Originally Posted by
chrisl137
Airlines should have a policy on cabin temperatures and durations. If you're running group activities outdoors or guiding, both heat and cold injuries are entirely preventable by the people running the activity. They come on slowly and give lots of signs before they become emergencies. If they become an emergency, it's because nobody was paying attention to those signs. Airlines should have policies on cabin temperature, and ground/gate crews in places where it can easily stay at hazardous temperatures for extended periods should get training. It's the kind of thing that can even be coded into operations because most of the causes are measurable and predictable. The airline is essentially completely in control of the environment that passengers are exposed to and if that becomes a hazard it's on them.
The aircraft manufacturer does. They've got thermal models that they've run for what's going to happen inside and outside the aircraft for all ranges of extreme conditions. The only ones you normally see as a pilot may be the ones related to flight performance, but they have them for everything. They may not have run dynamic models of cabin temperature when they were manufactured, particularly on older aircraft like a 757, but it may have been done some time later, and they certainly could publish curves of cabin temp vs. exterior environment, pax load, and available cooling capacity. They can give you what you need to create an effective policy.
I agree.
I'm tired of the "this is too difficult to do" excuses from companies where human safety is at play. It's not too difficult. "It'll take an hour to find an open gate." It's pure nonsense. Planes are pushing back all the time, and while sure - another plane may be coming into that spot, if there is a medical condition on the plane that has been grounded for 2 hours, the other plane can wait 20-30 minutes (or, 😱 just find another gate). It cannot possibly be that difficult. BTW - I'm not at all intending to disagree with or dispute the posters who have said "this is how it works - and it would take an hour." I believe them that that is actually how it works. But someone is going to die at some point because a captain isn't able to get a gate opened and airline, airport, and government officials are going to be running around saying "we are sorry for the unavoidable tragedy, we never thought we would have a need for a plane to urgently get to a gate, so we never implemented processes for that emergency situation."
With respect to the indicators though, for heat related illnesses most indicators will require looking at relatively closely or communicating with someone. This is not something that flight crews do. It's a lot different than, say, a football practice, because coaches can see when people are moving weirdly. Other players are looking into each others' eyes and talking to each other. It's a much different environment than sitting on a plane facing forward.