Airliners-India.com

malQ · Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 12:18 pm Post subject: Quality of cabin air

More than simply because I think it is amazing me, what do the techies here have to say about the whole cabin air controversy?

I mean, sample searching on the Internet gets this, amongst other things:-

http://www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=2999

Is contaminated air aboard jet airliners ruining people's health? Are the government and the airline industry colluding to cover up a global public health scandal? Flying may not
just be bad for the planet but bad for your health too. Chris Grimshaw investigates.

John Hoyte is a tall bluff 51 year old. A pilot all his working life Hoyte had begun to develop a mystery sickness in the years before he retired. He was working for a budget airline when he became ill; blurred vision, memory problems,
depression. Worsening symptoms forced him to resign as he felt unable to fly safely. He began to fear that he had CJD or early dementia. Rumours about contaminated air on planes had
existed in pilots' circles for years, but it was not until he was invited to take part in tests at University College London that his illness was connected with this issue.

The tests were conducted by Doctor Sarah Mackenzie Ross, a clinical neuropsychologist. She conducted psychometric tests on Hoyte and 17 other pilots and found that, in addition to physical symptoms, they were suffering 'alarming cognitive failures', including: 'being unable to retain, or confusing, numerical data and information provided by air traffic control
regarding altitude and speed; completing tasks in the incorrect sequence; setting the wrong cleared level for the aircraft to climb or descend; and being unable to recall important matters such as whether the undercarriage has been raised or lowered.' Independently, the pilots had blood
and fat samples analysed. These showed exposure to toxic compounds including the organophosphate, tricresyl phosphate.

Evidence is emerging that the air supply on modern jet airliners is regularly contaminated with a cocktail of toxic chemicals. Due to the altitude planes fly at, crew and passengers need compressed air to breathe. This is supplied from the engines - unfiltered - and is sometimes still blended with pyrolised (heated) engine oils and hydraulic fluids. The
engine oils contain the organophosphate, tricresyl phosphate (TCP), a powerful toxin. Illness caused by exposure to the
chemical contaminants in cabin air has been dubbed Aerotoxic Syndrome.

John Hoyte has now set up the Aerotoxic Association to inform crews and passengers about the health hazards to which they are exposed, to provide support and advice to sufferers, and to campaign for official recognition of Aerotoxic Syndrome.

Pilots and aircrew who are regularly exposed may develop symptoms. Sometimes the contamination is strong enough to cause health damage with a single exposure. Corporate Watch spoke to one passenger who flew to Orlando, Florida on a charter flight aboard a Boeing 757, earlier this year. On the flight the family became quite ill and spent their holiday in bed with a mystery illness. They suffered breathing difficulties, exhaustion, cognitive problems and severe flu like symptoms. When the return flight was delayed the passenger was able to talk to around 40 other passengers who had been on the same outbound flight and found that most of them had suffered similar symptoms. The family were still incapacitated when they returned home and their GP was unable to identify any cause of the mystery illness. They complained to the airline and to the Health Protection Agency and discovered that their aeroplane had an 'air valve bleed' which could have contaminated the air supply.

Ex-pilot and aerotoxic sufferer Captain Susan Michaelis has investigated the extent of the problem by surveying pilots.
She wrote to 350 BA 146 pilots, and received responses from 242: 86% had experienced contaminated air events;
57% experienced some aerotoxic symptoms; 27% reporting medium to long term symptoms and 8.5% had retired for medical
reasons. Michaelis has also written the Aviation Contaminated Air Reference Manual an 844 page guide to the issue detailing numerous independent studies and over 1000 contaminated air events in the UK alone.

A Canadian scientist, Chris Van Netten, became interested in the issue and decided to conduct his own studies. He took swab samples from inside a number of airliners and tested them for tricresyl phosphate. In total 40 planes of different types have been tested in this way in Australia, the USA, UK and
Europe. 34 tested positive for TCP.

Governments around the world appear to be deeply uninterested. The issue is currently under official investigation in the UK
by the government appointed Committee on Toxicity (COT) and the House of Lords, Science and Technology Committee.
Campaigners allege that both investigations are seriously flawed. Of twelve parties selected to give evidence to the
House of lords investigation only one was an independent scientist and only one representative of air crews.

The Global Cabin Air Quality Executive (GCAQE), an international coalition of concerned unions, has written to the Committee of Toxicity to point out serious flaws in its evidence gathering. The COT has, for instance, only accepted as evidence one study of TCP contamination of an aeroplane, although they have been informed by campaigners of at least eight other independent studies which found evidence of contamination. The blood and tissue tests mentioned above have
also been ignored and the committee has failed to follow up evidence provided by a number of independent scientists. The
unions' coalition has written to the COT secretariat, informing them of more than 20 crucial factual errors and limitations in their report. Each of these errors it represents, downplays or ignores the evidence for contaminated air and its dangers.

Captain Tristan Loraine of the GCAQE commented that, 'the COT appear to be looking after industry interests rather than
passenger and crew health and flight safety'. COT is expected to report back some time Autumn 2007.

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And this:-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-513209/Toxic-airlines-Is-plane-trip-poisoning-you.html

They were suffering from something doctors, scientists, the Australian Senate and many others call 'aerotoxic syndrome' and, alarmingly, it's not something I've made up.

It's very real, very common and it's caused by two almost unbelievable facts. First, 50 per cent of the air in an aircraft's cabin comes from the blisteringly hot heart of its engines; and second, once it has been cooled down, that air, together with any toxins it might have picked up along the way, passes straight into the aircraft cabin totally unfiltered.

Since 1962, when using compressed atmospheric air was deemed too expensive, every single commercial jet aircraft has replenished its cabin air supply in this way.

In half a century of aviation progress, control and back up systems have been transformed, anti-collision systems introduced and navigation taken to stunning new heights. But nothing, has been done about the fact that all on board - passengers and crew alike - are breathing unfiltered air straight from the engines.

. . .

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