Why are pilots prohibited from wearing beards?
In the last decade, the world has been gripped by a veritable beard epidemic. Wearing facial hair has become stylish and fashionable at any age. But there are people who cannot follow this trend. These are representatives of a complex and responsible profession - pilots. You may have never noticed this, but among the crew members of passenger airliners there are men with mustaches, but not bearded men.
The vast majority of airlines in the world prohibit pilots from growing beards. Moreover, this rule may not even be documented. There is simply such a ban and you have to put up with it. A negative attitude towards bearded men is not a whim, but a serious safety measure.
A spokesman for the US Federal Aviation Administration responded to a question regarding beards in passenger aviation in an interview with the press:
Airlines that have officially introduced such a ban formulate it differently. For example, Delta Airlines states that a shaved chin is important "when using an oxygen mask to maintain a good seal." This item looks approximately the same in the set of rules for American Airline pilots.
It is worth saying that aviation was not always hostile to beards. It all started in 1987, when scientists conducted a series of studies and proved that facial hair can interfere with quickly putting on an oxygen mask. In addition, the effectiveness of this vital device was reduced due to poor fit to the face. Using an experimental method, experts found that bearded pilots lost from 16 to 67 percent of oxygen.
A passenger suffering from oxygen starvation due to fashion trends is bad, but not critical. What if this happens to pilots who are required to have the highest possible concentration of attention? If it's an emergency, things could end badly for everyone on board.
By the way, for a very similar reason, German soldiers were prohibited from wearing the fashionable “Kaiser” mustache during the First World War.