Toxic Cabin Air/Aerotoxic Syndrome
 

Seems an Australian court has found toxic cabin air to be the cause of repiratory illness.

Will this start further investigations and acknowledgements by the aviation industry??

'Toxic' cabin air: legal victory for sick flight attendant - Telegraph

Let's hope things will progress. Sadly, it's too late for many.

It seems a very paltry award for the damage done to her.

First win = Legal precedent
 

Stilton,

The fume event was in 1992, the legal proceedings have been going on for 10 years and she has made it clear that the case was NOT run for compensation but to:

* Set a legal precedent.

* Help the 25% of other aircrew who have been similarly affected.

I understand DB and good for her.




I hope this case will 'legitimise' the problem with regulators and force them to take action.




The amount awarded should have been greater however, both for the plaintiff's benefit and to further increase the attention required to fix this problem.

No evidence...
 

Stilton,

The airlines and regulators are still saying 'there is no evidence' - even after a High Court case and all of the overwhelming evidence - so it's not over yet!

It's called denial - a bit like the African river - The Nile.

As you so rightly say, all anybody wants are the known solutions of:

• Filtered bleed air - Just like cigarettes.
  
  
• Fit toxic air detectors - not aircrew's noses!
  
  
• Reformulate the oils - take out the nerve agents.

- Just in case?

Occupational Disease and Workers Compensation
 

This court ruling may be of use in obtaining a full or partial disability pension for occupational disease (even if the onset occurs after employment has ended) from the governing Workers Compensation Board (or whatever the body in your area is called).

In some boards, extra assessments against employers incurring higher payouts can be levied:E

While many courts have time limitations for civil suits, compensation boards usually do not. So if you can't sue, go to your compensation board, preferably in a group with the other affectees and a smart advocate.

Many boards are a little bit disfunctional. In which case you will find that there are a number of advocates who know how to make a claim stick.

Toxic Cabin Air Victory
 

The Bae 146 Alf engine (Helicopter designed powerplant) was modified to power Bae 146 and incorporated customer bleed air. Their Carbon friction bearing seals can wear and pressure can drop across seals at the top of climb of even good seals allowing some oil fume by pass to a/con system.

Most fixed wing A/C have power plants with Labyrinth bearing seals ( no contacting parts ) and give nil problems and work by differential pressure.

APU's have carbon friction bearings seals and when worn can contaminate bleed air ducts upstream to engine isolation valves and down stream a/con system.

Ansett introduced monitoring units in the aft overhead locker and changed the engine oil from Mobil jet 11 to 294 less carcinogetic.

Monash university should release a report end 2010 from a committee formed 18 months ago as advertised in The Australian which i am awaiting a reply.

I believe I have a solution and been in contact with Boeing, The French say it's no bigger deal than theater odours and not a problem.

A/C cabins are a confined space and create body odours, Galley odours, lavortory odours and can suffer engine oil vapours, Straight away pillows which adsorb unwanted vapours could be placed in overhead lockers until vapour filters are fitted to various systems.

Awaiting reply's from manufactures, they showed initial interest.

Cabin Air
 

Of course none of this could have happened with the Vickers Fun-Bus, the venerable VC10 (and no doubt many other types of the era) have separate dedicated cabin air compressors. Have we gone backwards in the intervening 40 years? I understand that these devices were heavy and power hungry but what is more important than looking after the self loading revenue stream?

B 787 is much more than just 'fuel efficient'...
 

Flipper,


I think this German film explains what you mean. (subtitled)

Flight International Article posted on the Aerotoxic Association website:

This might raise the profile, if it ever happens:

Shadows from the Sky - Feature Film.

Sallyann,

Shadows from the Sky (2011)

Corporate cabin
 

Big corporations - especially Exxon - have a stinking record in more senses than one. This whole debacle has only continued due to corporate power. If there's continued boardroom resistance to common sense perhaps the boardroom & chief exec's offices should be fed their air supply from the same source.

It shouldn't take too much ingenuity to rig up a leaky turbofan to run the air con systems at head office.

A Manufacturers reply
 

I recieved a reply quickly since my last post and follow up call which they thanked my interest and indicated that our new technology is not required and they have a program being created regarding particulate and volotile organic compounds (VOC) filters, which will change the game without admitting there is an issue.

Could something be created that could phase out older A/C like the demise of the B727 and their noise issue of yesterday in Australian sky's?

Preferably, a simple filter modified to undertake particulate and VOC vapours, from the,

1. Recirculation system (saves fuel and a great place to mix everthing up and redistribute to cabin outlets) Present practice incorporates a particulate filter which is changed regularly. Easy
2. Install a porous inner wall duct filter downstream of the water separators prior to cabin entry could save some older A/C if new technology superseeds them eventually. Harder to achieve due supply must not be interupted.

Our test show adsorbing/absorbing vapours puts out fires so why not have the side wall linings made of this new Gee Wiz stuff. I am a consultant by family association and medium discovered accidentally, with such a material and it is 100% recyclable. :ugh:

A cynic might think there is a race to reverse engineer it or obtain it by other means.

PS. I may be too small for them to take notice with the stakes so high. I have been carefull not to name names.

Very important to write up odour events for trend monitoring and necessary action.

I have been talking to the appropiate people since 2005 and patiently waited for my last reply from an interested manufacturer as mentioned, for 12 months,(Disappointed with response, initial correspondance advised they will fund testing). hence the posts.

My team consider approaching the issue from the less obvious tasks and as a consequence just happen to purge and evacuate the Toxic Hydrocarbons.

We have more work to do, there is more than one way to skin a cat and punching the big guys on the nose is not one of them.
The front door seems closed for now.

S 48 A

The problem is not the smell, but the fact that you get poisoned if you ask me.

Phew - unhealthy cabin air is a myth....
 

Aircraft cabin air no more a health threat than sitting in an office | Mail Online

Perhaps the Australian cabin crew and Judge were wrong - all along.

It's a myth after all.....!

Phew - which chemicals are in those visible fumes in 1 in 2,000 flights.

Who cares?

DB :ugh:

Another related battle in Chicago
 

Keep your eyes on a lawsuit on a similar matter in Chicago, Illinois. It is by twenty passengers on an XL Airways Boeing 767 back in 2007, when a fume event at altitude seemingly liberated VOCs, with nasty results.

Boeing and others tried to get the case thrown out and back to the UK, but lost in a headline decision earlier this year in May. The case now proceeds in Chicago to damages. Watch this space.

The important issue for all here is that a single fume event is much less complex to prove in law, than prolonged exposure by flight or cabin crew to conditions, say in a 146 or 757. Something lawyers cause "causation" is the heart of the matter for these types of case.

As a matter of decency and simply doing the right thing, there has been a deliberate ducking of this issue by the industry for far too long. David Learmount and others are correct to call it the dirty little secret of the aviation industry, ably abetted by insurance companies and others who are keen to protect their capital from claims.

There will be "an Erin Brokovic" for toxic cabin air, it is just a matter of time.

Yes, cause and effect as well as a smoking gun makes it a lot easier for a jury to understand.

Quite a bit different from the thread subject of Toxic (smelly) air

Of course I have no idea what the evidence is in the case you cite.

Aerotoxic Poisoning
 

Boeing 767 Flight number XLA 120 Aerotoxic Poisoning

and

BBC News Player - Something in the Air

Perhaps the BBC might have to do another Panorama follow up? - 2 years after the last one.

Dead British Airways pilots 'victims of toxic cabin fumes'
 

Front page of the Sunday Express today.

Dead BA pilots 'victims of toxic cabin fumes' | UK | Express.co.uk - Home of the Daily and Sunday Express

Does anyone know what aeroplanes they were flying?

I read somewhere that one of them was raised on a farm. Is it possible that he could initially have been exposed to sheep dip?

Walnut - http://www.pprune.org/safety-crm-qa-...acitation.html see post #4 by JW411

JW - if that was Richard, I would assume his brother, Guy (with whom I have flown), also grew up on the same farm and I am not aware that (hopefully) he has experienced the same problems. I did not know about Karen.

This topic was inexplicably relegated by a mod to the Safety Forum when ALL commercial pilots should be aware of the potentially fatal problem of aircraft air contamination. It may kill you. At least with National paper attention some appropriate focus may be placed on it at last.

If you get a serious occurrence of these so-called 'oil fumes', go onto 100% oxygen, consider landing asap if you feel it appropriate and see a medic asap.

Most of the time I like the british humor.

Most of the time....., not always. (#3)

:sad: I would like to know the real reason that Boeing have gone back to and independant supply of cabin air. I speak as one who after 17 years on the 146 suffered total and sudden kidney failure caused by my immune system, which is affected by organophosphates. The only clue I had was a consultant asking me if I had ever been in regular contact with oil.

I am pretty concerned. I have experienced oily type odors in B777s during descent from higher levels to below 10000 ft on many occasions. I had voiced those concerns but have never got a satisfactory answers. Some LAMEs opined that it was tempory/intermittent oil seal problems but said no one has died due to such odors!

I hope the industry pay more attention to reports of such odors.

There's a "fumes" thread running in Prune's 'Medical & Health'.

Thanks I had a feeling it was the RJ 146, as every time I paxed on one the air con always had an oily smell.

This appears to have first been recognised as a problem in the 70's and the Grauniad carried this article in 2006 Toxic cockpit fumes that bring danger to the skies | Business | The Observer.

toffeez - I reckon this needs to be on a more widely-read forum than medical? By the time pilots start looking at that forum they tend to have some problems and it must surely be better to prevent them in the first place?

EDIT: I see also the thread you refer to is well down the page and refers to ground staff mainly.

Bleed air? Straight off the engines(s)? Without being buffered via a heat exchanger?

Must've been designed by a homicidal maniac!

Hetfield

I don't think that there was ANY attempt at humour

http://apt.rcpsych.org/content/6/3/187.full.pdf

There appears to be a link between the use of Organophosphates (in sheep dips) and nervous disorders.

At least this will not be a problem on the 787 as I understand it does not use bleed air for the packs. Just the battery fumes to contend with!!!

Quote from mike-wsm,

"Bleed air? Straight off the engines(s)? Without being buffered via a heat exchanger?
Must've been designed by a homicidal maniac!"

The 2006 Observer article (see link provided by BOAC, above) includes a summary of a report by the AAIB that suggests these problems involve an astonishingly-wide range of turbo-fan and turbo-prop engines, although I couldn't say if the air conditioning systems of the aircraft concerned all source their air by bleeding it directly from the engine. It's only fair to point out to the uninitiated that such a bleed is taken from one of the earlier compressor stages, well before any combustion takes place, so the air should be as unpolluted as the ambient air. Obviously, however, these compressor rotors have to be lubricated. But that applies to the rotating components of ANY air conditioning system.

Modern turbofan engines produce vast quantities of compressed air and, on the face of it, are an ideal source of clean air for air conditioning systems. They have plenty to spare, except when take-off thrust is required. Earlier jet engines, with lower bypass ratios (or zero bypass) did not. The VC10, with low-bypass Conway engines, used separate compressors driven by the accessory gearbox. The B707, which started off with zero-bypass engines, used engine bleeds to turn the turbines of turbo-compressors, although direct engine bleed was also available as a second choice on later engines.

Boeing has only recently decided to go down a completely different road, using electrical power to turn air conditioning compressors on their B787, as Walnut points out. They say they've done it for improved efficiency, and I've no reson to query that. In any case, as mentioned earlier, I think any compressor has moving parts that have to be lubricated.

IFALPA have jut produced this leaflet http://www.aerotoxic.org/download/do...%20quality.pdf - I think however they are mistaken when they say
"Occasionally, oil fumes from the hot section of the engine leak into this (cabin) air." I thought the problem originates with the 'cold section' oil seals?

On turboprops you can have turbine compressors which the bearing is air.

You give them a bast for 60 seconds after start up and they spin up and the spinning makes them float in the shaft.

The flow off the engine spins the compressor which sucks fresh air in from outside. Only time I have smelt anything nasty is when de-ice fluid has got into them.

OK - please explain how 'hot section' air gets into the bleed air? There are no bleed air tappings I am aware of after the combustion section, and they would be toxic without any contamination, would they not? The problem as I understand it is not actually 'fumes' but a 'mist' generated by high pressure oil 'leaking' through compressor seals..

Hot section air I would have thought wouldn't have much oxygen left in it anyway.

The compressor air is hot though but only due to it being compressed.

On the BAe146 the problem usually was a slight leak in the APU seal which allowed traces of oil to seep into the air conditioning system. We were always told to start the packs in Full Manual Cold and to run them like that for two minutes. This would usually ensure that any contamination present would be dumped overboard before any heat was applied.

However, I have seen pilots start the packs with a Hot selection and that, from time to time, would create a thin grey mist and a bit of a pong.

We had two pilots who had to be moved on to other aircraft on the fleet after suffering some symptoms.

I have always been fascinated to learn why it is that a small minority suffers so badly and the rest of us have no problems. I survived nearly 20 years on the BAe146 and I am pleased to report that I am still in rude health.

Guy Westgate told me after his brother died that it is to do with Genetic make up.
I was very ill whilst flying the DC10 in the late eighties and tried to find alternative employment. Flew with one of our chiefs and he got me off the fleet.
My health improved but lost my licence a few years later.
Have another mate ex DC10s who lost his on physiological grounds.
I think the problem could be much bigger.