Pilot Incapacitation Training: Detect & Respond (EASA)

Name: Pilot Incapacitation Training: Detect & Respond (EASA) - Online Course
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Pilot Incapacitation Training for Flight Crew

If you are looking for EASA-compliant pilot incapacitation training built for the flight deck — recognition and response, grounded in regulation — you are in the right place.

A modern airliner is designed around two qualified pilots cross-checking each other, either one able to fly the aircraft alone. Pilot incapacitation is the event that removes that redundancy without warning. It is rare, but when it happens the whole margin comes down to whether the fit pilot notices quickly and acts correctly — which is exactly why EASA makes this a mandatory, recurring training subject under ORO.FC.230.

This course covers the full loop in about 30 minutes: understand incapacitation (a sudden degradation of medical fitness in flight), detect it — especially the dangerous subtle form where a pilot looks fine but is not — respond to it, and prevent your own. It teaches the two-communication rule, the take-control sequence, securing the incapacitated pilot with cabin-crew support, declaring the emergency, and managing a calm single-pilot flight to a safe landing under your Operations Manual’s succession of command.

Every procedure is anchored in the EASA framework: ORO.FC.230 and AMC1 ORO.FC.230(c) (incapacitation training), ORO.FC.115 (CRM), ORO.MLR.100 (OM procedures and succession of command), CAT.GEN.MPA.105/.210 (commander and crew), and Reg (EU) 1178/2011 Part-MED, MED.A.020 (personal medical fitness, OML/OSL).

Why Choose Our Pilot Incapacitation Training?

Our pilot incapacitation training is engineered for operating flight crew and is current to the EASA regulatory basis:

Built to ORO.FC.230 – recognising and handling flight crew incapacitation, delivered exactly as AMC1 ORO.FC.230(c) contemplates (classroom / discussion / audio-visual), and structured to sit inside your annual recurrent training.
The dangerous form, taught properly – most crews can spot the obvious collapse; this course drills the subtle, insidious incapacitation that hides behind an upright pilot with hands still on the controls.
A usable detection method – the two-communication rule and a cross-check culture, framed as CRM under ORO.FC.115, plus the cabin crew as your early-warning system.
A rehearsed response order – take control and stabilise, secure the pilot, declare the emergency (MAYDAY / 7700), and manage a single-pilot approach under the OM’s succession of command (ORO.MLR.100).
Prevention that starts with you – your personal fitness-to-fly duty under Part-MED MED.A.020, the IMSAFE self-check, and how OML/OSL limitations already mitigate the risk.
Assessment & certificate – a summative branched scenario (“The Quiet Right Seat”) and a question bank, with a certificate on completion.

Target Audience

This pilot incapacitation training is built for operating flight crew and the crew who share the flight-deck loop with them.

Primary: Operating flight crew (pilots): captains and first officers in multi-pilot CAT operations (with the single-pilot considerations noted where they differ), who must detect a colleague’s incapacitation early, take control decisively, and get the aircraft safely on the ground.
Secondary: Cabin and technical crew, and training/oversight staff: cabin crew who act as the early-warning system and physical assistance in a takeover, plus training captains, TREs/TRIs and post-holders who build and check the procedures against ORO.FC.230 and ORO.MLR.100.

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge

The EASA definition of flight crew incapacitation — a sudden degradation of medical fitness, in flight, that renders a crew member unable to perform their normal duties — and why it is a mandatory recurrent subject under ORO.FC.230.
The distinction between obvious/complete and subtle/partial (insidious) incapacitation, the physiological causes, and why the subtle form is the more dangerous of the two.
Where the procedures live in the regulatory framework — ORO.FC.230 (training), ORO.FC.115 (CRM), ORO.MLR.100 (OM and succession of command), CAT.GEN.MPA.105/.210 (commander and crew) and Part-MED MED.A.020 (medical fitness).

Skill

Apply the two-communication rule and a disciplined cross-check culture to detect incapacitation, including the significant-deviation trigger and the behavioural cues to watch for.
Execute the response sequence in the correct order — take control (“I have control”), stabilise and engage the autopilot, secure and restrain the incapacitated pilot with cabin-crew assistance, and declare a MAYDAY with squawk 7700.
Use the cabin crew as an early-warning and assistance resource under the operator’s Operations Manual procedures (ORO.MLR.100).

Competence

Manage a single-pilot flight to a safe landing — deliberate workload management, read-and-do checklists, unhurried and stabilised (or automatic) approach, with emergency services meeting the aircraft.
Apply the Operations Manual’s succession of command correctly when the incapacitated pilot is the commander (ORO.MLR.100; CAT.GEN.MPA.105).
Discharge the personal fitness-to-fly duty under MED.A.020 — including the meaning of OML/OSL limitations and a daily IMSAFE self-check — so that individual prevention supports the operator’s training and OM obligations.

FAQs

Who should take this pilot incapacitation training course?

It is designed for operating flight crew — pilots in multi-pilot CAT operations — and for the cabin and technical crew and training/oversight staff who share the flight-deck loop. It teaches detection and response, grounded in the EASA framework.

Does this course meet the EASA requirement to train incapacitation?

It is built to support ORO.FC.230 and AMC1 ORO.FC.230(c), which require operators to train flight crew to recognise and handle flight crew incapacitation every year, in a form such as classroom instruction, discussion or audio-visual presentation. Where a flight simulation training device is available, practical incapacitation training is additionally required at intervals not exceeding three years — the operator arranges that separately in the simulator.

What is subtle incapacitation, and why does it matter so much?

Subtle (partial) incapacitation is where a pilot is still upright and appears to be functioning but their performance has degraded — confused, fixated, slow, or quietly doing nothing. It matters most because the affected pilot often cannot judge that anything is wrong, so detection falls entirely to the other pilot and the cabin crew.

What is the two-communication rule?

It is the heuristic at the heart of detection: suspect incapacitation whenever a crew member fails to respond appropriately to two verbal communications, or to any single communication associated with a significant deviation from the normal flight profile. It converts an ambiguous silence into a trigger to act.

What is the correct response if a pilot becomes incapacitated?

Aviate first — take control (“I have control”), stabilise the aircraft and engage the autopilot; then secure the incapacitated pilot as a hazard to the controls, with cabin-crew help; then declare a MAYDAY and squawk 7700; then manage a calm single-pilot flight to a safe landing under the OM’s succession of command (ORO.MLR.100).