Double Segment Prescription Bifocal Safety Glasses

[Packard]

This only applies to a very small segment of the population, but there is a risk with LASIK that is not well publicized. 

At high altitudes, the LASIK seams can fracture.  This first came to my attention in the 1980s when a failed ascent up Mount Everest lead to several deaths.  One of the climbers had LASIK and went from 20/20 to effectively blind at 26,000 feet.

This would seem like a one in a million fluke, but the risk is was far greater. (I just googled the requirements for vision for commercial pilots.  It has been changed from “un-corrected 20/20” to “either corrected or I corrected.). The FAA almost has it right.

If a pilot with LASIK correction is flying at above 20,000 feet and there is a loss of cabin pressure, that pilot will become effectively blind.

The FAA’s change in rules made the LASIK surgery unnecessary for a pilot to keep his job.  What they should have added that LASIK surgery should be a disqualification.

I wonder what the odds of both the pilot and copilot having LASIK surgery and there is a loss of cabin pressure at cruising elevation.

A long shot, probably.  But one that the FAA should address anyhow.

I could believe that if the surgery was fairly recent, but there is no way that 20 year old "seams" could open up. It's not like a "disc" being sewn over a hole and only connected at the edges. That entire "flap" heals and becomes one again. It's more like a patch on an innertube.

This article cites the same Everest expedition that I read about.  It blames the lower oxygen availability at elevation over the lower barometric pressure.    In real life these conditions are almost always linked so I don’t see the distinction is reality-based.
https://www.aaojournal.org/article/S0161-6420(00)00276-1/fulltext

Some other articles put forth the same idea that you have: More time after the surgery would have prevented the problem.  However none of the other sites list any data to back up their conclusions. 

In any event, my worry about pilots is not addressed. If a commercial airline pilot gets LASIK surgery, they would need to not fly aircraft for the suggested X months after surgery. 

I don’t know how they would come up with the value for “X” though.  And I don’t believe that pilots are required to divulge that they have had LASIK surgery.

 

[Charles959]

A new development in this field, in the annual Gear Patrol round-up:

47. The world’s first RX-integrated shield lens