Whenever I’ve had it at the tgate the APU was found to have a substantial oil leak. They burned the packs and MELd the APU

Is the wet sock an issue on the 145, 175, and the 737? Seems to be an AB issue

Any plane that uses bleed air for the packs can have it. My understanding is the 145 is a heavy offender. The 787 is the only airplane that doesn’t use bleed air

Early jets like the DC-8 used turbocompressors for the A/C packs, because they didn’t know if bleed air would be completely safe.

Maybe we can go back to that.

Something really needs to be done.

Aircraft manufacturers have known about the oil risk for at least a few decades, and they have refused to take it seriously.

I have a feeling the courts will now punish them for that willful ignorance.

Where do the packs run off on the 787?

Electrically driven compressors.

I was on the 757/767 for eight years and often, when shutting down an engine while taxiing in, I’d get a dose of atomized fuel...or some other toxin, through the packs. I’ve been on the airbus for 2 years and I’ve only smelled what I’d call a dirty sock smell once. It was at JFK and the APU was running and the packs were supplying air....the winds were howling sideways across the aircraft and I think the APU exhaust was being ingested on the downwind side and being sent into the cabin. It was mildly irritating to my nose and as soon as a flight attendant complained, I turned the downwind pack off and the smell dissipated after a few minutes.

I don’t know about the rest of you guys but I went from not having any allergies, 10-15 years ago, to now, having pretty bad allergies, and not only seasonally. I feel like I come to work fine, and uncongested, and after a day or two at work, my nose is running, my eyes dry out occasionally...I can live with it but it’s not pleasant. In the spring and the fall, it’s a lot worse. I missed 3 weeks of work last February when, on a trip, during a red eye, my ear started acting up. I went home sick and went to quick care. I had a sinus infection, two ear infections and strep. It took three weeks before I could get the pressure to equalize in my ear.

My Primary care Doc has Told me about several AMA articles he’s read regarding the atomized fuel being inhaled by passengers and the studies and tests they’ve done on how harmful it is. Once it just an irritant, but over time, it can cause permanent damage.

All I can say is, I’m glad I’ve got a huge life insurance policy, cause I don’t know if I’ll live long enough to see my kids off to college.

Edit: I just read my entire post and realize I jumped around a lot with the issues I’ve had lately and I’m not blaming strep or the ear infections on the dirty sock smell...I’ve just been getting sick a lot more over the past 5-10 years, and I’m concerned about the health implications of all the crap we are exposed to. I was on the 757/767 for a majority of that time too. Maybe I’m just getting old and that’s why I’m getting sick more often...I don’t know.

I was talking to a crew about this a few days ago actually, bought up the Spirit pilot who died due to it and that now whenever they get the smell they divert immediately. And if the crew is breathing that stuff in imagine what the folks in back are breathing in, especially the elderly.

Had one going into Seattle a while back. Raining hard, moderate turbulence. Got the sock smell on the downwind. They tried to “burn it out of the packs” by running the engines up with the packs on. Maintenance brought plane back, we boarded with APU on and no issues. When we pushed back and started it reeked of the sock smell. Returned to the gate. One of the FAs was pregnant and said she didn’t want to get back on plane. We agreed, told dispatch we weren’t accepting the plane. They cancelled the flight. Moral is I don’t think it has to do with the pack filters being dirty as it was fine running off the APU.

Something isn’t right... We are getting new super fancy filters that supposedly filter out the fine particulates though so that’s nice. I flew the 145 for a decade and I smelt that all the time and just thought it was a moldy filter.


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