About Flying After Diving
This workshop on flying after recreational diving was organized by Divers Alert Network (DAN) to bring together representatives from the recreational diving industry with experts from other diving communities. The workshop had two purposes: (a) to review the guidelines and experimental data developed since the first flying after diving workshop in 1989; and (b) to debate a consensus for new flying after recreational diving guidelines.
Previous consensus advised to wait 12 hours after a single no-stop dive, 24 hours after multi-day repetitive dive, and 48 hours after dives that required decompression stops. This was considered overly conservative. Subsequently, DAN proposed a simpler 24-hour wait after any and all recreational diving. There were objections to this on the grounds that the decompression sickness (DCS) risks of flying after diving (FAD) were too low to warrant such a long delay and would result in lost business for island diving resorts.
Consensus recommendations for flying after diving
- A minimum of 12-hour surface interval was recommended for the single no-decompression dive.
- A minimum of 18-hour surface interval for multi-day repetitive diving.
- Substantially longer than 18 hours after diving involving compulsory decompression, or using heliox and trimix.
Limitations
It was stressed that as the experimental trials described in the workshop had been conducted in a dry hyperbaric chamber with resting volunteers, longer guidelines might be needed for divers who were immersed and exercising. The effects of exercise and immersion on preflight surface intervals were seen to require experimental study. Additional studies were conducted since and the results will be published soon.