HighFlight

Different plane, multiple events:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...ume-incidents/

AYLflyer

JFC people. If you get hurt/sick at work and the doctor tells you to stay at the hospital, stay in the damn hospital!

Bluedriver

Absolutely...

localizer

Seems I may have experienced some minor fumes. A very faint odor on descent which smelled kind of like a marker or something similar. It was barely noticeable. No one else noticed or said anything. Perhaps it was not “fumes.”

Do fume events occur more often when descending into warm/humid environments?

jamesholzhauer

That is precisely what it smells like and when it occurs. And unfortunately most of our pilot group is uneducated about it and dismissive of it because it smells so innocuous. I was commuting not long ago and had a magic marker fume event happen. Told the CA...he wouldn’t write it up because he didn’t smell it and no one else in the back noticed. He said he mentioned it to maintenance though (sure). I also let the next crew know about it. Until more people write it up, it will continue to be a problem.

As far as the warm/humid environments...I’ve heard there is correlation, but I don’t know the “why.”

1800RVR

I'm not a scientist but my understanding is that somehow moisture can basically help dislodge particulates caked into the ducting from previous fume events or constant low level oil leakage, thus reintroducing them into the bleed air supply. So it's possible that some fume events aren't even from a current mechanical fault, but residual contamination in the duct being loosened up from moisture.

High cabin heat settings may do the same thing. Pall Aerospace took various cabin air quality measurements and showed air contamination was way worse at high cabin heat settings.

todd1200

Anyone know exactly what to tell your doctor when you’re getting routine bloodwork done in order to get them to test cholinesterase plasma and RBC? The doc I went to couldn’t find the info “in their system” and didn’t know how to order the test, collect the sample or (most importantly) how to bill for the tests.

jamesholzhauer

I showed my AME the relevant bluepilots articles highlighting the baseline test and a few relevant pieces of info, and he ordered the tests thru I think quest labs, but said it was outside the scope of my medical exam. He’s also a PCM/internist and Air Force flight doc, and had never heard of this whole fumes thing before. He suggested it maybe should fall under workmen’s comp and wasn’t in his lane, or my PCM, though I said that’s a common belief but that I hadn’t had a fume event yet, and so I had no workman’s comp claims...I just wanted a baseline test done. I explained that it’s in no one’s lane because the FAA, company, and many others deny its a problem and there isn’t enough research or literature for it to even be a known issue. So AMEs are reluctant to get involved because it’s outside their lane...primary care docs don’t know about it, and after the fact it’s too late to have a baseline test done. After showing him some articles he became a little curious, ordered the tests, and that was that. I got busy and never did the baselines. Then I got fumed pretty bad. I’m now waiting for a few months of not being fumed to get it done so as not to have skewed results.

queue

Legal action must be taken against Captains that refuse to write up ANY fume event, regardless of whom detects it. This is gross negligence. And the write-up must be the aircraft logbook or a NASA ASRS form (not just some SMS report that can be hidden). Also, any company or union "forms" are not sufficient as these too can be made to disappear since they are not an official government report.

queue

The USAF knows about it... they've known about it since the 1950's. Go visit the aerotoxic websites and you'll find publications referencing them. Now the USAF is a big organization and very few things are universally taught, particularly things they want to keep quiet. In my experience, flight surgeons are ignorant of this until you inform them and they go do their own research within their medical resources. After that, they'll either help you or refuse to run any VOC blood analysis because they get told not to honor such requests.

VOCs can be metabolized in minutes while some are more persistent. They are very hard to isolate with time working against you. The long term damage is neurological and medical science is too primitive to diagnose this.