government aviation regulator is sitting on a political time bomb.

I am data driven. We have decades of ECG’s for tens of thousands of pilots, before and after the experimental gene therapy.

Appropriately anonymized, release that huge treasure trove of data for cardiologists to analyze.

It will never happen. A horrible thing has been done, and denial isn’t just a river in Egypt.

[Slick Goodlin]

Sooo… is he back at work like nothing happened? Is that a thing at AA, you have a heart attack and when you feel better go back to work? I guess it felt like that sort of thing takes more follow up than, say, congested sinuses but I’ll admit I’ve never thought about the ramifications of surviving a heart attack.

[Colonel]

I think he said that AA was curiously uninterested in his heart attack, as well.

My how times have changed. Arlo Speer and Jim Pfaff used to lecture me unctuously and endlessly about the need for a pilot to have a perfect heart.

Those days are gone. We are normalizing the deviance of pilots having heart sttacks in the cockpit. I am horrified but everyone else is cool with that, so I will accept this new normal.

If one pilot dying is ok, what happens when both pilots die? When that happens it’s not going to look good, especially if the 9/11 door stops a deadheading company pilot in the back from getting into the cockpit, and everyone dies.

[Slick Goodlin]

I think he said that AA was curiously uninterested in his heart attack, as well.

There’s so much missing from this story though. I’m genuinely curious what happened between heart attack and, “Tucker Carlson needs to know about this.”

the 9/11 door stops a deadheading company pilot in the back from getting into the cockpit

I don’t know why everyone thinks airport security is a joke but the flight deck door is impenetrable. There are designed-in ways to circumvent it (with safeguards) and I’m reasonably certain I could get in the front office of my work plane by creative means if I really had to.

[Squaretail]

Those days are gone. We are normalizing the deviance of pilots having heart attacks in the cockpit. I am horrified but everyone else is cool with that, so I will accept this new normal.

I think there was a push for this log before covid was a thing. I remember reading a few AOPA articles where across the board they were pushing for the FAA to loosen the restrictions on medicals. I think some of this has to do with a push to increase the retirement ages of pilots to retain experienced people. Maybe there's something to that, after all, I'd rather have a guy who knows how to fly up front with a 1% greater chance of having a heart attack, than two guys with athlete level fitness who don't know how to fly worth crap. What if both have a heart attack? First there's probably a higher probability of a bomb being on board, second, that's why you stick young guys with old guys, and third, well that just gives them more excuse to do away with pilots all together.

I'm not sure about you guys, but when I've asked about the ECG/EKG results, the doctors have said that the only indicator that it can give (outside of some rare conditions) is that if you have already had a heart attack, in which case you are somewhat more prone to having another. I can't remember exactly what the increase of chances are, but its substantial. I know of a few guys who had heart attacks (again, prior to covid) less than a month after having a passing ECG at their aviation medical, so I suspect that the ECG's real purpose is to make sure people aren't lying a during the questions of their medical - which to be fair, I've known a fair amount of pilots to do. Which could be a whole topic on its own, the problems that come when seeking medical attention when such attention can be career impacting.

I mean if one is super worried about pilots having heart attacks, well then one should go with Heinlein's theory that all pilots should be women, because statistically they are at a lower chance of having heart attacks (although of course its more complicated than that) something I'm sure Tucker would approve of.

[David MacRay]

I was excited a few years back and declared on the friendface, “I must be healthy.” after getting my Cat 3 renewed.

My buddy chimes in. “That doesn’t mean anything. I had a heart attack leading to bypass surgery three weeks after my last Cat 1.”

At first glance of the two of us, most people would have picked me, the guy who likes food a bit too much.

[Colonel]

One pilot having a heart attack and dying in the cockpit is the new norm, and that's
ok with two pilots.

But you must admit it's going to be pretty bad publicity when we keep rolling the dice
and some day, both pilots die. It's going to happen sooner or later.

Having the guy next to you die must be stressful. Must increase the risk of you having
a heart attack? Unless you really don't like the guy.

[Squaretail]

But you must admit it's going to be pretty bad publicity when we keep rolling the dice
and some day, both pilots die. It's going to happen sooner or later.

Probability-wise, that's always been the case. In fact it was possible for the entire crew of a WWII bomber to all die of heart attacks simultaneously, however unlikely, though I doubt we would know if it occurred, maybe it did in among the thousands of airplanes that have went missing over the years. What is the current probability of a pilot having a heart attack? How much do you feel it has increased? What do you propose to do about it?

I mean if this is your biggest safety concern with pilots right now, aviation must be doing pretty good otherwise in your mind. Personally I think there's a bigger chance of being on board an airplane where the guys up front don't know how to recover from stalls, or don't know how to handle an engine failure than that one or both of them are going to have heart attacks. And if the latter happens, well fuck I'm on board, I'll do something heroic.

[Colonel]

Don’t order the fish