Flyers' Ailments

If an airline passenger becomes sick during flight, his problems can often be solved by a stewardess with a plastic bag. If a pilot becomes ill, the result can be disastrous. Eighty-one died when a pilot suffered a heart attack while landing at Ardmore, Okla., in 1966; on at least 17 other occasions in the past ten years, air-crew illness has been responsible for harmless, though potentially serious mishaps and near misses. To minimize the possibility of airborne illness, the Federal Aviation Administration requires all U.S. command pilots to undergo regular physical examinations every six months. Few doubt that the examinations, which include annual electrocardiograms for all pilots over 40, are necessary. But a growing number of doctors and FAA officials now question if they are stringent enough.

At a recent meeting on aviation medicine in Nice, France, Dr. Alois Sauer, a West German physician who does overseas examinations for the FAA, reported that he had put 804 U.S. and German pilots through voluntary checkups stricter than those the FAA requires. Over a period of eight years, Dr. Sauer's examinations revealed that at least 50 pilots, nearly all of them Americans who fly charter planes, had diseases that could have made them unfit to fly. Some had serious cardiovascular disorders which might not have shown up in FAA exams. Other problems discovered included diabetes, liver ailments, syphilis, tuberculosis, paratyphoid fever and kidney disease. Several had two or more maladies.

Blind Spots. Sauer's was not the only alarm sounded at the meeting. United Airlines reported that in three years of monitoring 175 pilots for symptoms of hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar, they discovered that 20% showed some tendency toward the condition. Two of these pilots had such attendant symptoms as visual impairment, dizziness and sweating. Hypoglycemia, however, is easily controlled. Indeed, none of the pilots with hypoglycemic tendencies had to be grounded as a result of their condition; their blood sugar counts were stabilized with special diets.

Most of the country's major airlines subject their pilots to examinations with more rigorous standards than the FAA'S. American Airlines' testing includes brain-wave monitoring and screening for "prediabetic" and heart problems. Pan American, Trans-World Airlines and United are similarly strict. The Mayo Clinic includes extensive psychological testing in its preemployment examinations of Northwest Airlines pilots. The pilots' contracts with the companies expressly prohibit any information gained through the airlines' medical tests from being passed on to the FAA.

All flyers may soon be subjected to more stringent testing, however, for the FAA is now considering requiring some of the checks Sauer incorporated into his study. One of them is the Master "two-step" test designed to measure how the heart reacts to the physical stress of repeatedly ascending and descending two steps in the testing room. Although such tests have become routine additions to many physical examinations, the Air Line Pilots Association, which represents 31,000 pilots, objects to the proposal. One of its arguments is that the two-step test could produce misleading results. In fact, ALPA has even made plans to strike the airlines if such testing is made part of the FAA physical.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.