Anemia and airline flight duties

This investigation developed and provides guidelines for the determination and medical release of flight crew members for duty with hemoglobin values less than normal. This dilemma occurs commonly to the flight surgeon following blood donation, resolved hemorrhagic disorders, chronic idiopathic blood disorders, and pregnancy. Minimum safe values were computed and tabulated for otherwise healthy individuals at rest and exercise at the routine extremes of the flight environment of present pressurized jet airliners from known physiological parameters. These values were then correlated with the records of 62 pilots and stewardesses with subnormal hemoglobin values to assure the opertional predictive validity.