Accident Report: Mysterious headaches

One very cold winter morning a couple of years ago, I woke up with a bad headache. Once I was up and about, the headache cleared up, and when no other symptoms developed, I went about my business and forgot about it.

Then it happened again. As with the first time, the headache disappeared once I was up, and I was relieved not to have come down with a cold or the flu.

I don’t recall exactly when it occurred to me that I might have experienced carbon monoxide poisoning, but once I began to weigh the evidence, it was difficult to find a better explanation.

I live in a small one-story house that I heat with an ancient oil-fired furnace and a wood-burning stove. For many years my winter routine has been to heat the house with wood during the day and give it a good load of dry wood at bedtime. Overnight, when the wood burns down and the house begins to chill, the thermostat clicks in, firing up the oil furnace. In the morning, I turn down the thermostat and go out in the fresh air to fetch more firewood, and the cycle begins again.

The morning headaches had never occurred before. Had something changed within my domestic environment? I concluded something had.

For one thing, the old oil furnace no longer burned efficiently. For another, I had gone around the house industriously sealing up leaks and drafts in a long-postponed energy-saving crusade. Perhaps I did that job too well; perhaps the extremely cold nights that ended with headaches had made the old oil burner work extra hard.

I shared my theory with a physician friend, who was quick to agree that one could not discount the possibility I had suffered some degree of carbon monoxide poisoning. Since then I have placed carbon monoxide alarms in the bedrooms, replaced the burner on the furnace, and eased off plugging every leak and draft. There have been no more headaches.

At around the same time I was setting up my new anti-carbon-monoxide technology, the pilot of a Mooney M20C with a headache lost consciousness and came to on the ground in Ellendale, Minnesota, on February 2, 2017. His airplane had flown along until it ran out of fuel, and then crashed in an open field. The National Transportation Safety Board’s accident report said the pilot had used the aircraft heater throughout the day’s three flights. He reported “a headache and experiencing ‘butterflies’ in his stomach” near the end of the first flight. The aircraft did not have a carbon monoxide detector.

He felt fine during the next flight, but “the headache returned after he landed.” Before the third flight, he “started the engine and sat in the airplane while he filed his flight plan and got organized for the flight. The pilot added that, while taxiing to the runway, he still had the headache, and he experienced another episode of “butterflies.’” Symptoms “were more intense at that time than they had been in the morning but they subsided by time he reached the runway, and he felt ‘good’ but became ‘hyperfocused.’

“He performed an engine run-up and repeated the takeoff checklist three or four times until the controller asked if he was ready to take off, which ‘snapped’ him out of repeating the takeoff checklist,” the report said. The last thing the pilot remembered after takeoff was being cleared to 6,000 feet and a 240-degree heading.

The investigation was augmented by testing done on the pilot’s carbon monoxide levels several hours after the mishap.

The NTSB concluded that the accident’s probable cause was “the pilot’s incapacitation from carbon monoxide poisoning in flight due to cracks in the exhaust muffler, which resulted in the airplane’s continued flight until it ran out of fuel and its subsequent collision with terrain.”

Just my opinion, but I think I was lucky, the Mooney pilot was luckier, and if any of this serves as a safety alert for you—in the air or on the ground—so much the better.

BOOM!

How to handle a bird strike

By Jill W. Tallman

You’ll hear it before you see it: a sound like an explosion. Perhaps a lot of noise in the cockpit as air enters the window through a hole that wasn’t there a second ago. Most bird strikes result in little or no damage to an aircraft. If your trainer collides with a larger bird—a goose or a seagull—the damage could be much more violent, particularly if the bird comes through the windscreen.

Scenario: You’re flying VFR in a Cessna 172 along the Delaware coast, following the Atlantic shoreline up to New Jersey. It’s a wonderful fall morning, and you can already taste the pancakes at your destination. Boom! Something—you’re not sure what—has hit the airplane, although you don’t realize it at first. All you hear is an explosion, and then a lot of noise. The glareshield is broken. Air rushes into the cockpit.

Immediate action: Fly the airplane. Check gauges to see if the engine is functioning properly. Head for the nearest airport.

Follow-up: If possible, squawk 7700. The noise in the cockpit may mean you can’t hear the radio, but you can still make calls. Is the airfoil damaged? This could increase stall speed and decrease maneuverability. Land as soon as possible.

After landing: Call your flight school or FBO if renting an aircraft. Do not attempt to fly the damaged airplane. Report the bird strike to the FAA . File an Aviation Safety Reporting System electronic report.