Two CX Pilots Lose Eyesight When in Charge of Aircraft

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fountainhall

Two CX Pilots Lose Eyesight When in Charge of Aircraft

Post by fountainhall »

This is surely a concern. Two Cathay Pacific captains, both hugely experienced with 25,000+ hours of flying hours and plenty of hours in command, suddenly lost their sight on separate flights. Both passed their last medical checks with the highest ratings.

The captain of an A350 flying from Perth to Hong Kong in February suddenly felt short of breath and said he was losing his sight when flying over Manila. The crew sought help from a doctor on board, while asking the company doctor in Hong Kong for advice. The first officer took command, declared an emergency and landed safely at Hong Kong.

The previous month another captain in charge of a Boeing 777 flight from Sapporo to Hong Kong started losing vision west of Taiwan and again the First Officer took over. Again an emergency was declared and the aircraft cleared for a priority landing in Hong Kong.

A formal enquiry has been set up, but this is expected to take 12 months to deliver its verdict? 12 months? That seems an inordinate amount of time when there have been two similar incidents to apparently healthy pilots in consecutive months. I also wonder why large passenger aircraft which happen to lose their captain to some form of illness are not mandated to land at the nearest airports - in these cases I assume Manila and Taipei.

https://www.bangkokpost.com/news/world/ ... s#cxrecs_s
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