David Dodds Herald Staff Writer Aviation educators said Monday that events leading up to a Learjet crash that killed professional golfer Payne Stewart and four others near Aberdeen, S.D., were similar to other ill-fated flights in which loss in cabin pressure caused occupants to suffocate before impact. Joe Schock, with UND's John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences, which specializes in high-altitude training, said though he could not be certain what caused the crash, it appeared that a physiological condition called hypoxia played a role in accident. This scenario is similar to other crashes in which loss in cabin pressure went undetected and the crew did not take corrective action.
Hypoxia is a lack of oxygen in the blood.
In an aircraft, Schock said, hypoxia can take hold of a pilot or passenger, when air pressure inside of a plane rises to outside pressure levels. The altitude chamber, he said, is the only one of its kind in the world that trains nonmilitary pilots to react to high-altitude situations. This is possible because aircraft are equipped with pressurization systems that control internal cabin pressure. But when that system fails or there is a leak in the cabin, hypoxia could become a factor, Schock said. As the altitude increases, the air thins, there is less oxygen in the air and there is less pressure to force that oxygen through the lungs and into the blood stream.