--- title: What is Hypoxia? Larry Glazer Plane Crashes Near Jamaica description: An unresponsive pilot whose plane crashed off Jamaica may have suffered from hypoxia canonical: https://time.com/3275543/hypoxia-plane-cuba-jamaica-larry-glazer/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-09-05T20:55:25.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T10:02:27.979Z article:section: Health og:title: Is This What Caused an American Pilot to Crash? og:description: An unresponsive pilot whose plane crashed off Jamaica may have suffered from hypoxia og:url: https://time.com/3275543/hypoxia-plane-cuba-jamaica-larry-glazer/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb4b82a994b279104/6986a236f983e770ae04f838/socata-plane1.jpg?branch=production&width=1021&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1021 og:image:height: 574 og:image:alt: Socata Plane og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Is This What Caused an American Pilot to Crash? twitter:description: An unresponsive pilot whose plane crashed off Jamaica may have suffered from hypoxia twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb4b82a994b279104/6986a236f983e770ae04f838/socata-plane1.jpg?branch=production&width=1021&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What May Have Caused an American Pilot to Crash > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Sep 5, 2014 8:55 PM UTC  A Socata TBM-900 (700N) at Glasgow airport in Scotland on March 14, 2014. A Socata TBM-900 (700N) at Glasgow airport in Scotland on March 14, 2014.Iain Marshall  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Sep 5, 2014 8:55 PM UTC A New York real estate executive was piloting his his small plane from Rochester to Florida on Friday when he stopped communicating with air traffic controllers before eventually [crashing](http://time.com/3274631/plane-cuba/) near Jamaica. Larry Glazer, who frequently flew that route, was traveling with his wife. FAA officials said the [private plane had reached an altitude of 25,000 feet](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-05/u-s-fighters-probe-unresponsive-plane-over-atlantic.html), prompting some officials to speculate he may have suffered from something known as hypoxia, in which parts of the brain are deprived of adequate oxygen. It’s far too early to know for sure. But at that altitude, oxygen is so thin that brain cells can only survive for several minutes before they start dying off. Without enough oxygen, people become inattentive, show poor judgment and eventually stop breathing. With extended exposure at high altitudes, the brain shuts off and slips into a coma. Military pilots dispatched to track the aircraft after it failed to respond to air traffic control signals reported seeing the pilot slumped over. The FAA has warned non-commercial pilots of the dangers of high altitude changes and hypoxia—in its first phases, the pilot won’t necessarily be aware that he’s experiencing oxygen deprivation. On the FAA site’s training section, a member of the agency’s education team [urges more physiology training](http://www.faa.gov/pilots/training/airman%5Feducation/topics%5Fof%5Finterest/hypoxia/) of pilots so they are aware and prepared for the dangers of hypoxia. --- > “” --- ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3275543/hypoxia-plane-cuba-jamaica-larry-glazer/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3275543/hypoxia-plane-cuba-jamaica-larry-glazer/"},"headline":"What May Have Caused an American Pilot to Crash","datePublished":"2014-09-05T20:55:25.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T10:02:27.979Z","description":"An unresponsive pilot whose plane crashed off Jamaica may have suffered from hypoxia","url":"https://time.com/3275543/hypoxia-plane-cuba-jamaica-larry-glazer/","keywords":["medicine"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb4b82a994b279104/6986a236f983e770ae04f838/socata-plane1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alice Park","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/alice-park/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb4b82a994b279104/6986a236f983e770ae04f838/socata-plane1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Socata Plane","caption":"Socata Plane","creditText":"Iain Marshall","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/medicine/","name":"medicine"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3275543/hypoxia-plane-cuba-jamaica-larry-glazer/","name":"What May Have Caused an American Pilot to Crash"}}]}] ```