Crew members hospitalized after fume event
 

http://www.wcvb.com/article/jetblue-...oston/12021148

Since this is atleast a weekly occurrence these days. How much are they really trying to save on MX these days? This is getting ridiculous, we make the news more than Allegiant these days.

It is odd in this instance that 2 crew members and zero passengers were taken to the hospital. . .We are all breathing the same air.

You really going to play doctor here?

Chronic exposure and genetic variation are major factors as to why crew members may have a different response vs the person who flies once every 5 years.

Some interesting papers:
http://www.euro.who.int/__data/asset...yndrom_ENG.pdf

http://aerotoxic.org/wp-content/uplo...july-20141.pdf

http://www.susanmichaelis.com/pdf/Ho...ffects-%20.pdf

There is a ton of info out there on this topic. Over the past few years it has started to come into the spotlight.

Fume events are being reported insdustry wide with high frequency. But since you're upset let's play along and pretend that this is isolated to JB.

Ok. Please show links to the fume events from AA, DL, UA, UA, AK over the last 3 weeks.

Interesting indeed. It seems like any kind of smell in the cabin these days is grounds for a diversion and a trip to the hospital. Something doesn't add up here.

Alaska 's last was Jul 24 (AS-792) pax taken away in ambulances...
July 16 (AS-24) crew declares emergency and diverts for odors.

American July 16 (AA-1927) foul odor...

American June 4 (AA-65) 2 FA's to the hospital.

British Airways Jul 12 (BA 6495) entire cabin crew to the hospital.

British Airways Jul 7 (BA-631) Medical checks for entire crew

This is just a quick search from this summer. There are dozens of them out there.

Well hopefully you never have to know people who are never coming back to the line because of this.
From the sound of it your world is...well it didn't happen to me I don't understand it...so it's fake news!

Nightowl and softman are B6 apologists/defenders so disregard their pro-company myopia.

Crew members hospitalized after fume event
 

...............

I had to divert last week due to an electrical burning smell. UAX.

The unfortunate thing is fume events are not actually getting reported in the masses, just in the news but no central repository. Most airlines aren't following recommended guidance from ICAO with ICAO 344 (http://fdx.alpa.org/portals/26/docs/...rc.344edit.pdf). And the FAA is basically turning a blind eye and allowing each airline to figure it out on their own.

Lets hope this Cabin Air Safety Act gets passed to establish a framework. https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-...nate-bill/1626

No, I completely sympathize with the people that suffered from actual smoke/odor/fume events. I've been in that situation a few times myself.
But what I'm trying to understand is why now ? Why the sudden uptick in these fume/odor events ? Are we doing something different mx wise that now all of sudden we have this happening almost every week.

Have you not noticed the maintenance budget has been slashed since early this year? It seems these events became very common around the same time. It's not hard to connect the dots and see we are going toward an Allegiant model when it comes to mx.

Crew members hospitalized after fume event
 

Because we just recently became aware of what dirty sock smell was. I've smelled it multiple times in my career. We always chocked it up to dirty or wet packs. We weren't aware of tcp poisoning until a crusade by a spirit FO who is out work probably forever started briefing all the MEC's within ALPA.

Then one of our own had it happen to him and he is out probably forever with respiratory issues, and it's even effecting is mental functions. He couldn't even remember his birthday!

The FAA also signed off on an extended seal replacement schedule that is nearly 10x's the previous length.

The reason for the uptick is simply an increased awareness of what is actually happening! I applaud it!


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This right here. People are now more aware and just don't pass it off as some dirty/wet pack issue.

Forgive my ignorance. I have not heard of the TCP poisoning. I have had the dirty sock smell before but never got an answer as to what caused. it! Where can I find more info?

Chronic exposure and genetic variation are major factors as to why crew members may have a different response vs the person who flies once every 5 years.

Some interesting papers:
http://www.euro.who.int/__data/asset...yndrom_ENG.pdf

http://aerotoxic.org/wp-content/uplo...july-20141.pdf

http://www.susanmichaelis.com/pdf/Ho...ffects-%20.pdf

There is a ton of info out there on this topic. Over the past few years it has started to come into the spotlight.

Good stuff !! Thanks!!

Correlation does not equal causation. "Connecting the dots" is often a specious conclusion. We have to be careful here to insure accuracy. I'm on one of the safety committees on the pilot side.

Reminds me of the movie "A Civil Affair" - based on a true story - when the attorney played by Robert Duvall is cross examining the witness about cancer. "Ever pump your own gas? Ever get your clothes dry cleaned?"

The likelihood of specifically identifying these fumes as inducing a medical condition - given the thousands of variables pilots are exposed to - are remote.

Kind of also reminds me of laser events. I wrote a four page article for an aviation publication on laser hits. Interviewed numerous experts. Wore laser goggles in the cockpit for a month. There are ZERO cases of long term medical damage when hit by a laser in the cockpit. ZERO. Despite the contentions of pilots that never report back to work. It's simply not possible to incur that type of injury. Flashblindess yes. Startle, yes. Retina damage, no. I researched it for six months.

It's important to not jump to conclusions. I was a firefighter. That's pretty relevant if I go to the hospital with a fumes event and they find lung damage. Correlation does not equal causation.

Our CRJ's at awac smelled like dirty sock pretty much all summer and any time you flew through a cloud. Still trucking, so I guess it wasn't THE dirty sock smell.

What's funny is the people blaming the pilots when it was the stewardesses that felt ill. What would you do if your flight attendants called and said that they were breathing something in and felt sick?

This guy get's it, but won't be very popular for saying it. What's more, once someone makes that correlation-causation leap and starts spreading the idea, the group psychology takes over and the thing takes on a life of it's own.

You'd start shutting off packs and descending to 10000 if needs be.

We don't have a procedure for that. There's a visible smoke removal procedure but not a fumes removal procedure.

You know what. You might want to look into what Spirit has been doing about this problem. Including new procedures. Sounds like you mightn't be very informed on this topic.

I'm aware of Spirit's procedure. Are you saying we now have a similar one? I may be mistaken but I didn't think we had one. Especially one that involved depressurizing the aircraft.

Man they sure did.

The ironic thing is pilots like to think that we think so independently yet we are major victims of group think

^^^What he said! ;)

But these weren't pilots so the group mentality doesn't come into play. Yes because people are talking about what the dirty sock smell actually is now I am more cognizant of what I am breathing into my body. I don't think it's a bad thing I think of what fume I am smelling everytime I smell something.

This ^^^^^

The guy who suffered serious issues literally walked through a visible cloud of vaporized oil. That is completely different than smelling a smell when the bleeds change. It's important for us to recognize that difference because if we don't, of course people are going to be freaked out.

I think most pilots are fairly calm about the issue. They are reporting things as requested. But I'm hearing some flight attendants are losing it when they get a whiff of anything. Food. Nail polish. Whatever. It's taking on a life of its own, and group psychology is really hard to fix.

The fact alone that the BA guy Richard Westgate's autoposy showed organophosphate poisoning as a cause of death should sound alarm bells with everyone as to the level of danger this stuff poses. Here is an interesting snippet from this article. https://www.flightglobal.com/news/ar...soning-402138/

"Abou-Donia and his colleagues are also investigating the January 2014 death of an unnamed 34-year-old BA airline steward, whose tissue samples indicate degradation that appears identical to the pilot’s case, and is “consistent with organophosphate-induced neurotoxicity”. Both Westgate and the steward died in their beds.

Abou-Donia says Westgate’s case is “one of the worst cases of organo-phosphate [OP] poisoning I have come across”.

“In all my specialised tests for neuro-specific auto-antibodies he was the worst by far,” he says. “The air transport industry constantly overlooks vital components of OP poisoning: the combined effects of multiple compound exposure – repeated low-dosage exposure is just as dangerous as a single large dose (often more so) – and the genetic predisposition to toxicity of the individual’s genes.”

Abou-Donia's latter point is particularly important, as some of the fume events investigated saw one pilot react badly to the neurotoxins while the other was apparently unaffected, which led to confusion."

All three links are dead.

I fought this battle when I worked for the government. I can reliably diagnose what I believe is TCP based toxins in the air. There is one plane type I flew that I could reproduce it every time. One symptom I experienced was throbbing nerve pains throughout my body after an exposure. It took 3 yrs for that to reduce. All other neurological symptoms were also consistent with my experience.

During my crusade I was very disappointed to find out that the EPA cannot help us in any way. While they can regulate air quality standards inside of a building, they have no jurisdiction within an airplane. Only the FAA has jurisdiction over cabin air quality standards. Unfortunately, The FAA has made no effort to parallel the air quality standards of a building.

You can find military documents and documents written by engineers dating back to the 50s citing the toxic danger of bleed air contamination.. While these guys may install HEPA filters, they are not installing our air quality monitoring systems as recommended by engineers. Also, if they did install air quality monitoring systems, I'm sure that they would set the thresholds high so that they would never be triggered into a warning event mode. No exposure to organophosphates is safe but the industry will have you believe that there are acceptable levels. This is the same problem that you find in the nuclear industry. Incidentally we should also be flying around with dosimeters since we get more radiation exposure than a nuclear worker.

There are those of us that may have developed in multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) and now many chemical-based orderizers such as air spray's cause discomfort and similar symptoms to aero toxic syndrome is exposed for continuous amounts of time. I'm personally very sensitive to places that have been smoked in even a single time.

Lastly, I have to be critical of all those pilots that laughed, were apologists for, and belittled any of those who brought this issue up. I'm glad to see that it's finally being addressed.

Try those links.

Well think about this. The FAA is one of the few government agencies that is regulated directly by Congress. And who controls Congress?? Big corporations, including big airlines. Has anyone reached out to Erin Brokovich? Don't laugh!! She is good at fanning the flames in these type cases.

I'm gonna backtrack on my above statement after reviewing the QRH. I think an argument could be made that the Smoke/Fumes Removal (S-18 for those with access) is what should be applied if TCP fumes are suspected. IrishNJ is correct.

The question you have to ask yourself is if the F3 calls up front and reports a dirty sock smell and no one else smells it do you apply that procedure?

And to continue this conversation with myself, According to the summer QDL the first stop in the QRH would be Smoke/Fumes/Avionics Smoke on S-7 which would eventually lead you to S-18.

So with all that cleared up I don't think you can make the argument that jetblue isn't doing anything. It's right there in the QDL discussing what procedure to apply in a fumes event.

I commend them on their response, personally. I only wished that the industry had done even the bare minimum since the 50's. except for the 787, we still have bleed air systems for air. Nothing stopped all the airlines, including JB from requiring manufacturers to develop safe air systems. The strategy of waiting for tragedy to change things is an intellectual choice.