Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2021 Oct 1;92(10):773-779. doi: 10.3357/AMHP.5876.2021.
The COVID-19 virus has caused over 582,000 deaths in the United States to date. However, the pandemic has also afflicted the mental health of the population at large in the domains of anxiety and sleep disruption, potentially interfering with cognitive function. From an aviation perspective, safely operating an aircraft requires an airmans cognitive engagement for: 1) situational awareness, 2) spatial orientation, and 3) avionics programming. Since impaired cognitive function could interfere with such tasks, the current study was undertaken to determine if flight safety for a cohort of single engine, piston-powered light airplanes was adversely affected during a period of the pandemic (MarchOctober 2020) prior to U.S. approval of the first COVID-19 vaccine. Airplane accidents were per the National Transportation Safety Board Access database. Fleet times were derived using Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast. Statistics used Poisson distributions, Chi-squared/Fisher, and Mann-Whitney tests. Little difference in accident rate was evident between the pandemic period (MarchOctober 2020) and the preceding (JanuaryFebruary) months (19 and 22 mishaps/100,000 h, respectively). Similarly, a proportional comparison of accidents occurring in 2020 with those for the corresponding months in 2019 failed to show over-representation of mishaps during the pandemic. Although a trend to a higher injury severity (43% vs. 34% serious/fatal injuries) was evident for pandemic-period mishaps, the proportional difference was not statistically significant when referencing the corresponding months in 2019. Surprisingly, using accidents as an outcome, the study herein shows little evidence of diminished flight safety for light aircraft operations during the COVID-19 pandemic. .
截至目前，新冠病毒已导致美国超过 58.2 万人死亡。然而，这场大流行也严重影响了民众的整体心理健康，导致焦虑和睡眠障碍，可能会干扰认知功能。从航空角度来看，安全操作飞机需要飞行员在以下三个方面进行认知投入：1）态势感知，2）空间定向，3）航空电子设备编程。由于认知功能受损可能会干扰这些任务，因此进行了本项研究，以确定在新冠疫苗获得美国批准之前的大流行期间（2020 年 3 月至 10 月），活塞动力单发轻型飞机的飞行安全是否受到影响。飞机事故依据国家运输安全委员会访问数据库。机队时间使用自动相关监视广播得出。统计数据使用泊松分布、卡方/ Fisher 和 Mann-Whitney 检验。大流行期间（2020 年 3 月至 10 月）和之前（1 月至 2 月）的事故发生率差异不大（分别为 19 次和 22 次事故/10 万小时）。同样，将 2020 年发生的事故与 2019 年同期进行比例比较，也没有显示大流行期间事故的过度代表。尽管大流行期间事故的伤害严重程度（43%比 34%严重/致命伤害）呈上升趋势，但与 2019 年同期相比，这一比例差异并无统计学意义。令人惊讶的是，使用事故作为结果，本研究几乎没有证据表明在新冠大流行期间轻型飞机飞行安全性降低。。
