Human Factors, mental incapacitation

[TAA Qwerty]

After watching Windsor's vid on Hypoxia, I thought you guys might like to hear about a mental incapacitation incident that occurred to me and just like hypoxia, I didn't even realize it was happening. In fact I didn't know about it until I was thinking about the flight several weeks later and finally pieced together the whole story with the clear view of calm considered hindsight.

 

I had arranged a cross country trip. I was to depart Tassie and fly to Mackay and return, picking up another mate at Yarram on the way north. The excuse for the trip was that there was a slight crackling in my radio and another mate who had installed the radio had moved to Mackay so I thought it would be a good idea to go up there and get him to fix the radio.

 

All the planning was done, the aircraft packed and ready to go. I got up on departure morning with a bit of a headache and not feeling the best, I was OK, just not at my best. No biggy. I got ready had a reasonable breakfast and checked the weather on the computer, high cloud of no consequence and all OK apart from a bit of a breeze, OK it was a 25kn north westerly but again no biggy.

 

I completed an uneventful (in my mind) trip at about 5000 ft from Tassie as far as Hogan Island just south of the Victorian coast. At this time, I was starting to feel a bit crook but nothing serious just the headache was back and I felt a bit doey in the head and didn't feel comfortable. I might have been a bit squeemish in the stomach too, I just didn't feel on top of the world. The weather had become a bit cruddy too. I had to descend to 1500 feet and then 800 feet and dodge around half a dozen rain showers between me and Yarram, the breeze was picking up too, I was punching about a 25 kn head wind and there was a sizable crosswind component, I was looking out the right side of the windscreen to where I was going so there was a reasonable breeze. At least, over the water and the flat area around Yarram the air was at least smooth.

 

I executed a tricky wheeler landing at Yarram with a ground speed of about 10 or 15kn. I managed to half taxi, half slide on the gravel and half fly to the taxiway but there was no way that I was going to turn 90 degrees into the taxiway. At this point I was stopped on the runway with the engine at about half power, the brakes on and the tail in the air. If I reduced power or lowered the tail I was in real danger of becoming airborne, sliding back on the gravel or being blown over backwards. The guy I was there to pick up and another mate came over (both pilots by the way) and grabbed the struts and helped me taxi all the way into an open hangar.

 

Now this was only about 20 minutes after I started to realise that I was feeling a bit crook over Hogan Island and now I was decidedly sick and weak. It was about 3.00 pm, my mate took me to his place and pointed me at a bed where I stayed till the next day. I got up the next day and was fine, we got organised and headed off on our trip. I didn't think much about the flight across Bass Straight till a few weeks later.

 

My take on this is that I was a long way below par when I got out of bed in Tassie before I left. I now know that I did not or was not able to recognise my poor mental state. During the Bass Strait crossing I was under a 15 minute reporting schedule and I missed every single report, Melbourne Centre had to chase me for my scheds. Under normal circumstances I am right on top of all of my flying, I was clearly not functioning properly and worse than that I was not able to recognise that I was not functioning properly.

 

The deteriorating weather, rain dodging and challenging landing was probably what finished me off, I was exhausted. I am sure that I could not have flow for another half an hour and I am horrified at what my reaction times and coordination must have been like. I am now prone to err very much on the side of caution. There is nothing that will push me into flying if I am not dead certain that both me and the aircraft are in a proper and fit state to take to the air.

 

 

[Guest Chainsaw]

Brilliant mate. This applies to more than just flying.

 

 

[winsor68]

Great post Qwerty... This is the sort of information that may save someone's life one day. I guess the tricky part is that mostly the light bulb goes on after events have run their course...

 

 

[TAA Qwerty]

Thanks guys, it was an interesting trip.

 

This occurrence gave me a new perspective on how difficult it is to be objective about your own state of competancy.

 

This is also how people end up driving cars as pissed as parrots. When they get in the car they simply dont realize how drunk they are, its only when they get pulled over or hit something that they stop and think about how pissed they are.