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Comment by i_am_proteus | Hacker News Reader

The two incidents were about four weeks apart.

Would anyone here happen to have information on the base rate of commercial airliners issuing a pan-pan due to one pilot becoming incapacitated?

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Don't know where to find numbers, but searching AvHerald could give you some qualitative feel for it. Definitely happens quite a bit (no wonder, given how many flights there are per day).

http://avherald.com/h?search_term=incapacitated&opt=0&dosear...

EDIT to add: fortunately, p^2 is quite small for small p. And apparently there are rules in place to prevent both pilots having the fish for dinner.

https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/555/is-it-true-...

http://www.traveller.com.au/why-pilots-dont-eat-the-same-mea...

EDIT 2: "More recently, a 2010 Civil Aviation Authority report suggested that between 30 and 50 pilots, operating flights to or from a UK airport, are incapacitated at the controls every year – many because of food poisoning."

(from the last link above)

Seems like it's frequently enough (and my assumption is that flights with different crews are generally pretty independent, and largely independent of airline) that "two incidents on one airline in one month" isn't a glaring-alarm-raising-unlikely event.

PAN-PAN (urgency) is more common in other countries. In the US, pilots typically "declare an emergency" which can be anything from a engine caution message, to a critical emergency, which would justify a MAYDAY call. Sometimes, pilots will upgrade a PAN-PAN to a MAYDAY if their situation gets worse.

One reason for US pilots to only declare an emergency, and not "urgency" is when a pilot requests priority, FAA procedures sometime require Air Traffic Controllers to treat a priority or urgency as an emergency, even if the pilot does not expressly declare the emergency.

Almost all airliners require 2 pilots. Unless they have a relief Captain, or fully qualified jumpseat pilot, they have to declare PAN-PAN (urgency) or emergency, when flown by a single rated pilot. The chief flight attendant (pursor) may assist in the cockpit, and frequently does sit in the cockpit seat, when either pilot uses the bathroom.

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