How does a captain dislocate his shoulder during a flight? However it happened, it caused so much pain that a flight bound from England to Morocco was forced to divert to Portugal.
Captain Dislocates Shoulder, Forcing Emengecy Landing
An EasyJet flight, EY-2213, traveling from London (LTN) to Agadir (AGA) was forced to divert to Faro (FAO) on April 10th after the captain dislocated his shoulder in the flight deck. The first officer requested an emergency landing after the captain was no longer able to perform his in-flight duties. Initially, the first officer simply told Air Traffic Control that the captain was incapacitated. It was a Faro Airport spokesperson who confirmed that the captain suffered from a dislocated shoulder.
Passengers were taken to a hotel for the night and the flight continued the following morning to Agadir with a replacement crew.
So how did that happen onboard?
I suppose there are a number of explanations that are not sinister. Maybe while reaching up to flip some switches, the shoulder dislocated. Perhaps while turning back to reach something. But it does seem a bit strange that a shoulder would dislocate during the flight. It’s not like this happened prior to the flight when he was stowing a bag and may have picked it up in an awkward fashion.
An EasyJet spokesperson offered no clarification:
EasyJet can confirm that flight EZY2213 from Luton to Agadir on 10 April diverted to Faro due to the Captain requiring medical assistance. The First Officer landed the aircraft in line with standard operating procedures and the Captain was met by paramedics on arrival.
Unfortunately, the diversion meant the crew reached their maximum legal operating hours and so the flight was delayed overnight and departed the following day. easyJet did everything possible to minimise the disruption for our passengers, providing hotel rooms and meals where required.
The safety and wellbeing of our passengers and crew is always easyJet’s highest priority. Whilst this was outside of our control, we would like to apologise to customers for the inconvenience caused and thank them for their patience and understanding.
CONCLUSION
I’m perplexed as to how this could have occurred. While there are many potential explanations, have you ever heard of a pilot dislocating his shoulder while supposedly sitting in the cockpit?
image: Catch Me If You Can
Back in the day of heavy paper manuals and maps, my dad tore is rotar cuff pulling his flight back out of the locker at the end of a trip. Total fluke accident, ended up out of work for nearly a year all because of a heavy bag.
I have an acquaintance that dislocated his shoulder at an airport. He said he swung his briefcase, which he said was not heavy, on the ticket counter and BAM, owwwwww / dislocated.
Giving that there are millions of flights every decade, it is not surprising that it happens rarely.
As a whitewater kayaker it’s the single most common injury on the river. While it typically occurs after some sort of traumatic force or awkward rotation I have also seen it happen with just a simple movement, like rolling back upright, often to someone who already has a propensity for easily dislocating it. Seeing friends experience this on a river I can assure you from the agony they display that it is intense and painful. We have two techniques we use in wilderness rescue should we be more than an hour away from EMT assistance (which is often) however, you want to be careful not to make it worse. Each technique is low stress and gives the person a chance to see if it can easily pop back into place without making it worse. Sometimes it works. Sometimes not. It’s a difficult decision how aggressive to be as the pain can be intense and the longer it’s dislocated it can cause nerve damage. Interestingly, if you can get EMT support they often won’t try themselves to get it reset. There are risks and the liability is too much. They want it done in a hospital setting.
So to answer your question, Matthew, based on my experience in witnessing over a dozen or so dislocations, it can be just a simple awkward movement, especially if that person already had a history of dislocations.
Pernicious? “shoulder disclose”? Does a human even write this? Does anyone proofread it?
Way to try to make your name with inflammatory yellow journalism.
Toss in the word sinister, include questions of incedulity, sow doubt, and challenge the narrative without offering any proof.
You could be the next Tucker Carlson.
And yeah, once you’ve dislocated your shoulder, it becomes easier to do it again.
Had you researched dislocated shoulder, you would have known that.
Just sayin
Like an earlier poster a heavy carry on caused me no end of trouble. Flying almost weekly on business long adn short haul I felt I was pretty expert . However one day the bag was a little too heavy-and was in the overhead for the row behind me . After landing i stood up leaned back some and reached for the case. As it came out of the overhead I wa s momentarily distracted and it just fell all the weight on my extended arm. Nasty shooting pain and on and off its still there 20 years later.
So easy to do and although weights not a factor it would think a pilot who often has to reach up and above for switches cbs etc could very easily do it. From this thread it seems EZ captains ahve had a bed spel what with the gastric problems as well