Well, he was honest to mention that no one in the room knew how sensors worked.

I am not quite sure gamma rays on a plane are as bad in general as he claims they are. My astro cameras have travelled by plane and I haven't noticed any drastic changes in the calibration frames I routinely take. And that's both on relatively old sensors (which don't have any kind of remapping logic) and more recent ones similar to those used in some consumer cameras (where we don't necessarily know what's going on in the background). Then, of course, you get the occasional hit on earth as well, especially given the long exposures used, and they definitely don't kill pixels.