OKC Doctor's Plane Likely Had Hypoxia Alert System

It’s been more than 48 hours now since Dr. Bill Kinsinger and his plane went missing over the Gulf of Mexico.

Records show the plane, a Cirrus SR-22 T, is just more than a year old.

“When you hear Cirrus, that's what people think, they think aircraft with a parachute,” Grayson Ardies with the Oklahoma Aeronautics Division said.

Ardies, a pilot himself, says the plane would also likely have an emergency locator and a hypoxia alert device.

According to the U.S. Coast Guard, which is leading the search for Kinsinger, there is a strong possibility the doctor became hypoxic in flight.

Hypoxia is a lack of oxygen.

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Ardies won’t jump to any conclusions until the doctor is found, but he says while all pilots are trained to recognize hypoxia, it can still happen unexpectedly during flight.

“Some people get the shivers, some people get headaches,” Ardies said.

It will likely take the NTSB at least a year to complete their report on the incident, according to Ardies.

For now, Kinsinger’s flight path is left behind, showing his disappearance at nearly 19,000 feet.

That’s a safe altitude for his plane, but Ardies says a pilot would need to use oxygen at that height.

According to Ardies, most planes have problems during takeoff or landing, but rarely face issues at cruising altitude as this one did.

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