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Symptoms of food intoxication can be felt 90 minutes after eating the poisoned food, as an average. So says my Human Performance book, and it was perfectly verified yesterday. I ate some chocolate with unknown expiry date at 8:30pm, and rushed to the toilets at 10pm… While waiting there for improvements, I asked myself… what if that occurred in flight ?

I don’t want to talk about this particular case, but more generally. What shall I do if experiencing the symptoms of imminent flight incapacitation while in flight, single pilot on board. Here are some food for thoughts on that hot topic…

Make it short
If incapacitation symptoms manifest themselves away from your destination, it seems logical to divert. Depending of the symptoms, a larger airport with medical support can be a better option. Such airports also have better rescue services, shall the landing not as smooth as wished.

Informing ATC of the situation is the best way to get a direct-to clearance to any airport. A MAYDAY call is may be not justified, but medical emergency, or PAN PAN is perfectly relevant. Even when flying VFR to an uncontrolled airport, the FIC can help you and send some rescue and / or medical teams.

If air is smooth and allow for more speed, think of continuous descent. If you don’t need to maintain altitude, the extra-speed can make the difference, and loosing altitude soon enough will make the approach easier to manage. Having to go-around because of a too-high approach would be silly.

Make it easy
Letting the auto-pilot fly the plane under such circumstances is also on top of my check-list. Not only it reduces the workload, but also prevents for bad surprises if the symptoms develop quicker than expected. As long as your bugs are where they’re supposed to be, engaging the autopilot requires to press one or two buttons only.

There are also a couple of before landing checks that you can do: lights on, fuel pump if required, fuel check, and so on. If you’re close to your new destination, envisage getting the drags out, particularly the landing gear. The last thing you need is a belly landing.

Make it safe
If you fly with passengers, it may be time to review safety procedures, or to brief them on basic aircraft handling. A full pinch-hitter course is probably not possible, but you can probably guide your passenger, and possibly make it to the airport. One of the first things is to show them how to transmit on the radio.

Your passenger can fly under your instructions, or simply use the autopilot. If you choose this option, don’t try to make your passenger fly a perfect landing, but aim at a “survivable crash”: slightly higher than usual approach speed to avoid stall, and nose-up attitude to avoid flipping.

Did you think of the precautionary landing option ? If you really think that you won’t be able to fly within the next minutes, and if terrain is favorable, you don’t need long to get back on the ground.

Make it… later
Depending the kind of symptoms that affect you, they can get away rather quickly. Vomiting in flight is not the best experience, but it is certainly a great relief. If you think that the symptoms could diminish, why not fly towards the airport, and then hold in vicinity.

If things get worse, you’ll be in good position for an approach at any time. If your symptoms vanish, you can then land safely.

Lesson learned
The only thing I will keep from my yesterday’s mishap is that it’s good to be well prepared. The 20 minutes I spent thinking of this course of action were not wasted. It’s much easy to prepare for any critical situation without being exposed to stress than improvising when things happen.

Strangely, however, there is a topic on which I did not learned… I still can’t resist chocolate

Read more about in-flight intoxication in my post “Captain’s Dish - Food or Chicken“.