Aircrew Performance and Safety While Using Protective Masks in Response to Coronavirus Disease

INTRODUCTION: In response to the urgent need for safe aircrew respiratory protection due to the COVID-19 pandemic, three small descriptive evaluations were conducted with aircrew and air traffic controllers (ATC) that assessed the impact of mask use on safety and performance onboard rotary wing aircraft. METHODS: A series of evaluations assessed aircrew performance using the 3M (TM) Model 1860 N95 respiratory protection mask, two aviation-specific cloth mask prototypes, and a commercial off-the-shelf aviation-specific cloth mask. The series of evaluations included different sets of subjects consisting of up to five Black Hawk helicopter aircrew members, air traffic control (ATC), and 12 CH-47 aircrew members. The Modified Rhyme Test was used to measure speech intelligibility and was administered in the UH-60 among crewmembers of the same aircraft, between pilots of different aircraft, and between the pilots and ATC. Measures of workload, usability, comfort, and pulse oximetry were also administered. RESULTS: Results from the Modified Rhyme Test indicated that all subjects scored greater than 80% accuracy given the proper microphone positioning relative to the mask. With respect to workload, NASA-TLX total scores for the "perform radio communications" task was 50.83. DISCUSSION: Despite an elevated perceived degree of workload on the communications flight task, results from the speech intelligibility test indicated that performance was maintained within the acceptable range as defined by MIL-STD-1474E, Design Criteria Standard Noise Limit. This abbreviated evaluation suggests that the face masks tested are safe for use by helicopter aircrew under the conditions tested.