Airline Pilot Central Forums

Airline Pilot Central Forums (https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/)
-   Major (https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/major/)
-   -   Wet Sock Smell (https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/major/111742-wet-sock-smell.html)

queue 02-28-2018 04:54 PM


Originally Posted by hilltopflyer (Post 2536723)
B6 did something about it. Big hoopla about it all.

B6 has made an effort to convince everyone that the issue is not existent. They provided research minimizing the effects of routine TCP exposure.

Qotsaautopilot 03-01-2018 05:12 AM


Originally Posted by queue (Post 2539829)
B6 has made an effort to convince everyone that the issue is not existent. They provided research minimizing the effects of routine TCP exposure.

Spirit tried to deny it as well. The crew that Eric was a part of pushed very hard to bring the issue to light while the company tried to suppress them. It became too much and Spirit finally acknowledged that these events do happen. They developed a procedure, a fume event reporting form, and supposedly replaced all the cabin air filters on the entire fleet to a much better more expensive filter. Not sure who can verify that work has actually been done but that’s what they told us. I would bet we probably report more fume events per year than any other airline now.

webecheck 03-01-2018 06:21 PM


Originally Posted by SuperDuty (Post 2538010)
I wouldn't be overly concerned, except bran damage is permanent.

The reality is pilots probably do far more harm to their brains from alcohol consumption, and to some extent problems with women. :D

Would be hard to sit at a bar on an overnight and with a straight face complain to each other about how that smell may cause some health issues when older, as you pound that 9% Belgian. I’m not saying the risk isn’t there, but if you’re going to make a stink about it, wouldn’t you need to be the guy who doesn’t drink, exercises, isn’t 40lbs overweight, etc?

GrumpyCaptain 03-01-2018 07:59 PM

Difference is your liver can heal itself but your brain not so much.

Exposure to some of these chemicals causes brain damage similar to nfl players and concussions. Think about the secretly quiet, yet high suicide rate between the 2 professions.

jcountry 03-02-2018 05:09 AM


Originally Posted by FMGEC (Post 2538033)
I commonly sense, what best I can describe as a “solvent” smell, while descending into a humid destination. Is this what we are talking about?

Nope.

Doesn’t smell like that to me.

Smells just like a wet sock.

I’ve never had a reaction. Maybe it wasn’t long enough, maybe it wasn’t the same kind of oil. Could have been a kind of pack oil, I guess.

I’m just mad that maintenance used to lie to us and say it was some kind of water separators getting moldy. It’s not that

jcountry 03-02-2018 05:11 AM


Originally Posted by FMGEC (Post 2538033)
I commonly sense, what best I can describe as a “solvent” smell, while descending into a humid destination. Is this what we are talking about?

Nope.

Doesn’t smell like that to me.

Smells just like a wet sock.

I’ve never had a reaction. Maybe it wasn’t long enough, maybe it wasn’t the same kind of oil. Could have been a kind of pack oil, I guess.

I’m just mad that maintenance used to lie to us and say it was some kind of water separators getting moldy. It’s not that.

My current airline actually has very good procedures for dealing with any strange smells. My former airline most definitely brushed these events under the rug, and put us all in danger. I know several guys from there who had medical issues and are likely to never get their Medicals back

AFPirate 03-02-2018 02:03 PM

Not discounting any of the valid concerns against aerotoxic fume events... I recall C17 flying in the sandbox and we'd often experience this smell. Maintenance would change out the coalescer bag and the smell would go away...any other 17 drivers remember dealing with this during humid summer flying?

flensr 03-02-2018 10:19 PM


Originally Posted by AFPirate (Post 2541444)
Not discounting any of the valid concerns against aerotoxic fume events... I recall C17 flying in the sandbox and we'd often experience this smell. Maintenance would change out the coalescer bag and the smell would go away...any other 17 drivers remember dealing with this during humid summer flying?

I didn't fly the C-17 but I flew other mil aircraft and all of them had wet-sock smell blamed on water separators. To my recollection, it was always worse in humid environmental conditions.

My last couple trips in the 'bus, I could smell a difference when we flew through thick clouds. Really felt an increase in humidity and a slightly "off" smell, associated directly with flying through dense clouds and light rain. Nope, I didn't file a report for stinky wet humid smell when we flew through rain, because I think we're seeing 2 separate issues here. Sometimes it stinks because the packs are ingesting oil, sometimes it stinks because the air coming through is just super humid and stinky. Separate causes, separate issues, one toxic and one merely unpleasant, but they both smell just about the same. That's just my opinion from 22 yrs flying jets, can't prove it, but I do think there's more than one cause for the wet sock smell and that just makes it very hard to pin it down.

Sliceback 03-03-2018 08:08 AM

Wet sock smell was common on the 727. A couple of writeups per year. Haven’t had one in decades since newer aircraft technology came on on line.

tom11011 03-04-2018 01:04 PM


Originally Posted by Qotsaautopilot (Post 2540123)
Spirit tried to deny it as well. The crew that Eric was a part of pushed very hard to bring the issue to light while the company tried to suppress them. It became too much and Spirit finally acknowledged that these events do happen. They developed a procedure, a fume event reporting form, and supposedly replaced all the cabin air filters on the entire fleet to a much better more expensive filter. Not sure who can verify that work has actually been done but that’s what they told us. I would bet we probably report more fume events per year than any other airline now.

Can you supply a picture of their fume event reporting form?


All times are GMT -8. The time now is 08:16 AM.


User Alert System provided by Advanced User Tagging v3.3.0 (Lite) - vBulletin Mods & Addons Copyright © 2024 DragonByte Technologies Ltd.
Website Copyright ©2000 - 2017 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands