Toxic airlines: Is your plane trip poisoning you?

[flyingman-of-kent]

A former BA Pilot who was retired on health grounds is starting a public campaign to make everyone aware of the dangers of unfiltered bleed air used for cabin and cockpit air.

The article in todays UK Daily Mail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=513209&in_page_id=1770 details how toxins from engine oil are found in cabins and in blood when secret testing was done.

It is a long article so I haven't copied it here but I can if needed.

OK, it is also promoting a book, and a movie, dvd and a TV show, but is there basis for this scare?

[scrunchthecat]

Patrick Smith wrote about "bad cabin air" in one of his columns in 2007:

http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2007/03/09/askthepilot224/

He does not think bad cabin air is a problem, but then again he was not addressing the specific issues raised by the article you posted.

[oxo]

Didn't the studies of DVT conclude that it wasn't caused by sitting down for 12 hours, or low pressure. It's all down to the air quality?

[rog747]

flew back home from jfk on a uk owned 747-400 14 jan,

got off flight as dried out as a rusk or a a piece of toast

throat was sore within a day
been ill ever since

oh great joy !

the flight was so dry, too hot or too cold all night, dryer and dryer as we went on...

please tell dont tell me the air quality was nowt to do with this

its funny it always the same airline i fly on on long haul and this always happens...am i just unlucky

[artyh]

As a regular SLF on european short haul, I have to say this comes as no surprise.

Otherwise healthly, about 50-70% of the time after a flight I feel ill for a couple of days afterwards - not dissimilar to the symptoms that I once experienced with a weekend home that had a boiler not burning correcty. About a third of the time I end up with a cold or similar.

[speedbirdhouse]

New cabin crew recruits for Qantas can expect up to two years whereby they catch every cold and flu variety under the sun.

I've 20 years in the job and haven't had a cold for years [unofficially :E]........

As for bleed air problems?

We have had a couple reported. One in particular where one of the pilots [may have been the engineer?] was incapacitated due to fumes in the cockpit.

Long term effects of low level exposure are another thing altogether????????

[lee van chief]

Sitting in the flight deck for many hours a day getting DVT, being bombarded by cosmic radiation and breathing contaminated bleed air is all part of the job i'm afraid. A reduced lifespan is the trade off, for an enjoyable job unfortunatly.

[littco]

"I've just flown transatlantic on a BA777 and during both landing rollouts there was a distinct smell of hot oil in the cabin which I hadn't noticed during the flight."


Be the engine sucking in the exhaust from the thrust reverser's .. why only apparent on landing.

[rog747]

did the older generation a/c like 707's etc and vc10's have 'fresh air' systems delivering air to the cabins??
also likewise props the viscounts argonauts and britannias?

i never got sick on them:)

i am always ill though off L/Haul flights now and always the same uk airline

the new 787 is having a 'fresh air' system so that will be interesting

[neil armstrong]

[QUOTE]Long term effects of low level exposure are another thing altogether????????/QUOTE]

my airline says that low level exposure is normal!

It is not unusual to experience a low concentration of fumes at the following times:
∙ After engine start
∙ During taxi
∙ After T/O – especially a full power T/O
∙ Top of descent
∙ Taxi in
If such fumes become apparent during any of these phases of flight and then dissipate, do not
report the occurrence, it is normal.

And being a good company man i off-course believe them.

Neil:yuk:

[clevlandHD]

The older aircraft were flying at lower altitudes where there is more moisture thus more moisture in the cabin. (707 cruised at 31 000' vs the 777 at 39 000').

As for long term health problems for pax, I doubt. Spend the same amount of time in the center of any major city or work in a heavy industry plant will have more effects. Actually, it is proven that airline pilots live longer and healthier than the norm.

But I reckon that it is tough for the eyes and throat and that in such a closed space you are more at risk to pick the latest flu from the Far East, India or Africa... Guess it comes with globalisation

[vp1]

rog747 asked a question regarding air quality on the B747. Unlike modern aircraft,the B707 (and DC8) did not use engine bleed air to ventilate the cabin. Engine bleed air from three engines was used to drive turbocompressors. The turbocompressors then provided air to pressurise the cabin.

[Airbubba]

However the cabin temperature was either too hot or too cold. Like a fridge until the meal was served, then like a hot & stuffy oven until the "breakfast" was served when the temperature dropped again.

This is a common drill on a pax aircraft. The flight attendants complain it's too hot while they are up moving around getting ready for a service so the flight crew cools it down for them. The FA's are walking around, hormonal, etc. while you are sitting still a couple of feet below in the seat. You feel cold when they feel comfortable. Later, the meal is over, they want to relax, they sit down in the galley, jumpseat or contractual rest seat below the current of warmer air that hangs in the upper third of the cabin. So, they're cold, they tell the pilots to warm it up. Next meal, the cycle repeats.

[fingal flyer]

Sapco 2
As you are already aware the experts travelled on an A/C and actually suffered an OSIC event(oil smell in cockpit).What have they done since nothing but the usual spin.Dont hold your breath or maybe thats the solution because these experts wont be willing in my view to enforce the costs on any company that would be required to rectify the problem.

[sapco2]

There are occasional such smells on the B757s I fly. I don't know whether the odour is life threatening or not but the smell described (sweaty socks) is positively awful. If the same smell were evident through the ventilation system of my car I'd definitely whisk it into the garage for fault finding analysis! As Neil Armstrong says above, our company tell us the smells are normal but they're not... I've been flying the 757 for 14 years and as far as I can tell the problem is only noticeable on some aircraft!

I hope the publicity of this topic may encourage the CAA, the Government, and the COT to come clean once and for all and order airline operators to fit smell monitoring equipment on board so that pilots, cabin crew and passengers can know for certain if there are health issues at stake.

[onboard]

This is a common drill on a pax aircraft. The flight attendants complain it's too hot while they are up moving around getting ready for a service so the flight crew cools it down for them. The FA's are walking around, hormonal, etc. while you are sitting still a couple of feet below in the seat. You feel cold when they feel comfortable. Later, the meal is over, they want to relax, they sit down in the galley, jumpseat or contractual rest seat below the current of warmer air that hangs in the upper third of the cabin. So, they're cold, they tell the pilots to warm it up. Next meal, the cycle repeats.Yepp, never do we adjust temerature to suit SLF comfort levels. I mean c'mon, be thankful you get a seat, food and drinks. Some of you even get a nice view!;)

[Chris Scott]

Quote from vp1:
rog747 asked a question regarding air quality... ...Unlike modern aircraft,the B707 (and DC8) did not use engine bleed air to ventilate the cabin. Engine bleed air from three engines was used to drive turbocompressors. The turbocompressors then provided air to pressurise the cabin.
[Unquote]

vp1 is spot-on re the B707. The TCs (turbo-compressors) were on engines 2, 3, & 4. But on the later models (don't know about the early ones), with the JT3D turbofan engines, you had the option of shutting down a TC in the cruise, and replacing it with engine bleed-air from the same engine. This saved a bit of fuel.

The Conway-powered VC10 used dedicated compressors, taking in fresh air, each driven mechanically by the associated engine's accessory gearbox. This was partly because, on those 1950s and early 1960s engines, the low-pressure compressor stages did not process a big enough mass of air to run the air-conditioning/pressurisation of the cabin.

It might appear that the old-fashioned systems, as above, would produce cleaner air than present-day bleeds from engine comperessors, but this does not necessarily follow. Just as the bearings of engine shafts have to be lubricated, so did the shaft on a dedicated compressor. There is nothing uniquely dirty about the air in the compressor stages of a jet engine.

Have you checked the oil-seals on the bearings of your office air-conditioning system recently?


[clevlandHD, you are wrong about "older aircraft" flying lower. On the 707, we regularly reached F/L 410 (41,000 ft), and F/L 430 on the VC10. The early Comets liked to fly even higher, their turbojet engines being very thirsty lower down. The evolution of massive fans and by-pass ratios led us, if anything, to fly lower. The Olympus engine on Concorde is not a turbofan.]

[Gooneyone]

AFAIK isn't the bleed air admitted to the cabin dried by water separators to prevent condensation and the resulting corrosion in the the pressure hull? Maybe the separators are too efficient.

[///mav]

"Sitting in the flight deck for many hours a day getting DVT,"

This might not be the place to ask this but this made me wonder - do pilots wear compression socks? Or are they pointless? Or do you just make sure you move around enough?

As for air quality, can't say I've ever noticed any weird smells or felt ill after flying, but have also been on a transatlantic 777 flight recently that was way too hot after the first meal. I thought it was just me, nice to know it's fairly common. :)

[wbble]

Unfortunately this problem is all too real. I’ve flown for several years and never experienced any major fume events, just whiffs of oil at various phases of flight, and most probably constant background levels of contaminated air that one can’t smell. By the nature of their design, engine oil seals can’t be 100% effective, so inevitably an amount of oil will enter the bleed air supply.

To start with, I had no real problems except worsening fatigue and short-term memory problems, and like many others, assumed it was part of the job or of getting older. But in the last year the symptoms quickly worsened, together with a host of new neurological problems, until the point I had to stop flying.

With low doses of toxic poisoning, initially the symptoms may subside quite quickly, but with more exposures, they get worse and take longer to go away until they become constant. Due to people’s different genetic make-up, some can detoxify better than others, so everyone has a different dose threshold.

This is a huge problem, and one the airlines and authorities just don’t want to know about.

[rog747]

well that explains why we never got ill after long haul flights in the old days,

i worked as crew for a summer on BMA's 707-320C's fan jets (not the older turbojet 707-321's they had but i did fly as pax on them and dan airs too) and we never felt rough after those long flights...never dried out like a prune...and never went down with colds/sore throats.

on many a/c though you do smell on start up a whiff of fuel (more so in days past i recall...tristars were smelly

so it seems to me that when i fly now on a certain UK l/h airline i always get off feeling pretty terrible then usually get sick a day or 2 later,

so are they not giving us fresher air because of saving on fuel burn ?:=:O

[wbble]

"so are they not giving us fresher air because of saving on fuel burn ?"

The problem is with the "fresh" air. About half of the air that enters the cabin is comes unfiltered direct from the engines together with any contaminants that it contains, and the other half is recirculated air which does go through a filter of sorts.

[HarryMann]

Unfiltered, tottaly unfiltered??

Blimey....

There was a lot of fuss a few years ago about BAe 146's creating very bad symptons and the operator(s) denying everything...

One of the things that came out of this was reduced (inadequate) airflow due to fuel saving measures... it being suggested that this was becoming quite common, to reduce the total changes of cabin air.

..it being relatively easy to quote average air use per pax when resting, as opposed to what might be a decent factor over and above the minimum required. Remembering that we're cruising at what, a cabin altitude of 8,000 ft, then people will be breathing somewhat larger volumes of air than normal, and imagine this all taken into account - but nevertheless that is a lot of people in a small space...

Personally think a lot more care whould be taken over pax and cerw air quality... this IS supposed to be man's ultimate technolgical form of transport - let's get it right shall we :)

[HarryMann]

Unfiltered, totally unfiltered?? Blimey.... :rolleyes:

There was a lot of fuss a few years ago about BAe 146's creating very bad symptons and the operator(s) denying everything...

One of the things that came out of this was reduced (inadequate) airflow due to fuel saving measures... it being suggested that this was becoming quite common, to reduce the total changes of cabin air.

..it being relatively easy to quote average air use per pax when resting, as opposed to what might be a decent factor over and above the minimum required. Remembering that we're cruising at what, a cabin altitude of 8,000 ft, then people will be breathing somewhat larger volumes of air than normal, and imagine this all taken into account - but nevertheless that is a lot of people in a small space...

Personally think a lot more care should be taken over pax (and crew) air quality... this IS supposed to be man's ultimate technolgical form of transport - let's get it right shall we and stop the spin :)

Even Dyson vacuum cleaners have pretty good exhaust air filtering...

[HarryMann]

Hey, there's even a marketing advantage here if an airline would specify an aircraft with a minimum air quality requirment sigificantly better than the norm.. presumably the norm being whatver the manufacturer's want to thro at them... after all, anything can go into the front of that engine, regardless of the oil... including enormous quantities of concentrated industrial pollution at certain altitudes... as for cruising over Chernobyl twenty or so years ago :rolleyes:

Start with the long haul aircraft... ?

[perkin]

Like a fridge until the meal was served, then like a hot & stuffy oven until the "breakfast" was served

Isn't this a cunning ploy by the CC to reduce their workload?!

Pax full of food/drink + a nice warm cabin = lots of people off to sleep = no work for CC... :ok:

[perkin]

Eye infection is more likely down to the dry air rather than contaminants carried in the air...Hope it clears up soon! :)

[pacer142]

Dry air is normal on a plane, it's because air conditioning always dries out air because of how it works (though on a plane it's slightly worse as any additional air from outside is also very dry). For the same reason, unless somewhere *really* hot, the first thing I do when I get in a hotel room is to turn it off and open the window.

I find it similarly unpleasant on coaches, trains etc. However, unpleasant is all it is - the problem the BA crews are complaining about involves, AIUI, chemicals ending up in the air from the engines.