BA's in-flight safety chief warns about toxic cabin fumes
 

According the The MailOnline:

Toxic cabin fumes can POISON plane passengers and oxygen masks are no protection warns BA's in-flight safety chief | Daily Mail Online

"The head of in-flight safety for British Airways has admitted that passengers can be 'incapacitated' by toxic fumes on planes.

"Mark Mannering-Smith reportedly wrote on an internal online forum that cabin fumes can be toxic and therefore hurt crew and travellers.

"His comments which were posted on the internet have since been deleted, but were saved by BA staff, reports The Sun on Sunday."

A truly amazing revelation:rolleyes:

Thanks Mark for the highly paid insight:hmm:

What TangoAlphad said.

All MMS was doing was making some quite sensible points and issuing a few reminders to employees on an in house BA forum about some aspects of smoke/fumes incidents. He didn't claim to be revealing anything new.

Why someone thought his comments were worth leaking and why the Mail has chosen to use paraphrase his report and use "poison" in bold in it's headline I can't begin to imagine.........

Well newspapers paraphrase things all the time, though there's possibly more need to do that for DM readers.

Having said that, if something is toxic then, by definition, it's poisonous.

You're not wrong DR, though this is one of those rare occasions when for once I actually have some limited sympathy for those in management trying to do an honest job and keep "the troops" informed.

As I read it ( and I do mean "it") the manager involved was trying to write a piece to address some concerns and one or two half baked theories/medical opinions that were being passed around by word of mouth or by intranet/internet by certain people....some of it similar to some of guff posted in other threads in this place...

The manager promptly finds himself being quoted/paraphrased in a national newpaper which has managed to construct a headline that contains " POISONED" and "BA safety chief"....

Why don't we install sensors in every a/c cabin and monitor cabin air at any time? Because we would find something?

One specific problem might be overfilled engine oil reservoirs. Just more awareness could help big time.

Yes we can. Check engines and what is monitored and datalinked.

Slight thread creep; but in 90's I read a report commissioned by the LH & Alitalia pilot's union into cosmic radiation at >FL300. Evidently a German whose job was the monitoring of radiation in ground plants had travelled in a flight deck with a geiger meter and it went epileptic. The report was every extensive and quite scary. Perhaps it was meant to be. There are now developed 'exposure' models linked to rosters and the amount of time spent >FL300, so everything is OK. (a bit like the fatigue model linked to rosters). I wonder just how much actual data high level was accumulated before those models were designed, and how much was extrapolation and laboratory generated data. It disappeared very quickly into a PR black hole and the unions didn't pursue it publicly; and ECA seems to have been very quiet on the issue.
Then the poisoned cabin air saga came to light and it too was poo poo'd as voodoo and pure speculation; until some scientific tests were done. But it too disappeared into a PR black hole and the unions didn't pursue it publicly. Previously DVT went the same route.
All these were 'inconvenient truths'. The cure was far too difficult to implement so we better not acknowledge the problem and it will fall off the radar.
I remember the same thing with the 'lead in fuel' scare mongering; except that was pursued, proven and corrected. I guess that was an easy affordable solution so it was easier to keep the campaign going once the science was proven.

Care to suggest a standard to monitor against?

Would it be set above flatulence levels?

Would it be seat specific or just averaging between floor and ceiling at the center of a cabin?

and finally what action would be required at each level?

all engines off? or

a 2 hour diversion max?

RAT5 I've heard umpteen versions of that story ( usually as told in the UK gent was from Calder Hall or Aldermaston) over the years. Frankly if someone whose job was meant to be radiation montoring doesn't know what levels he or she would expect to see at high alt then they are no expert, the numbers have been known since Auguste Pickard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_Piccard

As far as radiation and studies disappearing down a black hole as an inconvenient truth :ok:, there's plenty of data out there on the open medical sites on the internet thingy. There are some interesting studies yet to be resolved/finalised but that whilst radaiation levels at crusing altitude are high vs. ground level I'm afraid that in general the epidemology doesn't support a hidden radiation threat conspiracy.

Now back to fumes...

Back in the early 90's in a sandy place we carried a chemical agent monitor, similar to the type used at airports these days. It sniffed the air and gave warnings when it detected dangerous levels of various "agents".

Being roughy toughy mil types we tested any number of "gasses" and you would be amazed how often we were in mortal danger! Especial after a curry night.

Surprisingly we all lived to tell the tale.

The old COT/BALPA paper on this issue:

https://cot.food.gov.uk/sites/defaul...alpa200706.pdf

It must also have been nonsense. I've travelled quite frequently with a radiation spectrometer (advanced version of a geiger counter) and whilst the radiation is greater than that at ground level it's far, far, far, below the amount deemed to be even slightly hazardous. If you spent every possible second of your life in the air then it might be a problem after a few years, but for crews it's not a problem.

(edit)There's been a few studies that have done exactly that, to my knowledge none of them found anything. Possibly because there's nothing to find or possibly because they didn't encounter a fume event on the flights that were studied.

This is why I suggested to measure in every single cabin.
Even blood tests right after a flight don't seem to guarantee to leave any traces after fume events sometimes.

Here is one from Germany (A319 4U):
http://www.bfu-web.de/EN/Publication...ublicationFile

In the early 80s lufthansas cabin crew union carried out radiation monitoring and when the preliminary measurements were announced management banned further monitoring.
It was fairly open knowledge in Swissair at the time as we had a lot of ex Luftwaffe pilots and one of our German Swiss skippers purchased his own measuring equipment which was one of the reasons that many of us cruised a few thousand feet below optimal FL.
IATA or IFALPA published a paper on it around that time and very quickly every copy was removed from our crew room.

I tend to agree with Less Hair's take on these matters (cabin air toxicity, that is, as opposed to the separate issue of overexposure to cosmic radiation - clearly less hair might be a symptom of the latter!).

And in relation to that last offered example German report, it occurs to me that the known overfilling of the hydraulic system may have been dismissed a little prematurely. Which systems get a particular and fresh working over on approach? Sure, excess deicing fluid often oozes from where it's been hiding on descent and approach too, but lots of hot hydraulic oil out of design limits caused by overfill would be high on my list for investigation.

Some very strange and nasty smells can come from hot hydraulic oil getting out to the wrong places - I first learned that on farm tractors 45 years ago - but you can step out of those till the smell subsides, and simultaneously retain fully brain function to quickly work out what just went wrong!

How hot does your hydraulic oil need to be?

Air crew radiation dose
 

For those who wish to read a good brief on this, an article published in a nuclear technology news magazine I once edited, Nuclear News, provides an excellent overview of the issue of air crew radiation dose:

http://www3.ans.org/pubs/magazines/nn/pdfs/2000-1-3.pdf

Though published in 2000, the article contains a lot of hard data that are still valid.

Incidentally, there is increasing evidence that the current LNT (linear no-threshold--i.e., any dose at any level is bad) theory of dose response and radiation risk to humans vastly overstates radiation risk. It is well known that exposure to low-level dose can actually reduce cancer prevalence below normal rates because it stimulates cell repair mechanisms, a process called "hormesis":

"Hormesis is a biological phenomenon whereby a beneficial effect (improved health, stress tolerance, growth or longevity) results from exposure to low doses of an agent that is otherwise toxic or lethal when given at higher doses."

Sorry for the thread drift, but this subject was brought up. . . .

Forty years flying and not a single fume problem.* Colleagues did when a chemical container on a freighter sprung a leak but hardly aircraft related.
People I know who have died earlier than expected have been heavy smokers BUT, my father was and still made it to 80.

* Had a few close brushes with The Reaper but most due stoopidity.

If there are obvious fumes can we not put pax on oxygen?

Pax O2 does not offer respiratory protection from fumes. This gets asked every year on our SEP exam.

Well some might say that if it ever gets as hot as the water in the galley used for making tea, then it's too hot. How hot does yours get?

Well tepid is good, because above 150 degrees C, various unwanted degradations can occur according to one technical bulletin from ExxonMobil

IIRC the Concorde had radiation monitoring on the flight deck and crew routinely checked for probability of solar flares prior to departure.
Though, I also remember Brian Trubshaw writing that the only time that he saw the needle in the red (whatever that may have indicated) was when flying over certain known "sensitive" areas on the ground. I think that he mentioned Iran, at that time.
Would this problem not be more applicable to high-flying military aircraft? Or is their shielding more effective, of necessity?

Setpoint..thanks for the link.

WIngnut


Back in the day most of the mil weren't at very high levels long enough for cosmic radiation to be an issue, and in my military days we certainly didn't clock up anything like the hours at high level the airline guys did. That said there will always be exceptions like the U2.

Concorde was a game changer in some ways in being at very high level for relatively long continuous period but I believe there was only one recorded instance of a descent being needed because the alarm went into the red...anyone confirm/deny?

As far as cancer risks are concerned, under pinning all this is the happy fact/statistic that about 30% ( yep, about 1 in 3 ) of the general non flying ground level living and working population will at some time in their lives suffer from cancer. Despite the inevitable anecdotes the general informed opinion seems to be that any small increased incidence of cancer due to radiation exposure in flight is almost immeasurable against the general background incidence.

Yet again, sorry for the thread drift.

Wiggy .... Back in the day most of the mil weren't at very high levels long enough for cosmic radiation to be an issue .............


Actually, for the military aircraft, I was thinking more along the lines of the shielding for ionising radiation (and electromagnetic pulse) associated with nuclear weapons.

Once the bomb has dropped, planning for the long term affects of radiation exposure always seemed a little optimistic...:bored:

How to calculate your radiation exposure
 

True, wiggy. The following info will put things into further perspective.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimates that Americans receive an average radiation dose of 620 millirem per year, about half each from natural background radiation and man-made sources, and that this dose level “has not been shown to cause humans any harm.”

The American Nuclear Society “Personal Radiation Dose Worksheet” allows you to calculate your annual dose based on numerous variables, such as where you live (altitude, geography, proximity to a power plant), how you live (including a dose estimate of 0.5 millirem per hour in the air for “jet plane travel”—admittedly an approximation, given variations in flight altitude, latitude—the Earth’s magnetic shielding is weaker over the poles—and solar activity level), food/air/water intake (e.g., radon), and medical tests:

http://www.ans.org/pi/resources/dose.../dosechart.pdf

The NRC has its own (online) annual dose calculator, which factors in dose from airline travel differently, by total miles traveled (1 millirem per 1,000 miles traveled):

NRC: Personal Annual Radiation Dose Calculator

Here is a printer-friendly worksheet version of the above:

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-...-worksheet.pdf

According to a meta-analysis in the January 2015 JAMA Dermatology:

Risk of Melanoma in Pilots and Cabin Crew | Dermatology | JAMA Dermatology | The JAMA Network

“Pilots and cabin crew have approximately twice the incidence of melanoma compared with the general population.” It surmised, however, that the cause was not cosmic rays but could be UVA exposure, and that regarding lifestyle factors, pilots and cabin crew did not have “more sunny vacations,” etc., than the general population.

As I mentioned previously, low-level radiation exposure has been shown to actually reduce cancer rates. Here is a dramatic example of that, from the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Vol. 9, No. 1, Spring 2004:

http://www.jpands.org/vol9no1/chen.pdf

“An extraordinary incident occurred 20 [now 32] years ago in Taiwan. Recycled steel, accidentally contaminated with cobalt-60 [sources] (half-life: 5.3 y), was formed into construction steel for more than 180 buildings, which 10,000 persons occupied for 9 to 20 years. They unknowingly received [total] radiation doses that averaged 0.4 Sv [40 rem]—a ‘collective dose’ of 4,000 person-Sv [400,000 rem].

“Based on the observed seven cancer deaths, the cancer mortality rate for this population was assessed to be 3.5 per 100,000 person-years [of exposure]. Three children were born with congenital heart malformations, indicating a prevalence rate of 1.5 cases per 1,000 children under age 19.”

By comparison, “The average spontaneous cancer death rate in the general population of Taiwan over these 20 years is 116 persons per 100,000 person-years. Based upon partial official statistics and hospital experience, the prevalence rate of congenital malformation is 23 cases per 1,000 children. Assuming the age and income distributions of these persons are the same as for the general population, it appears that significant beneficial health effects may be associated with this chronic radiation exposure.”

This sort of thing drives the anti-nukes bonkers.

Wingnut

Still off topic but to quickly answer the question: .

As I understand it amount of radiation released at the instant detonation is very much dependant on the weapon, many are relatively (I stress relatively clean) at the sort of distance the delivery aircraft would presumably plan to be at the moment of detonation. The radiation at short range and also from any fallout is another matter ...as is EMP.

Canute also makes a valid point.....certainly peacetime rules regarding level of exposure etc would be long gone.

That simply doesn't follow, setpoint. Your "evidence" no way supports your conclusion about health benefits from chronic radiation exposure. Seriously!? All it shows is that statistically, the occupants of a few score buildings is an unreliably small sample amongst a population of tens of millions...But if you'd like to prove the benefits yourself with an exposure trial....? What's more worrying is the implication that the radiation risk experienced by flight crew is very low, indeed almost laughable. The very high incidence of skin cancer among pilots (for which I agree causality hasn't been established) makes it very hard to argue this is somehow beneficial

Unfortunately this is a perfect example of the kind of methodology that's been used to prevent the issue of toxic chemicals in cabin air being addressed.

There is a very high incidence of skin cancer in professional drivers ( Truck Drivers Face Risk of Skin Damage From Years of Sun Exposure ? TransForce, Inc. Study: Driving May Contribute to Left-Side Skin Cancers | TIME.com ) skin cancer is caused by UV mainly UVA radiation not ionizing radiation.

In my last airline the crews were pretty good at entering any "smelly sock smell" in the tech log.
I never saw or heard of an aircraft being grounded (AOG).
So should sometime in the future the link to organophosphates & medical complications be proven. I wonder how the airlines & the individuals who released the aircraft fair in the inevitable compensation lawsuits. This post intentionally controversial so please discuss.

Cancer risk is in the low 40% for white males. Death from cancer is in the low-mid 20%'s.
Maybe 230/1000. Aviation induced is about 2/1000.

Exposure is 1/4 to 1/7 of the annual limit so the airlines didn't stop monitoring because they were trying to hide data, they stopped because it was a waste of time.

Yes interesting stats. As a matter of interest as of now nor at the time did I suffer any known reaction. However one of my co-pilots did. Although not to a detrimental extent.
So yes your figures are proberbly right but will those (if proved in future) have a case?

The crews may well have been "pretty good at entering any 'smelly sock smell', but in any subsequent "inevitable compensation lawsuits", one imagines the first question asked of those claiming compensation may well be along the lines of: "Captain Bloggs, having detected that unusual smell, why didn't you follow the smoke/fumes checklist, and immediately don your oxygen mask? That would have provided you with significant protection, would it not?"

Protecting yourself is in your hands. Nobody else's!

Can't imagine that donning O2 mask would have been my first thought if informed of 'sweaty sock' smell (Nor my second, third or fourth).

Can't imagine that donning O2 mask would have been my first thought if informed of 'sweaty sock' smell (Nor my second, third or fourth).

Having heated discussions with my wife, on return home, might be; but then again not.

Then the only question to be asked is why they are entering their (or their colleagues) sweaty socks, in the tech log?

Ho ho! Except the smell denotes lethally toxic gas causing life-shattering or fatal injuries down the line Unfortunately it's only quite recently that such entries started getting much in the way of priority for treatment or rectification.

I realise this is a serious issue and might have been brushed under the carpet for too long, but.....the list of amusing tech log entries & replies is now becoming longer.

1. Funny smell in cockpit:.....We all checked it out, had a laugh, and sprayed air freshener. Funny smell departed.
2. Smell of old socks in cockpit.......Old socks removed (from under seat- what are you guys doing in there?) sprayed with air freshener. Ground tested found satis.
3. Strange smell of engines in cockpit.........Smell of engines perfectly normal and side window closed.

Note: Air freshener now added to list of cockpit equipment and no-go items. MEL allows one sector to a station where Air freshener can be replaced.