In aviation, mental incapacitation, also known as cognitive incapacitation, refers to a temporary decline in pilot cognitive abilities due to stressful events, leading to performance degradation and accidents. While medical incapacitation is well-studied, understanding of mental incapacitation lacks systematic review articles. A scoping review following PRISMA guidelines was conducted and included 28 relevant articles out of 935 after a dual screening procedure. Focus was mainly on experimental research, with 74% investigating unexpected, surprising and startling events. Most studies (70%) utilised flight simulators, inducing incapacitation via in-flight situations like system failures, weather conditions and misleading automation system behaviours. The most frequent conceptual background chosen was the Reframing Model from Landman et al. (2017). The accumulated population in our review was of 546 pilots with an average age of 34.9yo (sd = 8.12yo). Data collection usually involved physiological data (44% of the articles), flight data (55% of the articles), and cognitive/behavioural performance (66% of the articles). Results showed increased pupil dilation, delays and negative impact on time spent looking at relevant areas. Increased galvanic skin response, and heart rate, along with EEG evidence of brain activity changes in fronto-central and parietal regions. Cognitive effects included inattentional deafness, increase in response times, delayed decisions, channelised attention, loss of accuracy, increase in self reported workload, missed detection of mode change, poor understanding of issues, delays in check-list completion and missed communications. Mental incapacitation impacted flight parameters, causing altitude loss, delayed go-around, poor throttle management, automation resetting perseveration and even crashes. Studies predominantly examined unexpected events and high workload situations; exploring other contexts like crew conflicts and miscommunication is warranted. Because of the variety of phenomenons related to mental incapacitation, existing studies lack accuracy in assessing mental incapacitation intensity and replicability. Future research should investigate additional sources of incapacitation and also enhance understanding of its effects by reducing uncertainty and precising underlying factors favouring its emergence.