I’ve got a theory about what happened on Skywest Airlines Flight 5622
There were some awfully mysterious doings on Skywest 5622:
SkyWest Airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration appeared to give conflicting explanations for why three people passed out mid-flight Wednesday, forcing a plane to make an emergency landing.
With nearly 80 passengers on board, SkyWest Airlines Flight 5622 — operating as United Express on behalf of United Airlines — was 40 minutes into its flight from Chicago to Hartford, Connecticut, when a passenger in the middle of the plane began to lose consciousness…
The first passenger who lost consciousness received quick attention from Mary Cunningham, a registered nurse sitting nearby who got up to help. Cunningham said the passenger “was gray, her color looked awful.”
The nurse said after she got the sick passenger some oxygen, the woman became more alert.
“I went back to my seat,” Cunningham told reporters, “and they called me back because the person right behind her passed out.”
But then Cunningham started to feel faint herself. “I started to feel out of breath, so did the flight attendant. Everyone in that section of the flight started to not feel well,” Cunningham said.
The plane had dropped to a lower altitude in case there was a pressurization problem, and it safely made an emergency landing. But the depressurization theory was undermined by the fact that no warning was sounded and the cabin masks didn’t drop as they ordinarily would have. So as of now, everyone is stumped as to what went wrong.
What’s my theory? It’s subject to change if new information comes out, but I think the first person may have fainted for some reason that had nothing to do with the plane, and the rest fell prey to the phenomenon known as mass psychogenic illness, a form of mass hysteria. It’s surprisingly common, and the symptoms the people on the Skywest flight experienced fit the bill. What’s more, it appears (at least from my reading of the article) that all of the sufferers except the first one were aware of at least one other person with symptoms. That’s how mass psychogenic illness works, with the problem spreading by the power of suggestion:
Mass psychogenic illness (MPI), also called mass sociogenic illness or just sociogenic illness, is “the rapid spread of illness signs and symptoms affecting members of a cohesive group, originating from a nervous system disturbance involving excitation, loss or alteration of function, whereby physical complaints that are exhibited unconsciously have no corresponding organic aetiology. MPI is distinct from other collective delusions, also included under the blanket terms of mass hysteria, in that MPI causes symptoms of disease, though there is no organic cause.”
Although symptoms are not limited to females, the majority of sufferers are women. Commonly exhibited symptoms are headache, dizziness and light-headedness, nausea, fatigue, and difficulty breathing, and fainting is not unheard of. Here’s a description of a previous episode:
On the morning of Thursday 7 October 1965, at a girls’ school in Blackburn in England, several girls complained of dizziness. Some fainted. Within a couple of hours, 85 girls from the school were rushed by ambulance to a nearby hospital after fainting. Symptoms included swooning, moaning, chattering of teeth, hyperpnea, and tetany.
Of course, some people would say that even if no physical cause is found, such a cause nevertheless must exist and the mass illness is not psychogenic. I suppose that’s possible in some cases, but I believe the group psychogenic phenomenon definitely exists. One of the hallmarks of these episodes is the pattern of awareness among the people becoming ill, and of course another is that no actual illness is ever discovered (except at times in the very first victim).
The mind is an amazing thing.
Nausea, sweating, shortness of breath? And you’re certain they weren’t listening to Marie Harf explaining why our Iran policy actually makes sense if only one sees it from the proper perspective?
Would this be a function of what I think is called the “mirror neuron” system? If so there may be an interesting contrast: some have theorized that people with autism have poorly developed mirror neuron systems. If that’s so, they would be unlikely to become swept up in this kind of mass hysteria.
Might it be that the airline is saving fuel by pressuring the cabin at a higher altitude?
sorry – pressurising.
Mass psychogenic illness certainly explains how Obama got elected twice.
With Hillary, Warren, and Michelle Obama up for the presidency, I only have one thing to say about this…
That’s sexist!
There’s been some interesting work done lately on diffusion and dispersion of gasses in the atmosphere; the result is that it appears that what you breathe may not be the homogenous mass it was once thought. One researcher used enhanced laser scanning to detect slight shifts in air transmission color, based on the notion that common gasses are definite color when liquefied (liquid O2 is a deep blue, etc). The tests seem to indicate that it’s possible to encounter ‘bubbles’ of unmixed (or low mixed) gas above ground just like you might find in an enclosure. Of course, air turbulence should keep this all mixed, but there’s apparently a currently unknown threshold involved.
The upshot is if you breathe pure Nitrogen for a while (76% of the atmosphere) you could drown.
Mass psychogenic illness
Sad.
It certainly sounds plausible.
My main concern is that the cruise ship lines get wind of this. Carnival and NCL and some others would simply salivate at the thought of explaining away (via MPI) some of their not-too-uncommon mass illnesses on vacation cruises.
Personally, never been on a cruise ship. No interest either.
I was wondering whether neoneocon could ply her abilities to analyze the human psyche on say, the Clintons. What is it that drives them to “feel” above the law, and to operate on the premise that they need not adhere to norms, social standards, much as the rest of us do?
Thanks.
G6loq,
“Sad”? You are being far too kind in describing the reactions, responses, of the “vulnerable” among us who’ve elevated this Bozo.
Come to think of it, were there not many women (very specifically) who fainted during some of his appearances during 2008?
“Someone get this woman some water…”
_______________________________________
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/15/at-obama-rallies-fainting-spells-resurge/?_r=0
_______________________________________
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDBtJBwCNCY
_______________________________________
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/02/obama-fainting-video_n_1732666.html
_______________________________________
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/more-20-people-faint-during-obama-speech_648555.html
______________________________________
Is this why yawns are contagious?
Oliver Sacks should be required reading in high school just to open minds about the mysteries of human perception and behavior.
Those *faintings* in the presence of the ONE mirror what used to happen when Bubba was in office, he d always single out a
person ( a plant), who needed medical attention whenever he was speaking to a crowd, he used to *piss* off his medical entourage of *non working docs* by directing them from the
podium to hot foot it over there & render treatment.
My take was that Clinton considered this some kind of lame
practical joke to show the docs *who’s boss*.
Backofanenvelopefan, not likely that the airlines are setting the cabin at a higher altitude. There is a maximum cabin altitude built into the system, which cannot be changed without serious modifications to the system. An airplane operating at 35,000ft is at its max cabin altitude of about 8,000ft anyway. Besides, the cabin and cockpit crews are breathing the same air as the passengers–unless there is a pressurization failure and the pilots don their masks, which do operate from a separate source of oxygen.
Neo’s theory is interesting. If only three people out of 80 experienced symptoms, the explanation is not obvious. One might imagine a toxic substance inserted in an air conditioning outlet; but, then again to only affect three people? However, I assume, or hope, that the airline will test for the possibility of a foreign substance, like mold, in the cabin air conditioning duct work.
Goupthink is wired in deep.
It’s intensified in women as for females being out of step is extremely hazardous.
In all mammals, females are not tasked with perimeter defense — that’s a male’s tasking.
This is blatant with herding mammals — but is also evident in all primates, too.
What must be realized is that this compulsion comes from far back in our hind-brains. There is no intellectual input involved.
Psychogenic illness is the sanctuary for medical events that cannot currently be explained otherwise. See Freud’s “Anna O” and “hysterical paralysis”, but there were no MRIs until decades later. See peptic ulcer disease and ulcerative colitis, which psychiatrists taught were psychogenic when I was in medical school.
Psychiatric ventures into the explanation of organic, biologic events are remarkable for their failures.
Historically, the Salem witch hunt was probably based on this kind of hysteria epidemic. It was attributed to the workings of witchcraft and demons rather than physical illness.
To Oldflyer. Abt 15 years ago I was on a trans-Atlantic overnight flight. I woke up, feeling breathless. Shortly afterwards, a girl in the next row found her boyfriend had stopped breathing. Luckily for him, there was a doctor and a couple of nurses on board. They stretched him out on several seats and brought him round. I have no idea what is possible on a civilian airliner, but I flew down the back of a Vulcan for six years. Our cabin flew at 10,000 feet and we always had two people on oxygen.
Neo might be correct, indeed she probably is correct, however, as Don Carlos pointed out it is easy to attribute symptoms caused by an unknown physical agent to psychological causes.
Generally psychological explanations are based on the absence of evidence for a physical cause much the same way that miracles are based on the absent of physical causes to explain unusual events. Both mass psychogenic illnesses and miracles probably do occur, however in any particular instance it is extremely tricky to attach that label tn the event.
blert Says:
April 24th, 2015 at 11:06 am
Goupthink is wired in deep….
Goupthink.
Clap,clap, clap!
Oxygen levels in a plane often go lower and it does not take a lot to make people get affected.
it can go lower and not have a leak, and not affect most of them depending on what the subjects that were affected were like medically.
ie. did they smoke and or have COPD?
were they people who had very sedentry lives at sea level?
the level of oxygenation in a plane is not kept at a norm…
Aviation experts say in-depth studies would be needed to determine if the hypoxia at cruise altitude is to blame for the medical emergencies. But doctors atMedAire are suspicious. They say that 21% of the calls they get are for passengers who pass out. Heart and breathing problems accounted for 12% and 11%, respectively.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
There is just as much oxygen in the cabin air at cruising altitude as on the ground, but because the atmospheric pressure is lower than at sea level, it is more difficult for the body to absorb the vital gas. With less pressure, fewer oxygen molecules cross the membranes in the lungs and reach the bloodstream.
The result is a significant drop in the amount of oxygen in the blood – anywhere from 5% to 20% depending on the person, the plane and the length of the flight.
With less oxygen in the bloodstream, the vital organs soon get deprived.
The reduced oxygen supply to the brain is why some suffer headaches while in flight, one of the symptoms of hypoxia. When oxygen levels fall in the brain, the heart tries to compensate by beating harder and faster. Another symptom of hypoxia is fatigue.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
“Many papers report that the rate of in-flight medical emergencies is higher in cases with cardiovascular or cerebrovascular disorders,” says Makoto Matsumura, of the Heart Institute at Saitama Medical School in Japan, who presented new details about the issue at last year’s American Heart Association meeting. “The hypoxia is related to the cabin environment. Therefore, it is important to draw attention to the aged and the patients with hypertension who potentially have a vascular disorder.”
too bad the news hires idiots and malcontents instead of actual journolists of the old stripe… then you would know that this was an ongoing problem for decades not a one off curiousity worthy of long discussions.
as always
its what you dont know that matters today
ignorance is rampant, and incuriosity is the norm
Artfldgr Says:
April 24th, 2015 at 12:16 pm
Yup! I used to fly gliders, procedure was to put on mask when wave flying. Oxygen absorption is a well known problem.
Look for physical causes first. Psychobabble can wait.
Weird. Does a group of presumable strangers, even if all women, only 40 minutes into an ordinary airline flight constitute a “cohesive group”?
What if anything might cause a pocket of altered air in the passenger cabin?
Eric Says: What if anything might cause a pocket of altered air in the passenger cabin?
well, the feminists ARE fighting the war against male farts…
Why farting is a feminist issue
To exhibit any kind of bodily function in public — whether it’s pissing against a wall, spitting in the street, picking and flicking earwax while one waits in a queue — is still seen as a male thing to do.
http://www.newstatesman.com/society/2014/12/why-bodily-functions-are-feminist-issue
““By farting louder the man is using passive aggressive violence to position himself as dominant, this intimidates the woman to subconsciously not release as much flatulence and thus the woman fearing for her safety doesn’t fart as loud as a sign of submissiveness, this in turn contributes to rape culture and women being oppressed.”
“But Ingle argues that it simply isn’t enough, “Don’t tell women to fart louder tell men not to fart so loud” This is clear victim blaming and government should pass laws to make male farts above a certain decibel illegal to make human flatulence equal and not discriminate against women.”
cause women are better than men, and equal too..
and dont forget, failure to hold a door is sexism, holding a door is benevolent sexism…
‘Benevolent sexism’: Men who open doors for women can be as sexist as those who are rude to them, study finds
http://news.nationalpost.com/life/benevolent-sexism-men-who-open-doors-for-women-can-be-as-sexist-as-those-who-are-rude-to-them-study-finds
“While many people are sensitive to sexist verbal offences, they may not readily associate sexism with warmth and friendliness. Unless sexism is understood as having both hostile and benevolent properties, the insidious nature of benevolent sexism will continue to be one of the driving forces behind gender inequality.” Jin Goh, a psychologist from Northeastern University, Boston
last part is good
Speaking as part of HeForShe campaign for gender equality in her role as UN Goodwill Ambassador, Watson said that women should be able to pay for dinners or open the door for a man.
they can, but they dont…
like the early days before feminism when women didnt work, no one asked them if they wanted to work… duh
now they are really happy working… (not)
hilarious…
and feminists ahve not commented yet on
Foreskin Facials: Would You Try One?
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2015/04/23/foreskin-facials-hydrafacial-nyc/
and they call the people they hate tea baggers…
hmmmmm….
there is tons of others, but if i hold my breath for neo to get to them, i would be dead years ago…
Ah yes,in a less PC age this might well be known, broadly, as an attack of the vapours.
I would start with a physical cause that exists in a closed environment which concentrates and isolates factors that expose individual weakness.
Eric:
“Cohesive group” doesn’t mean what you think it does in this context.
It doesn’t mean a club or a family. It means a group of people who have access to each other, usually in one place such as a classroom. Each victim can’t be completely isolated from the other. A group of airplane passengers is perfect, especially if each of the affected people (after the first one) has seen or heard at least one of the others, preferably more. It’s a psychological contagion.
Airplanes are already places where people tend to be somewhat anxious, as well.
happens hundreds of times a year…
but in this case it was reported because the pilot dropped the plane to a lower altitude.. (i was trying to find the stats on it… with so many flying and this being common, not uncommon, they may have them somewhere… )
on another note…
another changer… (sort of)
but this one, as always, changes because her son was caught up in the product of her lifetime efforts and then she doesnt get it
A reading on Judith Grossman, some updates, and my opinionated self…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POa20i8Cm_E
will the change be complete? who knows..
maybe we will find out later.
i return you to the thread in progress…
g6loq:
I think I made it clear that they looked first for things wrong with the airplane. Of course you’d look for physical causes first. And they should continue to look.
It’s not “psychobabble” when it’s a known and not uncommon phenomenon that could explain the symptoms in the absence of physical causes. I also added that my theory was subject to the uncovering of new information that would negate it. But I have a hunch my theory is correct, although I certainly would revise it if new information comes up, and I certainly don’t think they should stop looking for physical causes.
Correction.. susan died before she could come around, and now her son is on his own… my bad.. i forgot i read her obituary…
and i agree on the point of psychobabble…
in this case, what neo put up is something real
does it apply? maybe… does what i say apply? maybe
could both be in play? definitely…
the point here is that SOME psychological stuff is good, some of it is horrid… and a lot of it now today is advocacy dressed up as medicine.. just as AGW is politics dressed up as science…
in a way, the feminists remolding of psychology has made it even worse for the business than it was before, and marginalized it more…
after all, in what ways does the public mostly deal with this psychology stuff? barring a family member who needs treatment and finds a good doctor, the publics majority view is things like watching dad when he visits his kids in a divorce… gender studies programs where men have to wear womens heels and walk, or other things… studies courses… violence prevention classes, etc..
they rarely get to see the non political advocacy non crazy side of it… but then again, the industry failed to police their own and keep normalized wackos out of it, and now they dominate, and that has resulted in the idea of not bothering with that whole area as what it contains is not worth anything.
only takes a bit of dirt to change pure to impure..
but note… most eminist wacko stuff in the press is backed up by some assertion of psychology backing it up!!!
Feminist psychology is a form of psychology centered on social structures and gender. Feminist psychology critiques historical psychological research as done from a male perspective with the view that males are the norm Feminist psychology is oriented on the values and principles of feminism. It incorporates gender and the ways women are affected by issues resulting from it.
Gender issues can include the way people identify their gender (male, female, genderqueer; transgender or cisgender), how they have been affected by societal structures related to gender (gender hierarchy), the role of gender in the individual’s life (such as stereotypical gender roles), and any other gender related issues. The objective behind this field of study is to understand the individual within the larger social and political aspects of society. Feminist psychology puts a strong emphasis on women’s rights.
given that the majority construct of this is navel gazing, and bs, and gender hate, and so on… is it any wonder that the public thinks that most of the whole domain is tainted?
heck… it got so bad that the best thinkers abandoned a lot of it and moved to evolutionary psychology, and the war there was started too.
“Yesterday’s mental illness is today’s social policy.”
– Kathy Shaidle, “Feminism’s Rotting Corpse,” 2012
http://theothermccain.com/2014/08/25/sex-trouble-feminism-mental-illness-and-the-pathetic-daughters-of-misfortune/
or maybe i have the wrong grossman..
anyway… who cares and what difference does it make?
ha!
🙂
It’s a bit unsettling to think that people like the nurse and the flight attendant who are trained to handle emergencies might also be susceptible to group hysteria.
Though they’re not quite the same thing as what may have happened in this case, or what happened in Salem, mass hysterias are common phenomena. There is usually one going on at any given moment. Currently, there are two ongoing ones: rape on campus and fear of harm coming to “free range” children.
Group hysteria in the air…
Total complacency over mullahs and atomics.
&&&&&&
Seventy-years of international co-operation to thwart the unlimited expansion of atomic weapons —
until
Ayatollah Soetoro.
Over night, the MSM is totally fine with atomic break out among the strangest political regimes ever known to history.
In many ways, the Twelvers of Tehran have no priors.
We HAVE marched off a cliff.
I was taught that when the herd stampedes go in the opposite direction. I hold that same philosophy today and ingrained it it my children. Never run with the herd because the herd is emotional, not rational. While females tend to lean towards the emotional side, if they trust the males in their lives, they listen to the rational side. And, males who are 51% emotional are as useless as nipples on a boar.
parker Says:
April 24th, 2015 at 4:47 pm
And, males who are 51% emotional are as useless as nipples on a boar….
Yup!
“Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn’t even be there,
eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters,
and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle.
Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back.” – Heraclitus
Parker:
That’s great, very worth remembering. But sounds like it was said rather more recently than by Heraclitus. Unless of course the translation is “modern.”
neo-neocon Says:
April 24th, 2015 at 2:07 pm
g6loq:
I think I made it clear that they looked first for things wrong with the airplane…
Yes Neo you did. Methinks hysteria requires more than a handful of subjects to arise .
There is such a thing as hysteria, I’ve seen it.
There is also such a thing as psycho babble, I’ve heard it. 🙂
G6loq:
Three people on the plane passed out or came close to it, and the registered nurse Mary Cunningham is quoted as saying, “Everyone in that section of the flight started to not feel well,”
You write “Methinks hysteria requires more than a handful of subjects to arise .” I have no idea what you mean by “handful,” and I have no idea where you get you information about the requirements for hysteria, but I think it’s fairly clear that the number of people described in this plane incident is quite consistent with the phenomenon of mass psychogenic illness. The group involved does not have to be huge.
You are absolutely correct. The index case was the only non-psychogenic illness. Probably someone with an underlying heart-lung condition or other illness that could not tolerate the cabin altitude. Easily and effectively treated with supplemental oxygen.
The nurse is the key. She is an extremely sympathetic character: competent, caring, compassionate and entirely in-charge. Mass hysteria tends to spread from the alpha on downwards, and she was a most compelling alpha. When she became affected, other susceptible people likely followed the subconscious logic, “if she’s affected, then what chance do I have?”
They telltale here are that none of the passengers was hospitalized. It takes an extremely serious metabolic derangement to make a human lose consciousness. Any true LOC for unknown reasons demands careful medical follow-up, and yet none of the passengers received this. Meaning that they were so well upon landing that they could credibly refuse such investigation.
Vague systemic symptoms affecting an isolated group who all came into contact with the index case, whose symptoms only appeared after they became aware of the index, and whose symptoms vanished entirely with no medical sequelae, this can only be one thing: mass psychogenic illness.
Any toxin or contaminant potent enough to induce unconsciousness would certainly be detectable, either absorbed into the organics in the cabin, or in blood levels in the passengers.
Loss of cabin pressure would not be localized, so there is no way that could be the cause here where only a small group in close proximity to one another were affected.
I guarantee that if some old, balding, paunchy doctor with a gruff and gritty manner had attended to the index case, there would have been no incident. You can’t be affected by sympathetic symptoms without a sympathetic character.
The nurse is an archetype. Maybe she should run for president.
The nurse is an archetype. Maybe she should run for president….
Them womyn … paging Artfldgr!
The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
The flight attendant, trained in the handling of acute events, wherein objectivity is required, was afflicted also. What is not said in Neo’s quotes is whether the FA was female or male. Remember the word “hysteria”; it denotes a uterus!
I recommend the reading of Theodore Dalrymple’s new book, “Admirable Evasions”, an indictment of much of psychology.
Mass psychogenic illness wil perhapsl be like autism. Dalrymple points out that functional disorders are perhaps so much more prevalent now, precisely because of (and caused by) publicity.
I was on that Flight. I would like everyone to know that a lot of people, Male AND Female, were having the same symptoms. Myself included. 17 of us were treated by Medical personal with Oxygen when we debarked.