http://angrytoxicologist.com/?p=68 By AngryToxicologist | June 20, 2007
First the air traffic controllers were passing out, now it’s the pilots. Pilots are again making a row about toxic exposures in the cockpit (the article calls them fumes which they are not – see PS). Reading the article, I wasn’t exactly convinced…
>Michaelis, who is currently at the University of New South Wales, Australia,
>carried out a survey of 250 pilots and found that 85% had detected
>contaminated air – which smells like “dirty socks” – while flying. Of these,
>57% reported symptoms of ill health relating to the incident, and 8% had to
>be retired on health grounds.
Um, did anyone check for dirty socks? I was about to go on my merry way until I read that
>Compressed air is routinely drawn off engines and supplied to aircraft
>cabins. If the seal inside the engine is not secure, engine oil can leak into
>the cabin…
That means lubricants like tri-cresyl-o-phosphate, a nasty neurotoxicant, among others. This starts to sound credible. I dug up a study in the Journal of Occupational Safety and Health that found that 88% of those reporting symptoms were doing so after a visible or [smellable? olfactible? –anyone?] leak of fluid. The study is pretty weak as it is mostly self reporting (you can get it free here). A strength of the claims is that many of the symptoms are what you would expect after an exposure to some of these neurotoxicicants.
The UK gov’t is getting to the heart of the matter by installing air-monitors in the cabins to see what’s really there. I’ll reserve judgment until then but it seems plausible to me. In some ways it’s a perception creates reality situation. If pilots feel dizzy after they smell lubricant or hydraulic fluid, I don’t care if it’s toxicological or in their heads, I don’t want that person landing my plane. It seems that getting better air would be job #1.
Whose bright idea was it to siphon off air out of the engine for the cabin?