A new Bio marker blood test announcement will be critical for the future safety of jet aviation.
For over 70 years, public health has been adversely affected by random, frequent exposures to often visible oil fumes in the confines of most jet aircraft as heated ‘Bleed air’ is piped unmonitored and unfiltered into jet cockpits and cabins affecting all jet flyers – both aircrew and passengers.
The Boeing 787 is the only jet flying with a ‘bleed free’ architecture design from 2009.
The public illness was first published as Aerotoxic Syndrome (AS) in 1999 by doctors and scientists from the US, France, and Australia.
But ever since, many vested interests have denied any causal link between jet flyer toxic exposures and serious ill health symptoms, which are dismissed as ‘jetlag’.
Whilst countless public Court cases around the world show that all is not well with a fundamental design flaw on the brink of being exposed at an ‘On line’ 18th annual Cabin Air conference from 27-29 June 2023 at which US/UK/EU scientists, politicians, Union leaders, doctors, Cabin Air campaigners and ‘Aerotoxic sufferers’ will all share their latest evidence in public, as a matter of public interest.
Dutch published research of 2016 calculated that around one million flyers with Aerotoxic Syndrome in Europe alone. But as AS is caused by a fundamental design flaw – little can be done to stop it as for over 70 years public illness has become a normal and accepted part of flying in ‘Bleed air’ jets.
No toxic air sensors are presently installed in any jets where human noses are still used, whilst carbon monoxide sensors are often mandated in domestic homes.
There are two ‘Schools of thought’ of which toxic chemicals cause documented acute & chronic public injuries, whilst a soon to be announced Bio marker blood test will at last absolutely prove human exposure beyond any reasonable doubt:
Carbon Monoxide – CO (Deadly gas) is generated by jet engine heat and causes both acute & chronic ill health symptoms.
2) Organophosphates OP (Deadly nerve agents) which are added as jet engine anti-wear agents at 3-5% in jet engine oil causes chronic ill health symptoms.
However only OP is added to jet engine oil, CO gas is only generated by heat within the jet engine – CO cannot be added to the engine oil, as OPs are added.
The new Bio marker test is for OPs ONLY not CO, which are added to jet engine oil which are filtered out by human lungs and then find their way into human blood.
The above evidence has been argued over tirelessly for decades with many vested interests denying that OPs can even be present in jets or poisonous. But it has been known for decades that only tiny doses of OPs are required to poison around 20% of vulnerable people whose livers cannot detoxify OPs, as with the sheep-dip farmers.
Recently, it has been realized that CO is present most of the time in unmonitored and unfiltered Bleed Air, and as CO is an odorless, colorless and invisible deadly gas in tiny doses – CO causes much greater harm, especially with the acute ill health of flyers, but when CO is mixed with OPs and many other toxic chemicals – is even deadlier as a mixture.
Whether it is CO or OP does not matter in the slightest to anyone who has been poisoned whilst flying in a jet – who only wishes to be well again and not poisoned – they do not care exactly which poison, is making them feel acutely or chronically sick…
For any new virgin, non-flyer to have an OP Bio marker blood test with no contaminants in at all is a BASE BLOOD TEST (BBT) and anyone considering going flying in a jet should have a BBT in advance of flying as it will be definitive evidence and proof of possible OP contamination in the future.
Following an oil ‘Fume event’, where visible oil fumes have been breathed in by both aircrew or passengers – all that is needed is an available Bio marker blood test for OPs – to absolutely prove past exposure.
CO exposure may also be tested for even further proof. This is especially true of many sick jet passengers who all have the same or similar results as previously happened on Flight XLA 120 on 1st February 2007 when 40 UK passengers including Ms Samantha Sabatino were made chronically sick from a single transatlantic flight and appeared in a BBC Panorama ‘Something in the air’ in 2008.
This new Bio marker OP blood test and updated 2009 Medical Protocol will be announced at the 18th annual Cabin Air conference on 29 June 2023: https://www.aircraftcabinair.com/schedule
15:25-15:50 (London Time UTC + 1)
Have You Been Exposed to Aircraft Engine Oil? – Biomarkers of Exposure
Professor Clement Furlong
Professor of Medicine and Genome Sciences
University of Washington
And
17:06-17:41 (London Time UTC + 1)
Aircraft fume events: A narrative review and medical protocol for the investigation of aircrew and passengers exposed to aircraft contaminated air and the health consequences of exposure.
Practical guideline prepared by the International Fume Events Task Force
Professor Vyvyan Howard
FRCPath
Centre for Molecular Biosciences
University of Ulster
Countless flyers, both aircrew & passengers have been made very seriously ill following oil fume event exposures since 1950’s, but a recent message from a UK Low cost airline male pilot to the Aerotoxic Association sums up the present situation in his own words:
I am a commercial pilot who recently had a fumes event whose source has been confirmed as an oil leak from the APU. At the time we smelt the sweaty socks smell and within a minute I felt symptoms (tingling hands and mild confusion). The day after I began experiencing mild headaches which I rarely experienced prior to the event. As a result I went to A&E and told them what had happened. They took my bloods and did a standard blood gas and confirmed I was fine. Can I ask what you advise I do from here? I live in the UK, should I go to my GP and explain what happened? I am just concerned they do not have a protocol for this type of thing and therefore would spend a long time looking for the wrong thing. Perhaps you can advise of a private service I can use to get the necessary testing done? Secondly is there anything in the time being I can do to detoxify myself?
Any advice you can offer I would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks, RS
The new Bio marker blood test for OPs has been waited for, for over 20 years – this new OP based blood test will be the beginning of the end of the known design flaw of using unmonitored, unfiltered ‘bleed air’ for human consumption.
This young, 30-year-old low cost airline pilot should be first tested for vulnerability to OPs and if positive, he should never fly in any jet again or else he will get sicker and sicker from repeated OP/CO exposures in unmonitored oil fumes, in a confined space over time like countless other aircrew from all over the world.
Secondly, he should now have an available ‘base level’ bio marker test along with the rest of the population to record a BASE LEVEL and if further exposed – another differentiator Bio marker blood test which will indicate whether or not he has more OPs in his blood than the earlier base test.
Thirdly, CO may also be tested as his acute illness symptoms whilst in the jet will have been caused by the CO in the oil fumes.
Prompt treatment with Oxygen is generally the best action for First Aiders.
Captain Hoyte remarked: “I first became aware of the well-known and published in 1999 dangers of repeated exposures to toxic cabin air from jet aircraft in early 2006 – therefore I am relieved that after 17 long years international scientists have at last been able to announce a Bio marker blood test to show exposure to toxic oil fumes from bleed air jets in flyers. I can get on with publishing more books about my story and my uniquely different Simulator Flying business and I can at last return to a more normal life in Warwickshire, UK.”
For further information contact: Captain John Hoyte
Former BAe 146 Training Captain
Aerotoxic Association Ltd (2007)
Aerotoxic Solutions Consultancy Ltd (2021)
The Daily Telegraph – Christopher Booker’s notebook
By Christopher Booker
12:01AM BST 24 Jun 2007
Pilots disabled by poisoned air
A few years back Susan Michaelis, Tristan Loraine and John Hoyte were successful airline pilots, earning up to £100,000 a year. Last Monday, with health and livelihood destroyed, they joined forces with some 20 other similarly disabled pilots, to launch a campaign to alert the public to what should be seen as one of the most alarming scandals of our time.
Yet two days later came further evidence of how the regulatory authorities, in alliance with the airline industry itself, have stopped at nothing to cover up a health disaster whose financial costs for the industry could run to many billions.
The essence of the problem is that the air supply to the cockpits and cabins of many modern airliners is bled off from their engines, where it becomes contaminated with carcinogens, immunosuppressants and highly toxic organo-phosphorus (OP) chemicals, especially a compound known as tricresyl phosphate (TCP) used as an anti-wear additive. Both crew and passengers are thus exposed to small amounts of OPs and a cocktail of other nasties. OPs, more commonly used as pesticides, cumulatively attack the nervous system, causing disorders ranging from nausea, headaches and dizziness to, eventually, serious mental and physical breakdown.
Although this problem was first identified 30 years ago, following a near-fatal incident in the US, it was kept so quiet that when hundreds of pilots in the 1980s began to experience adverse reactions they had no idea why. One of the first to track down the cause was Susan Michaelis, flying BA146s in Australia, when in 1997 she was permanently grounded by severe illness. Two years later, at her instigation, an official inquiry by the Australian Senate heard enough expert evidence to confirm that the cause of so many pilots and cabin crew suffering ill-health was contamination of cabin air by TCP and other chemicals.
In 2001 the cause was taken up in Britain by Captain Loraine, a senior member of the British Air Line Pilots Association (BALPA), who flew Boeing 757s. But from the industry and regulators, such as the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), they met with a wall of denials. Although more pilots were suffering from “aerotoxic syndrome” every year, there began a cover-up which uncannily parallelled the methods used by government in the 1990s when the health of thousands of farmers was destroyed by OPs in sheep dip.
Ironically, in 2005, just after he had organised a BALPA conference of leading scientists and other experts from all over the world, Captain Loraine himself became seriously affected. Initially doctors for his airline saw no reason why he should not continue flying, but in 2006, following further exposure to contaminated air, he was permanently grounded by the CAA.
The career of Captain Hoyte, an experienced BA146 pilot, ended the same year for the same reason, although he was repeatedly told by doctors for his airline and the CAA that his only problem was “stress”.
Tests run on both pilots by the leading medical experts on OP poisoning, including Professor Mohamed Abou-Donia, of Duke University, North Carolina, and neuropsychologist Dr Sarah Mackenzie-Ross of University College, London, confirmed brain cell death, cognitive problems and exposure to TCP, explaining why both had become textbook cases of OP-induced chronic neurotoxicity.
Dr Mackenzie-Ross, who since 2003 has been carrying out an extensive study of sheep farmers and airline pilots, has estimated that, in 2004, 197,000 airline passengers in Britain alone could have been exposed to contaminated fumes. The evidence suggests that a great many people have been made ill while flying without having any idea why. One of the scientists studying this problem, Professor Chris van Netten, a Canadian epidemiologist, has analysed swabs taken from many different airliners, finding traces of TCP in more than 80 per cent of the aircraft tested.
Yet, despite the overwhelming weight of evidence, the regulators and the industry have continued to deny that the TCP problem exists. For three years now, as with the sheep farmers before, the British Government has relied on its Committee on Toxicity (CoT) to conduct a seemingly interminable investigation into “cabin air quality”, marked by a conspicuous reluctance to address the problem of TCP.
Last week, Michaelis, Loraine and Hoyte joined forces at Portcullis House, Westminster, to launch the Aerotoxic Association, backed by 110 MPs and many peers, including those veterans of the battle to expose the scandal of OP poisoning, the Countess of Mar and Lord (Paul) Tyler.
On Wednesday, however, the CoT produced the minutes of yet another of its meetings. As official obfuscation, they were almost self-parodic. They referred to BALPA submitting “data relating to organo-phosphates”, but this was the only reference to OPs in the document. The remaining 20 pages, dealing with anything from carbon monoxide to the need to review pilot training procedures, showed that the committee had no interest in whether airline crews and passengers were being poisoned by TCP from engine oil. It is high time this particular cover-up was blown wide open.
As a result of action taken against the BBC on two occasions – a comprehensive Witness Statement was sent to Westminster Magistrates Court on 11 August 2022 and an acknowledgment was requested in good time for a public hearing on Wednesday 17 August 2022 @ 0930.
As no answer was forthcoming a further message was sent on 16 August 2022 with the same Witness Statement with a request for it to be acknowledged before the hearing on the next day.
As no reply was received and as I represent myself, I decided to enter a plea of ‘Not Guilty’ and will be judged at a Crown Court, with a jury, in the future.
In addition, the media who had been informed of the public court hearing, had failed to respond to a Media Release of 11 August 2022.
Aircrew have found the law on anything to do with Aerotoxic Syndrome particularly difficult to understand over the past 16 years with many legal technicalities seemingly designed by others to keep professional aircrew and passengers’ legal cases out of public courts.
For those public who are unaware of the so-called lawyers ‘legal aerotoxic games’ – it can take 18 years from being poisoned in 1992 to winning in the High Court of Australia on 3 September 2010. So obviously, no rush is required now….
BBC cover-up of Aerotoxic Syndrome? New evidence will be judged for the first time in a UK public court on 17 August 2022.
Executive summary.
Aerotoxic Syndrome is a little-known public health disease caused by exposure to poisonous cabin air in most public transport jets, apart from the Boeing 787, and was first published in the USA, France & Australia in 1999.
John Hoyte is a 66-year-old career pilot who, after flying jets from 1989 onwards, became seriously ill with mysterious neurological symptoms. He stopped flying prematurely in 2005 and was then tested with 26 other Balpa Union pilots and diagnosed with Aerotoxic Syndrome. He founded the Aerotoxic Association in 2007 to help support other survivors. www.aerotoxic.org
However, as Aerotoxic Syndrome also involves large amounts of money – neither governments nor the aviation industry yet recognize the public ill health caused, which can affect both aircrew and passengers, even on a single oil ‘Fume event’ flight. Due to a 15-year cover-up by the BBC, little public awareness still exists – despite 1,000,000 aircrew and passengers unknowingly having aerotoxic poisoning in Europe alone, which was published in a 2016 Dutch survey.
However, after two new peer reviewed UK/USA scientific papers were published in July 2022 with a new theory that Carbon Monoxide is now the main chemical of concern, the BBC have once again failed to inform the flying public of this latest evidence and news.
This BBC inaction led to John Hoyte finally acting for a second time on 21 July 2022 which will lead to an appearance at Westminster Magistrates Public Court on 17 August 2022 at 0930 to face charges and explain his reasons for his actions, in the public interest, which are outlined below.
We welcome renewed interest in the long running Toxic Cabin Air story.
Background evidence: Aerotoxic Syndrome (AS) was first published on 20 October 1999 by a US doctor, a French forensic scientist, and an Australian toxicologist. AS is mostly neurological ill health which can affect any member of the public who flies in almost any commercial jet aircraft, even on a single jet flight (See Flight XLA120) but especially after a visible oil ‘Fume event’ flight.
All commercial jets, apart from the Boeing 787 which has been redesigned, rely on ‘Bleed air’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETRZDsgjEvE where all the breathable air in an aircraft cabin, first passes through jet engines, which can become contaminated by jet engine oil, when ‘wet’ seals which are actually designed to leak oil, become more worn – a known design flaw. Bleed air is neither filtered nor monitored.
Yet it is only in August 2022 that a probable BBC cover up of a little-known taboo /banned/prohibited Aerotoxic word from public debate of a public health and safety scandal will be judged for possibly the first time, in a public court, with full media reporting.
Aerotoxic Syndrome was renamed as Aerotoxic Poisoning (AP) by Aviation Minister Baroness Vere of Norbiton of the UK government on 26 May 2019.
The BBC interviewed John Hoyte in connection with the premature death of pilot Richard Westgate once only, and live on BBC TV News on 22 February 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGVL1N4LZYM
However, following the publication of two new UK/USA peer reviewed, published scientific papers on 8 & 14 July 2022 with new Aerotoxic Syndrome evidence and a new published scientific theory that Carbon Monoxide (CO), instead of Organophosphates (OPs), is now thought to be the main chemical of concern; whilst a mix of both CO & OP is agreed by most to be the reality:
3. The BBC last reported to the public on 25 February 2020: ‘Fume events: The toxic gases that may be harming aircrew and passengers’. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-51633897
“After years of gathering evidence, 10 lead cases against four UK airlines are due at the Royal Courts of Justice this year (2020). Unite, the union behind the action, says it wants the public to know about the aviation industry’s biggest secret. “An extraordinary amount of powerful evidence has been gathered,” says General Secretary Howard Beckett. “The simple reality for us is that our members are at risk from low-level exposure and it is a simple reality that frequent fliers will also be at risk as a result,” he told me.”
However, No BBC news report to the public has yet resulted after the new international published evidence was communicated to the BBC in July 2022, which directly led to and caused the following premeditated, announced actions, which are not denied, but no guilt is admitted, whilst countless millions of the public have been, are and will be unknowingly made seriously ill and dying from by flying, both in the past, present and future.
1.AERO TOXIC was sprayed on BBC property on 18 June 2021 in Oxford and 2.AEROTOXICO was sprayed on BBC property on 21 July 2022 in London as a public protest, both in ‘Banksy style’ with information leaflets & super glue on a pedestrian crossing in London only which was all recorded on CCTV. See 2 evidence photos at end.
As Aerotoxic is so big, global and seemingly impossible to solve, there can never be a ‘good time to expose any cover-up’. But perhaps September 2017, on reflection, was the best opportunity for the UK Government & EasyJet etc to install cheap Carbon Monoxide sensors and filters in jets as the UK media was then awash with news of an industry breakthrough.
Yet now, post Covid 2020 with the airline industry in serious difficulties but, because Aerotoxic is primarily about mass public ill health – my actions on both 18 June 2021 & July 2022 are regretted, but not unreasonable, after I and countless others have been persistently lied to and misled over 16 years since my first personal ‘discovery Statement’ of 22 May 2006. Aerotoxic should never be any one single person’s problem and I have done my best to work with others and the ‘other side’ (especially CAA, AAIB & EASA) in recent years to resolve this cause of public ill health amicably and always in a positive way and style – for no financial charge for a trillion-dollar known design flaw.
JH was first an industrial chemist for North Sea gas & pollution from 1974-1977; a professional, varied career pilot from learning to fly in 1976; a flying instructor from 1977-1979; Aerial crop spraying pilot in Norfolk, Shropshire, Kenya and South Australia from 1980 -1987 – where Aerial Fire Fighting was pioneered from 1983-1986; DC3 Dakota ad hoc freight & Maritime pollution patrol pilot including Piper Alpha rig disaster from 1987-1989; TNT BAe 146 pilot from 1989-1998 with the beginning of aerotoxic illness in spring 1990; Flybe BAe 146 pilot and Training Captain 1998-2005; all evidence is date stamped in five log books, medical reports & diaries. I was initially misdiagnosed by Professor Bagshaw and the NHS with ‘chronic stress’. In early 2006 I was properly diagnosed, advised and treated by Dr Sarah Myhill of Wales : https://www.drmyhill.co.uk/wiki/Aerotoxic_syndrome
I first discovered Aerotoxic Syndrome through British Airline Pilot Association (Balpa)/UCL research and testing and made a formal Statement on 22 May 2006. See four previous SOT’s.
I founded on 19 March 2007 the Aerotoxic Association Ltd. The Charity (not for profit) https://aerotoxic.org/memorandum-of-association-of-aerotoxic-association-ltd-the-charity/ to help other public survivors for FREE and the Association was launched with other aircrew and passenger Samantha Sabatino in London on 18 June 2007. I have invested (lost) over £300,000 over 15 years and I founded the Aerotoxic Solutions Consultancy Ltd. in 2021 to make the now known and available solutions available to the public with anticipated government grant funding and private public investment money for public good.
Experts now require urgent government and public/private funding in exchange for 39% remaining shares of both JH’s Limited companies with appropriate unlimited, generous government grant funding for a known multi trillion $ public health scandal, with full media support. Our A Group published a cost-effective method of redesigning existing jet engines in June 2021: ‘A cost efficient design change for enhancing the aircraft cabin air design’.
I pioneered Flight Simulation Ltd. (Sim-Fly Norfolk) with basic teaching and Aerial Combat for public entertainment only from 2015-2019 and I will continue this unfinished project and fly light aircraft again as soon as possible. I am neither a doctor nor lawyer, but I know far more than many after 16 years of reluctant investigation into this health cover-up.
Pilot Press was founded in 2014 to publish unique aviation stories and will be re-established to publish more books. Four flying books have been published to date with more to come.
It is also planned to produce unusual aviation story film documentaries in the near future eg. New Zealand pilot Oscar Garden who flew from UK to Australia in 1930 and also trained at the Norfolk & Norwich Aero Club and other known, unique RAF flying stories.
However, despite informing the BBC both locally and nationally of the two new research aerotoxic papers published in July 2022 – no reports at all resulted, which led to the conclusion that there could be a definite ongoing BBC cover-up of Aerotoxic which is understandably known to be a difficult story to share with the UK public both now and in the future.
Professional Referees & References:
Professor/Dr Sarah Mackenzie Ross (SMR) of University College London.
“We need better health systems that treat affected employees with sympathy and respect and not contempt.
We need better models for monitoring, diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation and compensation of affected workers. We need this for the legacy we have of pilots and flight attendants who have been affected, forced out of the industry and have been in the wilderness ever since.
All of us need to be involved, and if I can paraphrase Moira Somers, all of us needs to ask: Am I going to make myself available? Am I willing to do difficult and complex work? Am I prepared to work outside my comfort area? Am I prepared to stay independent?
What emerges from the conference is: There is a workplace problem resulting in short term and long term illness among flight crew (both pilots and cabin crew); The workplace where these illnesses are being induced is the aircraft cabin environment. This is resulting in significant flight safety issues, in addition to unacceptable flight crew health problems
Consideration should be given to passengers, who may also be suffering from similar symptoms to those exhibited by flight crew.
We urgently call upon Government, industry and Regulators to work in partnership with cabin environment medical and analyst specialists and representatives from flight crew unions to analyse, quantify and remedy the cabin air quality problems that we have identified exist. We also need to be making sure that there is a better future for this industry, and its staff, and its customers.
The Conference closing statement is attached”.
SMR tested John Hoyte & 26 other Balpa pilots in early 2006.
SMR et al published on 8 July 2022 a new Aerotoxic paper with carbon monoxide introduced as a new theory.
Professor Sarah Mackenzie Ross is still keen to research John Hoyte’s 32 year long story of ill health but must at last be adequately funded with unlimited funds by the UK government for this specialist work for the public good. https://www.sarahmackenzieross.com/
BAe 146 Captain Julian Soddy formerly of Balpa.
A former RAF Test pilot & Norfolk BAe146 captain who became ill in the 1990’s, was prematurely grounded in 2000 and Chaired the Balpa Cabin Air London conference of 20/21 April 2005 and has appeared in many international toxic cabin air documentaries including Welcome abord Toxic Airlines in 2007 and BBC Panorama ‘Something in the air’ in 2008.
David Learmount pilot & journalist of Flight Global.
A former RAF C.130 pilot who also became ill from flying and was prematurely grounded in the 1970’s and went on to be a journalist for Flight International (Flight global) writing about Aerotoxic Syndrome and appearing in many BBC and international film documentaries since 2006. He also wrote the following Foreword for my first book ‘Aerotoxic Syndrome – Aviation’s Darkest Secret’ which was published by Pilot Press in October 2014. https://davidlearmount.com/
Foreword
Aerotoxic syndrome exists. But so does systematic denial by the aviation industry and its government backers. As an aviation journalist for 35 years at the time of writing this Foreword, for a long time I believed the industry when it told me, hand on heart, that the dangers to pilot and passenger health of engine oil fumes entering aircraft cabins were dramatically exaggerated and very rare. But eventually I agreed to meet two former airline pilots who had suffered damage and lost their careers to aerotoxic syndrome. I had, however, met others before and had not been convinced, so what made the difference this time? Tristan Loraine and Susan Michaelis provided me with the technical data and evidence of something that had been going on for years – about 50 years. They informed me about the chemicals
involved, the ongoing biochemical research into the damage these can cause to humans, the fume event occurrences and what makes them happen, and the human stories of pilots and cabin crew affected. And through them I met a network of aeromedical specialists and biochemists who were studying the issue in detail. Then I started asking questions again in the industry, but I was much better informed this time. No aircraft or aero-engine manufacturer denies that fumes from engine oil can get into cockpits and cabins, nor do they deny that these ‘fume events’ happen from time to time. They do not deny either that these engine oils contain organophosphate materials that can cause neurological damage in humans. The oil containers even have warnings on them to that effect. The reason the industry and its government backers can keep the lid on this issue is that the burden of proof
about the damage these fumes can cause rests with the victims. The industry answers charges about health damage by denial and dissembling, which the system lets them do because of the rules about where the burden of proof lies. The industry’s lawyers are masters of technical points of law that enable them to claim that the victims have no legal proof of the connection between Aerotoxic Syndrome a fume event and the symptoms that the victims suffer as a result. The lawyers can argue that the cause might lie elsewhere in the victim’s life, or in their
metabolism, and this ‘negative’ allegation is very difficult to disprove. There is a precise parallel here between the legal war fought for years between the tobacco industry and damaged smokers and the medical world who were looking for the proof of a connection between tobacco smoking and lung cancer. Everybody knew that there was a connection, but the burden of proof was with the victims, and until a precise biomarker could establish that the cancer was initiated by the effects of tobacco-based chemicals in specific individuals who smoked, the industry could go on denying. The only difference between these two cases is one of scale. The health effects of tobacco affected billions of people worldwide, whereas although aircraft fume events happen regularly, they only occur once every several hundred flights.
And when they do, some individuals are affected while others are not, because of metabolic differences between individual humans and the frequency of exposure that any individual suffers. The fact that fewer people are involved makes it easier for the industry and government to continue the denial, and more difficult for those damaged to seek any form of redress – or even acknowledgement of their medical condition. It means ordinary doctors are kept in ignorance of the syndrome and its symptoms, making misdiagnosis more likely. The fact is that, for those who are affected, the effect of aerotoxic syndrome on their lives can be devastating. For that reason it is obscene that the industry washes its hands of the issue, and even worse that governments collude, because there are ways of reducing or even eliminating
the risk of airborne fume events. But while denial exists and governments collude with the manufacturers and airlines, these remedies will not be applied. That is what this book is about.
David Learmount,
Operations and safety editor, Flight International
October 2014
Captain John Lind.
A former Vietnam USAF C.130 pilot who was in the aviation risk business in the 1970’s, 80’s and whose Flight Attendant daughter became ill in 2011. John has dedicated his life to research and identified the new Carbon Monoxide factor around 5 years ago and mostly authored our recent A Group paper published on 14 July 2022 with the simple known solutions clearly stated.
Deanne DeWitt Freise. A US Flight Attendant who became ill in 1992 after an oil fume event and has since advocated for increased public awareness of Aerotoxic and contributed to our A Group paper of 14 July 2022.
There are many other professional family, friends and colleagues including A Group & A2 Group who will confirm this dated evidence, if required.
A Group:
Founded in early 2021 to openly debate Aerotoxic Syndrome weekly with a view to publishing the new Carbon Monoxide theory and then proposing the known and available solutions as soon as possible. John Hoyte – leader; John Lind Spokesman; Deanne DeWitt Freise affected USA Flight Attendant; a former anonymous senior UK medical practitioner with an injured pilot son; Professor Jeremy Ramsden scientist and publisher; Graeme Davidson – engineer; a former anonymous RAF pilot affected by aerotoxic syndrome; an active Canadian filtration expert; two affected former anonymous US Flight Attendants; a former sub postmaster & chartered accountant – outsider passenger representative.
A2 Group
A recently established group to help with financial investment in the solutions.
Books & Films.
Since 2006, John Hoyte has written and published four books on his unusual and varied flying career and Aerotoxic Syndrome.
“Aerotoxic Syndrome – Aviation’s Darkest Secret” in 2014.
“A Tale of Two Ag Pilots” by John Hoyte & Peter Lawton published in 2017.
“How planes poison you!” by John Hoyte & Brett Preiss published in 2020.
“Aerotoxic Pandemic 1921-202?” by John Hoyte published in 2021.
Title to be confirmed – John Hoyte’s next Aerotoxic book will be published by the end of September 2022 and will include the new UK/USA Carbon Monoxide theory media reaction and will predict the future for the global aviation industry, if the known and available solutions either are; or are not introduced urgently.
In 2013, John Hoyte donated £75,000 to Captain Tristan Loraine of Fact not Fiction Films to produce A Dark Reflection fictional docudrama film, which prophesised the endgame of Aerotoxic Syndrome, which is now available for FREE on Amazon prime.
In 2022 particularly, four new name redacted Statements of Truth (SOT) dated 10 January 2022, 30 May 2022, 29 June 2022 and 13 July 2022 with key evidence leading up to the planned action on 21 July 2021 will be available at www.aerotoxic.org
This Witness Statement is the 5th SOT dated 10 August 2022.
These will be available to any public court as dated, signed, witnessed Statements and also to the media.
I make these quotable, comments to both Public Court & the Media without any intentional contempt:
“After 15 years of a probable cover-up by the BBC of toxic cabin air, which may not be in the flying public’s interest, I believe it is unacceptable for the BBC to not fully share with the UK public the latest published scientific evidence and news of Aerotoxic Syndrome which the BBC are aware of, for full and open public scientific debate and which is still well known by only a few to cause mass public ill health and premature deaths since 1999.
At last, Aerotoxic Syndrome or Poisoning will be in a UK public court, and I have no further public comments to make (silence) before 0930 local on Wednesday 17 August 2022 when in Westminster Magistrates public court.
Evidence has been published since 2007 at www.aerotoxic.org and www.gcaqe.org and www.aircraftcabinair.com since 2006 of forthcoming ‘Cabin Air’ conferences up until in March 2023 and into the future where ‘no positive evidence’ is still being claimed.
We are all obviously disturbed that a probable BBC cover-up is delaying formal public recognition of Aerotoxic Poisoning and possibly perverting the course of justice for the flying public.
This probable BBC cover-up is also most seriously directly preventing and actively blocking the many known and available solutions from being urgently introduced for the public’s wellbeing and in the public interest.
As it is now believed and forecast, that when low-cost ($15) Carbon Monoxide (CO) sensors are soon fitted to all ‘bleed air’ public transport jets – most jets will be technically ‘unairworthy’, with social media spreading the actual levels of CO in cockpits and cabins.
Carbon monoxide is an invisible, odourless, and tasteless hazardous gas which has been cited in most published toxic cabin air science since the1950’s but ignored until recently.
It is disturbing and reprehensible that deliberate misuse of recreational drugs, alcohol and substances is vilified by society – whilst all professional flyers who have been, are and will be poisoned by toxic cabin air are still being treated with contempt and not believed, which is hypocritical of governments, who must place ALL human health – first, always.
The key question now for all of those in authority, who are accountable and who have final responsibility for public health is: “Why are low-cost CO sensors NOT fitted in bleed air public transport jets, yet are mandated in most domestic places?”
Why is there still no free, open public debate about science, freedom of speech or public duty allowed by the BBC who now appear to be actively discriminating against all public flyers over the past 15 years but particularly in 2022?
All cover-ups are eventually exposed and where public health is always claimed to be first – this public health cover-up is long overdue for exposure as the solutions are available and well known. Our work has always been for the benefit of the public good, particularly the next generation – my two children and grandchild – not the financially rich, who are also unknowingly affected.
We look forward to a fair public hearing, based on all of the available evidence from the 1950’s not only from 21 July 2022 action after all other means of reasonable communication failed embarrassingly, but I believe that public courts, judges and lawyers should be made aware in the future of so-called by some (who have never experienced the illness) – ‘Aerotoxicity’ as some so-called lawyers call the public health disease as they, their families and friends can and will also be affected the same as any other passengers.
Anyone who wishes to be fully aware of this public health issue in the future, in any way, should invest a minimum three hours of their personal time by reading and watching the published evidence for Flight XLA 120, which is added as an Addendum at the end of this Witness Statement as a precondition, before attempting to understand how Aerotoxic can affect any member of the public who flies, on any ‘bleed air’ flight, at any time – including wealthy first class passengers, Royalty and the reader of this Witness Statement.
This first possible public court action is dedicated to the memory of pilot Richard Westgate who died prematurely on 12 December 2012 and who first contacted Aerotoxic Association in March 2012 for free help and support; Ms Samantha Sabatino and the 40 other UK passengers of flight XLA 120 on 1 February 2007 who also contacted Aerotoxic Association and 1,000,000 frequent flyers and aircrew in Europe alone who have Aerotoxic Poisoning, but do not know that they are invisibly ill and all other global victims and survivors of Aerotoxic Poisoning.
In summary:
I am personally content and satisfied that I have, over the past challenging 16 years since first finding out about Aerotoxic Syndrome in early 2006 , made every possible effort to do my public duty by legal means. I am now left embarrassed having to appear before a public court with the media, to explain my actions for a second time into why I took premeditated, proportionate action to ensure that the public eventually became aware of a known, inconvenient, fixable at a cost cause of mass public ill health and death which has been caused directly by continued BBC inaction.
I suggest that the sooner that I and other aerotoxic aircrew experts are believed and are helped to begin the urgent work necessary towards the many known and available solutions and further urgent research conducted and directed by Professor/Dr Sarah Mackenzie Ross of UCL with unlimited public funding.
I personally anticipate returning to where I expected to be in August 2022, both financially and domestically, for the well-being of the flying public.”
Like other professional aircrew, I was tested and scored by the NHS cognitive tests at ½ / 10 in October 2011. But I was retested by the NHS in 2019 when I scored 7-8/ 10 and whilst I have felt ‘back to normal again’, I still must have an ‘Acquired brain injury’ disability from flying jets, which means I can multitask as any pilot but I find changing the subject matter suddenly difficult to follow – for which I plead for outside help, support and understanding.
John Grahame Hoyte
Chairman Aerotoxic Association Ltd. The Charity (2007)
Aerotoxic Solutions Consultancy Ltd. (2021)
Former BAe 146 Training Captain John.hoyte@aerotoxic.org
Addendum.
Probably the best example of recorded and published evidence of Aerotoxic Poisoning over the past 15 years was when a large (40) group of unrelated passengers (including young children) who were aerotoxic poisoned on Flight XLA120 on 1 February 2007 after their non-fume event flight.
HOUSE OF LORDS Science and Technology Committee 1st Report of Session
2007–08 Air Travel and Health: an Update. Page 53.
3. 21 April 2008 BBC Panorama ‘Something in the air’ 30 mins:
Stewarts Law Aviation
Stewarts Law +44 (0) 207 822 8000 (London)
+44 (0) 113 222 0022 (Leeds)
Boeing 767 Flight Number XLA 120 Aerotoxic Poisoning
03 May 2010
The Stewarts Law Attorney Group represents 20 British passengers who were seriously injured by aircraft toxic fumes exposure on 1 February 2007. The incident occurred when they were flying on board an XL Airways Boeing 767 from London Gatwick to Sanford International, Florida.
The dangerous toxins were released into the cabin through the bleed air system which (as on most airliners) draws high pressure air from the core of the engines to pressurise the aircraft with breathable air. It has long been known that this design can result in the cabin air becoming contaminated with toxic oil vapour when the engine oil seals leak.
The toxins were detected by passengers as they began to notice and odd smell similar to ‘smelly socks’. The cabin seemed more ‘stuffy’ and ‘hot’ than any previous flight they had been on and the air severely their eyes, nose and throat. The passengers quickly became ill, suffering respiratory symptoms, severe headaches, vomiting, bowel problems, skin blistering and extreme fatigue. The toxic air also caused long term chronic effects
such as respiratory problems, memory loss, sleep disturbances, chronic fatigue, mood swings, cognitive difficulties, infections, and joint/limb pains.
In order to put pressure on the US manufacturers to deal with these known cabin air problems and to obtain fair compensation for the passengers, on 29 January 2009 specialist litigation firm Stewart’s Law filed the case in Illinois, the state where the Boeing has its Headquarters. In addition to Boeing, the case was filed against Hamilton Sundstrand (which manufacturers air systems components), United Technologies (which manufacturers the Pratt & Whitney engines) and the owners of the aircraft – AAR Parts Trading Inc.
This is an out right US product liability case against US defendants. However, the defendants were intent on having the case sent back to the UK courts (which are much more expensive for claimants and award much lower compensation) so they filed a forum non conveniens motion arguing that the UK is the most convenient place for the litigation.
After the prolonged legal battle, on 3 May 2010 Judge Quinn decided in favour of the passengers and dismissed the defendants’ forum non conveniens motion. Stewart’s Law has achieved a great victory for the passengers.
Securing US jurisdiction along with the prospect of a high profile jury trial is a wake up call for US manufacturers unless they take measures to improve the quality of cabin air now, they will face the credible prospect of expensive and public US litigation for future incidents where there is an identifiable toxic fumes leak that causes injury.
Contact us
Aviation and Travel Department
5 New Street Square
London, EC4A 3BF
T: +44 (0)20 7822 8000
3 December 2013 60 minutes ABC Australia TV documentary. ‘Toxic Flyer’. 15 mins.
This message is written & published on the early morning of 21 July 2022 as a result of a possible government & media cover-up of two new published peer reviewed science papers on 8 & 14 July 2022 from public interest, which show that Carbon Monoxide may be a key chemical of concern with respect to Aerotoxic Syndrome (1999) and silence as a reply is not acceptable.
As words do not seem to mean anything about Aerotoxic Syndrome since 1999 – proportionate action is now required to ‘get attention’ in the spirit of Ghandi where no person is harmed or injured (unlike Aerotoxic) – but the public must be given the opportunity for open public debate about a known and published cause of mass public ill health.
This ACTION today is taken with a heavy heart – as it’s the result of the repeated, indifference from the UK government, Civil Aviation Authority for public health over many years.
Journalist Julian Rush of Channel 4 NEWS filmed me in Warwickshire in June 2006 and this evidence must become the platform for everything afterward as at the time I had a wife, a house, a car but over the last 16 years I have lost all and now mean to re-establish myself financially back to my peers, with outside public help with the known and available solutions and my two companies Aerotoxic Association Ltd – The Charity (2007) Not for profit + Aerotoxic Solutions Consultancy Ltd (2021) For profit.
Recently CH4 NEWS have offered to cover the two new reports a week ago on 14 July 2022 but has since failed to engage with many others after meeting in the House of Commons on this urgent matter of public health.
As our public servants, and politicians go off on a two-month recess today, this is the final chance for them to recognize this H&S issue which does now require urgent action, and my Shropshire South MP Philip Dunne is ideally placed to help in the future.
We all commend journalist Sue Austin of the Shropshire Star for having the courage to inform the public of the latest evidence of Carbon Monoxide on Monday 18 July 2022.
My son will be married at 1400 on Saturday 23 July 2022 – so again I have for the past few weeks laid down a paper trail of 4 witnessed Statements of Truth since 10 January 2022 and these are in various friends’ custody but especially my brother in law and these documents will be used in a public Court of law in the future.
I have the following referees – Prof/Dr Sarah Mackenzie Ross of UCL, David Learmount of Fight Global and Captain Julian Soddy, formerly of Balpa who have all been publicly involved with Aerotoxic matters for many decades already and will vouch for me – with many others around the world.
I also have run a small A Group of professionals since early 2021 who are all aware of my situation and will be named to the Police & authorities only.
As silence has been effectively used so far by the ‘other side’ – it is now felt appropriate to be SILENT from now on – as much evidence is already in the public domain at www.aerotoxic.org and at other sources – until in a public court judges the available evidence.
Media Release: Immediate from Monday 18 July 2022.
Aerotoxic Syndrome (1999) does exist & is caused by Carbon Monoxide.
Aerotoxic Syndrome (AS) was first published on 20 October 1999 by a US doctor, a French forensic scientist and an Australian toxicologist – yet it is only in late July 2022, that carbon monoxide, a deadly poisonous chemical of primary concern, which is now believed to have caused poisoning for over 30 years to some researchers, who have finally published their work and theories for public interest, open scientific public debate and criticism.
Historically in 2017, a World Health Authority (WHO) report published evidence: Aerotoxic syndrome: a new occupational disease? By Dr Susan Michaelis, Dr Jonathan Burdon and Prof Vyvyan Howard & World Health Organization. Regional Office for Europe. (2017).
On 10 February 2022 Mr Philip Clarke, (he/him) Business Manager to the Chair and Chief Executive of CAA Sir Stephen Hillier explained to the Aerotoxic Association by e mail:
“Our (CAA) fundamental position has not changed. We do not believe that any new information has yet come to light that requires us to review our policy position. We of course always remain open to dialogue and will happily review the findings of any new research on the issue of cabin air quality.”
On Thursday 14 July 2022 another new peer reviewed UK/USA scientific paper focusing on carbon monoxide: ANATOMY OF AN OCCUPATIONAL HAZARD by UK/USA A Group was published, in the public’s interest and distributed to various responsible parties and the media.
On 15 July 2022 Mr Clarke of CAA wrote by e mail to co-author John Hoyte:
“Dear Mr Hoyte
Thank you for your emails to the CAA over the past few weeks. I am writing to acknowledge receipt and to confirm that we have reviewed their contents.
I will address the key attachments from your recent emails sequentially as follows:
Letter entitled ‘Statement of truth 29th of June 2022’ – whilst we note your stated concerns, there is no new inclusion of peer-reviewed scientific research in this document.
Letter from John Lind 30th of June 2022 – this letter includes a series of anecdotal reports and makes no reference to any peer-reviewed scientific research.
Flight LXA 120 document – this article was previously submitted, by you, to the CAA in March 2019 and as such we have no further comment.
Aerotoxic Syndrome: A new occupational disease caused by contaminated cabin air? – this chapter references the literature on cabin air, however, it does not in itself provide any new evidence which is not already in the public domain.
As you may be aware, the Committee on Toxicity undertook a literature review on the cabin air environment in 2013. A proposed update to this, to review any new evidence, is currently being undertaken. You can find further information here: https://cot.food.gov.uk/2022COTmeetings
I would be grateful for your patience and understanding whilst this work is completed. I would also re-emphasise that whilst we are always willing to consider new peer-reviewed scientific evidence on cabin air quality, it may not always be appropriate for us to respond every time you contact us.”
These two latest international, peer reviewed published papers expand on a new USA theory that Carbon Monoxide (CO) # 9 is a ‘new’ factor of public interest in the CAQ public debate, which appears to have been ‘overlooked & missed’ by many international researchers over decades in favour of organophosphates (OP’s) and other highly toxic chemicals.
The CAA have acknowledged receipt of both new published papers and are aware of evidence from the past decades according to Mr Clarke of the CAA on 10 February 2022:
“I have discussed your email with several colleagues, and it appears that we (CAA) were actually represented at all three of the most recent Cabin Air conferences – 2017, 2019 and 2021 (online). We have not yet committed to attend the 2022 conference as a list of speakers has not yet been published.
Thank you for the documents from Mr Lind and Mr Davidson, as well as the links to the TV programmes.”
It would be normal in all H&S, where public health is a danger to adopt the ‘precautionary principle’ when dealing with a probable cause of mass public ill health. And to at least, review the published scientific literature with a full independent, open public court debate of the existing published evidence.
An Australian WIN after 18 years in High Court by Joanne Turner vs East West Airlines on 3 September 2010 would appear to be an example of the highest quality of ‘evidence’:
Carbon Monoxide (CO) is already well known to the public and H&S ‘ground’ authorities as a silent, deadly killer gas, which cannot be seen, smelt, nor tasted.
CO can be harmful to all life in the confined space of a ‘bleed air’ jet cabin, with no possible escape at 40,000’ making AS a potentially taboo/prohibited subject in the airline world.
WHO, 2010, indoor air quality guidance states to prevent individuals COHb levels rising above 2%.
The maximum exposure recommendations are as follows:
87 ppm (100 mg/m3) for 15 min.
31 ppm (35 mg/m3) for 1 hour
9 ppm (10 mg/m3) for 8 hours.
6 ppm (7 mg/m3) for 24 hours.
This guideline has recently (WHO 2021) been lowered to: 3.5ppm (4 mg/m3) for 24 hours.
Whilst those vulnerable members of the public such as ‘mums to be’, children and the frail are much worse affected, than a former RAF Test pilot who chaired British Airline Pilot Association Balpa Union conferences on 20/21 April 2005 who has also been severely affected in the past 30 years, leading Balpa delegates to urgently state in April 2005:
“We need better health systems that treat affected employees with sympathy and respect and not contempt. We need better models for monitoring, diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation and compensation of affected workers. We need this for the legacy we have of pilots and flight attendants who have been affected, forced out of the industry and have been in the wilderness ever since.”
This is why proposed US legislation – The US Cabin Air Safety Act of 29 March 2022 has only mentioned ‘any concentration of CO’, with no organophosphates (OPs) mentioned, at all.
“(1) to install and operate onboard detectors and other air quality monitoring equipment that—
“(A) are situated in the air supply system to enable pilots and maintenance technicians to identify the location of the source or sources of air supply contamination in real time, including any concentration of carbon monoxide that is dangerous to human health;
For over 20 years, many eminent international scientific, medical experts and victims have cited organophosphates (OP’s), which are added at 3-5% as anti-wear additives to the jet engine oil and have clear Health Warnings on the tin. Therefore, OPs have logically been linked with AS by many damaged and injured sufferers after being bamboozled by so-called lawyers, doctors and scientists with complex chemistry.
Whilst governments, airlines, airline manufacturers, politicians and the ‘media’ cite OP poisoning, but then claim ‘No positive evidence’ of any public injuries – ever since the 1950’s and are still relying on ‘government Committee of Toxicology CLOT evidence and testing’ from 2013 and before.
There are over three hundred other highly toxic chemical compounds which are found in visible oil ‘Fume events’ or ‘visible soup’ which cause ‘Accidents and injuries’ for both passengers and aircrew and making CO exposure many times worse on potentially any bleed air flight; to any flying member of the public either in the past or future…
Yet CO can be present in ultra-low levels, all of the time – and no one would ever know, with a fundamental design flaw since the 1950’s of ‘Bleed air’ – as no $15 CO sensors or alarms are yet fitted, despite repeated calls by global Regulators and Accident Investigation Investigators, in the confined space of any multi-million-dollar public transport jets.
Whilst CO alarms are mandated by legislation in most domestic and other confined spaces and Covid measures have been fully complied with, since 2020…. Not CO.
In 1992, US Flight Attendant, Deanne De Witte Freise, was severely injured by an oil ‘fume event’ in a B.727 and from that time on, her Carboxyhaemoglobin (COHb) levels were high and have been found in countless other flyers, yet dismissed by certain parties as irrelevant.
Carbon monoxide (CO) is an odourless, tasteless, and colourless gas and concentrations can become elevated and Deanne has been certain of the role that CO played in her chronic sickness over nearly 30 years.
In 2007, Captain John Hoyte who had also been severely sick for 16 years from 1990-2005 whilst continuously flying as a BAe 146 pilot founded the UK based Aerotoxic Association www.aerotoxic.org to support other members of the public who have also been made severely sick, after commercial jet flying.
In 2011, Captain John Lind, formally a USAF Vietnam C130 Hercules pilot and aviation commercial risk assessor for decades and senior Flight Safety Advocate whose Flight Attendant daughter was also injured by a ‘toxic oil fume exposure’ and learnt of her sickness and has dedicated the last 11 years of his life to campaigning as an Advocate for formal recognition of the public illness and especially for the known solutions of ‘enough oxygen’ to be available at all airports for all ‘Fume event’ accident survivors.
Around 5 years ago, John Lind and Deanne de Witte Freise logically concluded that CO, which has been cited in all previous published science since the 1950’s, as the more likely main dangerous chemical and last September 2021 managed to persuade John Hoyte of their breakthrough new theory in A Group of eight other professional members.
This required a fresh look and perspective of a known problem and an alternative analysis of the existing published science data.
As no one else around the world has been able to prove conclusively and repeatedly in a public court that tiny amounts of organophosphates (OP’s) were responsible for the ACUTE symptoms found after exposure to oil fumes of headache, nausea & vomiting to aircrew and passengers, there had to be another – unknown factor at work, for over seven decades.
Every tin of oil has a high percentage of carbon atoms in it, waiting to be part combusted with oxygen atoms and pyrolyzed into CO and other chemical compounds in a gas generating jet engine where the seals are designed to leak oil into air, from day one.
It is well known that the long term or chronic effect of CO mimic the known severe symptoms of nerve agent OP’s – hence the almost possible deliberate obfuscation, since Aerotoxic was first published over 20 years ago by certain powerful, vested interests.
No one knowing this new information – can somehow ‘Unknow’.
All flyers are equally affected including Royalty, First Class and lawyers, doctors and scientists – some flyers (~ 20%) with certain DNA are affected much more than others according to previous fully published Dutch research work from 2012 onwards.
Chronic effects may be first misdiagnosed and then mistreated with ‘expensive drugs’ as MND, Parkinson’s, epilepsy, seizures and Alzheimer’s – and a whole host of ‘other’ neurological diseases, which could simply be caused by repeated low level CO exposures for all frequent flyers – passengers or crew and other members of the public.
A published Dutch frequent flyer survey of 2016 estimated that around 1,000,000 frequent flyers and passengers had AS, in Europe alone with around 20,000 in The Netherlands – this survey was mostly focused on OPs at that time, as OP has been the dominant potentially theory, for many decades – until now.
The only way to prove the above theories are to finally install low cost $15 CO sensors in all commercial jets, but these appear to have been banned, by ‘governments & authorities’ who are supposedly meant to put public health – first, above industry health and profits.
So bleed air, piped off the jet engine has never been either filtered, not monitored; ever yet.
However, as CO sensors are now readily available on many devices/mobile/cell phones, it is only a matter of time before the possibly banned, ‘A word’ gets out into the public domain with the new CO theory and then a mass of social media evidence/data will be available to public courts, which will effectively and eventually ground all ‘bleed air’ jets as unairworthy, until the ‘All bleed air jets are fixed and made safe’.
This will leave only around 1,000 Boeing 787’s flying, which do not use ‘Bleed air’ for air conditioning and coincidentally, were also first commissioned by Boeing in 1999 – as truly ‘airworthy’ and a pleasing experience for all who fly in these genuinely ‘modern’ jets.
A first ever two day Carbon Monoxide London conference was held on 5/6 July 2022 which confirmed much of the well-known medical effects on other members of the public of CO and was attended by Captain John Hoyte, where he explained the part of CO in aviation to other CO delegates, who had never yet even heard of AS.
For the past 16 years, governments, public law courts and media have been provided with ever more accurate evidence of Aerotoxic Syndrome or poisoning – which is perhaps best summarized for it’s terrible effects on the public as example by what happened to the 40 UK passengers (including young children) of Flight XLA 120 on 1 February 2007: https://aerotoxic.org/?s=xla+120 which the CAA acknowledged receipt of in March 2019, yet still appear to ignore as representing ‘evidence’ – 15 years later.
It is now expected that a full and open international public debate will finally begin, which will lead to the known and available solutions introduced, urgently.
This was all detailed in principle at the British Airline Pilot Association (Balpa) Cabin Air conference of 20/21 April 2005, both on the balance of probability and now, beyond reasonable doubt – that positive evidence of Aerotoxic Syndrome has been proven to exist and that those public servants responsible for public H&S – must act immediately.
Few of the international doubting parties responsible for public health come out of the 70 years long system failure, cover-up health scandal well, but it is reasoned that future UK Prime Minister candidate Member of Parliament, Ms Penny Mordaunt is best equipped in the future to manage the known and available solutions for Aerotoxic.
John Hoyte explained: “There appears to have been a global system failure with Aerotoxic Syndrome (1999), where evidence from professional aircrew and passengers has been deliberately ignored for decades by those public servants responsible for public H&S, the public courts, and media.
As someone who has survived aerotoxic syndrome since 1990 – we now call for urgent financial backing from interested parties to allow all of the known and available solutions to be realized, in the public interest.
I have invested around £300K in solutions over the past 15 years and have been familiar with most of the known and available solutions since early 2021.
It is now crucial not to waste any more time but work urgently with others on the known and available solutions – immediately – with fully funded work of public money for public good. Aerotoxicgate is a 23-year-old public health issue, which must be publicized”.
For further information: www.aerotoxic.org or London interview contact:
John Grahame Hoyte
Chairman Aerotoxic Association Ltd. Not for Profit – The Charity (2007)
Aerotoxic Solutions Consultancy Ltd. For Profit (2021)
****Based: Shropshire & Central London until 22 July 2022****
Former BAe 146 Training Captain John.hoyte@aerotoxic.org 07773771867 Monday 18 July 2022
John Hoyte JH (66) & single, has co-written four books of his 45 year unique flying career and Aerotoxic Syndrome with a Foreword by David Learmount of Flight Global since 2014.
JH invested £75K to produce ‘A Dark Reflection’ film showing the end game of AS.
JH has attended 15 Cabin Air conferences since 2006.
JH has taken part in most Aerotoxic documentary films since 2006, including CH 4 News.
JH is expert in Flight Simulation entertainment for the public. Sim-Fly.
JH is available for Aerotoxic Consultancy, public speaking, and leadership.
JH is expert at all aspects of aviation including Cockpit Resource Management (CRM).
JH scored ½ / 10 in an NHS cognitive score in 2011, from 2019 & now JH is 7-8/10.
JH is notoriously bad at all administration and negotiating business deals.
JH has helped countless other Aerotoxic survivors in 16 years, but most take, only.
JH has invested around £300K since 2007 – currently has no house, no car & few possessions and is looking for a Dragon’s Den type of investors who believe JH’s word.
Global Cabin Air Quality Executive was founded in JH’s presence on 5 October 2006 https://www.gcaqe.org/ and represents Unions, not passengers who are unrepresented.
Freedom of Speech; Duty to serve & Report; Public Health & Interest define Aerotoxico
When flying as a passenger in a commercial jet aircraft is there any danger in breathing in the air? Although you will be told aircraft air is pretty clean – cleaner than the air in your home and office, is this always true?
Except for the Boeing B.787 Dreamliner, commercial aircraft pump all the air we breathe from a place deep inside each jet engine, only separated from hot jet engine oil by seals that get worn and should be replaced at regular intervals but owing to the cost of doing so these intervals in maintenance have tended to become longer and longer. When these seals become worn, toxic contaminant particles and gas can now get from the oil into the aircraft air in increasing number.
The poisonous gas carbon monoxide, certain other potentially toxic compounds including organophosphates in small amounts, and finally ultrafine particles are found in aircraft air – unfortunately, none of these are large enough to be stopped by filters. The airline industry appears not to have investigated these issues nor has it provided reliable evidence.
The poisonous items in the aircraft air vary in concentration according to how worn the sealing systems have become. On occasion, so many contaminants enter the air, a ‘fume event’ occurs – here the air may have started to smell and can become visibly hazy. The only way to find out the true state of aircraft air is to fit equipment that can continuously monitor and record the presence of these toxic items in real time. This is urgent, as a growing number of people (passengers, flight attendants and pilots) have been and are getting ill.
They present with a number of unusual but distressingly persistent complaints that affect many parts of their body in particular the brain and nervous system. Many affected staff have been told officially they must be imagining this. Meanwhile in 1999, this group of illnesses was published as Aerotoxic Syndrome.
In order to alleviate this state of affairs, medical protocols designed by experts should be in place, and equipment such as oxygen and other remedies should be provided to sufferers both in the aircraft and when they land. Those patients who have suffered should not be discounted. They should be offered what medical support there is both for them and their families. Meanwhile the design fault that allows incoming air anywhere near hot jet engine oil needs to be re-designed in all aircraft jet engines in the future.
Abstract published in the public interest on 18 June 2022 @ 1100 UTC by: ‘A Group’ Flight Attendant Deanne DeWitt Freise with 30 years of experience investigating and advocating for improving cabin air quality in aircraft. Captain John Hoyte, Chairman Aerotoxic Association The Charity (2007) Former BAe 146 Training Captain A Group spokesman john.hoyte@aerotoxic.org & Captain John Lind former US Aviation insurer assessor & A Group spokesman & Advocate crewadvoc8@yahoo.com
ANATOMY OF AN OCCUPATIONAL HAZARD
AIR CONTAMINATION in the Air Transportation Industry. A Concise History
Presented on behalf of ill and disabled crewmembers and those who continue to be exposed to contaminated cabin air.
In Association with Aerotoxic Association Ltd The Charity (2007) Aerotoxic Solutions Consultancy Ltd. (2021)
We in the USA, live in a nation that is afraid of itself. Our nation was founded on checks and balances to keep dangerous influences at bay, but contrary forces and a badly interpreted economic theory have overpowered our historical culture. Today we see up front and center, problems with polarized politics, innovative banking and finance, overpriced pharmaceuticals, toxic herbicides and insecticides, groundwater pollution, atmospheric warming, guns. We give lip service, but the power of big money has come to rule and silences these issues. The case presented today might be thought less important than these examples. However, it runs parallel. If we don’t face it head on, like guns and global warming, illness, injury, and disability among airline crewmembers and passengers will persist.
Our group of injured and disabled crewmembers and their advocates has studied the issue for almost 30 years. Arriving now with facts and possible solutions, we present the case for evaluation as a first step toward a satisfactory conclusion. On one hand, elimination of the problem seems at present to be economically impractical. Suggested solutions in that regard will be offered, but hope eludes. Mitigation of the deleterious effects causing injury may be much more practical and could carry the issue forward until the ultimate solution can be embraced. Peer-reviewed literature defines the method to be applied to minimize injury, disability, and death by carbon monoxide poisoning or by carbon monoxide-influenced suicide.
Victory over this pervasive occupational hazard and by common locale, a public health hazard, is the immediate goal. Access to treatment as soon as possible using 100% oxygen will arrest injury progression. This is the prime objective. Elimination of the hazard when feasible is the ultimate goal.
John M. Lind CPCU ARM Spokesperson for the ‘A’ Group
In alliance with
Spokesman for the ‘A’ Group – Former BAe 146 Training Captain John Hoyte
Founder and CEO Aerotoxic Association (2007)
& Aerotoxic Solutions Consultancy (2021)
–
October 24, 1978
An Actof Congress
THE ROOT CAUSE OF CONTAMINATED CABIN AIR
2493 – The Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, promulgated by the 95th Congress, was signed into law. This law did little more of substance than to mandate and impose upon the air transportation industry a questionable economic theory called “market competition” when heretofore the industry membership had never before in its 40-year history actually “competed”. What followed was a self-flagellation that nearly destroyed the entire industry. Only four (4) of perhaps twenty-four (24) major air carriers survived.
January 1, 1985
“Now they are on their own”, stated the last administrator of the Civil Aeronautics Board, “Free markets do a better job than government”. His falling gavel placed a period behind a history of airline regulations and micro-managerial protectionism that had governed the airline industry since its formal inception in 1938.
Chaos ensued when the air carriers of the day clashed over ticket prices in a survival-of–the-fittest contest for market share. Facing ever-decreasing revenue from the new low fares necessary for survival, aggressive cost cutting ensued. Among early cost cuts were wages, employee benefits, and customer services. Important maintenance was postponed; then curbed because of insufficient funds. State of the art evolution in high bypass turbojet engines multiplied overhaul costs to such degree that historical maintenance protocols had to be abandoned. Digital recording and communication of engine performance data gave birth to new, engine health management protocols. This set a dangerous precedent at the exact point where human health and safety began to be compromised.
The PROXIMATE CAUSEof Contaminated cabin air
1985 – 2000
Prior to the Deregulation Act of 1978 and closure of the CAB on 1/1/1985, we assume aircraft engines continued to be operated mostly within the manufacturers maintenance guidelines of approximately 5,000 hours since new or between overhauls (TBO). Exceptions would be made for the large, new generation engines powering the ‘wide-body’ Boeing 747, Douglas DC10, and Lockheed L1011. Assumedly, manufacturers would have recognized the greatly elevated overhaul costs for these large, new engines and their heavy lift airframes. New protocols for engine maintenance had been in development throughout the 1970s. The result: engine health management (EHM), condition-based maintenance(CBM), and predictive maintenance protocols. Supported by arrays of sensors monitoring engine vibration and performance, then feeding data to a collection point on the aircraft, and communicated by satellite to land based stations, these new engines could be operated safely as long as the data confirmed operation “in the green”.
Some turbojet and low bypass turbine engines might have continued to be overhauled regularly as long as funds were available to pay the cost. These costs ran approximately to $250,000. However, we speculate that high-cost journal entries of this type soon became more and more difficult to support as ticket prices fell ever lower. Aggressive cost cutting across the entire management landscape became the industry norm. We assume also that:
a) All engine maintenance gravitated toward EHM as funds became scarce.
b) Engines entered the new maintenance protocol era at various logged hours of operation.
c) Wear on engine parts continued uninterrupted under the new protocol.
d) Seals in engine bearing compartments are located within the most dynamic gradients of temperature and pressure anywhere in the engines except the burner section.
e) Engine oil leaks, and fumes were not included in the sensor array designs in the new engine monitoring systems or by sensors in the aircraft itself. Investigation of the purity of cabin air has been historically prohibited.
f) The human nose and eyes were selected by default to become the early warning systems for cabin contamination.
Symptoms begin to appear among flight attendants and some passengers. Headache, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, deep fatigue, numbness, tingling, tremors, eye/nose/throat irritation, chest tightness, cognitive/concentration difficulties cover most of the common sensations. This list was collected from among aircrew experiences. They exactly parallel symptoms of carbon monoxide victims.
2000 – 2019
Experience among BAe 146 aircrews in Australia, the United Kingdom and elsewhere confirmed primary design problems. The aircraft was taken away from passenger services. Production halted in 2001.
Other makes and models of aircraft with bleed air served environmental control systems are not exempt from oil leaks and related toxic fumes in the cabin and flight deck. All from time to time can potentially and unpredictably impose hazardous fumes upon unsuspecting passengers and fumes do repeatedly and chronically affect crewmembers. Contaminated air in airliner cabins has progressed at a less aggressive pace but a more insidious and persistent pace than that found in the BAe 146 aircraft.
A persistent and insidious pace.
Throughout the years before deregulation up to 1980 there were no fume events at all. No work-related fumes causing employee illnesses and injuries occurred. No fume-related workers compensation claims were filed. Being Director of Safety and keen to watch for trends in injuries and illnesses on the job, I personally combed the cases over a nearly ten-year period.
Fume events began to appear after 1985 and became slightly more common by 1995. In the beginning, lawmakers, manufacturers, and airline operators were taken aback. These executives must have become concerned about discovery and probable negative public opinion. Their response was swift. They became silent. They denied and deflected. They would not openly investigate fume events. The FAA must also have investigated but to this day no opinion about contaminated cabin air has ever been offered. They continue to remain silent or otherwise deny the issue.
Early injury claims for workers compensation were declared compensable. Testimonials from those early casualties confirm payments although diagnoses and proper medical response was lacking. Again, to this day the medical response has been off target. There are no standard response procedures, no accurate diagnoses, and no proper treatment protocol.
Regulators joined the effort to deny and deflect. The FAA and NTSB hid behind Federal Air Regulation definitions by categorizing fume events as incidents. Incidents involving aircraft are not investigated because aircraft damage and physical injuries are not involved. In this way they avoid responsibility. They fail to consider that incidents precede accidents and accident prevention has never been an FAA embraced responsibility. They falsely try to assure the public and employees that nothing of concern was or is now happening on airliners. “The air in aircraft cabins is more pure than the air in your home” is the go-to explanation. “HEPA filters clean the air to operating room purity” – untrue, but good oratory all the same.
Fume incidents have increased in frequency and severity throughout the years as equipment maintenance continues to languish. Reports are required by regulators, but compliance is weak and the rule is not enforced.
Flight attendants have gradually became more and more exposed to CO fumes on many of their flights. They remain unaware that they, above all other air travelers, are susceptible to CHRONIC EXPOSURE to the contamination – CARBON MONOXIDE CONTAMINATION.
Contamination in engine oil
Tricresyl phosphate (TCP), used in insecticides, chemical warfare agents, fire retardant, and as a friction reducer in lubricants, is listed as a warning on synthetic turbine engine oil containers. Investigators thought this must be the problem contaminant. From my personal, professional viewpoint, the industry truthfully asserted that TCP in extremely small concentrations present in engine oil could not cause illness among aircraft occupants. Such “excuse” has not been accepted by many of our associates. Nitrous oxides are also present but in still smaller quantities that need no qualification. Twenty years of investigation, crewmember testimonials, and research finally determined the toxic contaminant of most concern is carbon monoxide (CO). Simply stated, the aircraft engines and APU are prime producers of this most dangerous of gasses.
Researchers are also concerned about chemical reactions among a mix of various compounds in oil, which, although relatively benign in original forms, could interact synergistic to form increased toxic qualities, stay the same, or antagonistically to become less toxic. Such issues would need to be researched at length under many variants of chemical concentration, temperature, pressure altitude, and combination and permutations within the mix. Perhaps such a project has never anywhere been completed.
Symptoms of Carbon Monoxide
Very many crewmembers have become incapacitated by toxic fumes in aircraft. As seen previously, overhaul costs grew significantly with powerplant innovation. Unfortunately, this state-of-the-art growth in engine sophistication and performance accompanied lawmaker-mandated airfare competition between air carriers. As a direct result, the very high cost of equipment maintenance and overhaul became unaffordable. Overhauls delayed by engine health management procedures have left crewmembers the primary cost-bearers of consequential health problems. Everywhere in business, money talks. Big business is deaf to human health and safety.
Symptoms visit exposed people differently according to their unique physiology. Here listed are typical symptoms in rough order of occurrence among air travelers.
Headache
Nausea
Numbness
Tremors
Tingling
Dizziness
Vomiting
Confusion
Vertigo
Seizures
Breathing difficulty
(chest tightness)
Eye, nasal irritation
Extreme fatigue
Disorientation
Cognitive dysfunction
Concentration
Neurobehavior
Palpitation
Incontinence
Immunosuppression
Chemical sensitivity
Incapacitation
Death – soon or late
Suicide – soon or late
Flight attendants and pilots interviewed for this project have demonstrated and expressed all of the symptoms listed here. First occurring as undetectable carbon monoxide fumes in the late 1980s, many months and years of exposure within the aircraft environment began to compromise immune systems. Long-term, low-level (LTLL) exposure to CO induced toxicant induced loss of tolerance (TILT) among a large number of susceptible flight attendants and pilots. No one noticed. Today medical testing may be hard-challenged to prove this allegation beyond doubt. Circumstantial evidence, however, is very strong.
2010 – 2019
Seal wear increases as engines continue in revenue service with little attention by major maintenance. Increasing olfactory and visual evidence – dirty socks/no smoke, haze, localized smoke, heavy smoke – it is possible to infer a degree of damage within the main powerplants and, by virtue of time and place of occurrence, deterioration of the APU using the same subjectively visual yard stick.
Dangerous incidents and accidents occurred in the first two decades of the 21st century, some claiming lives. These cases have never been investigated and therefore we have no reference from which to estimate future accidents. Investigators need a yardstick because, without regard for injuries and disabilities, we have no hard evidence to share with regulators. Regulators everywhere then continue to support the airline industry against the “allegations” of ill employees. We have called the FAA to report these dangerous “incidents”. We have provided evidence of injuries and disabilities. The regulators have seen fume event aircraft filled to capacity with passengers nearly crash when both pilots became incapacitated at the same time. The regulators continue to ignore our evidence and these cases. They do not respond to emergency whistleblowers.
In 2019, just before the Covid 19 pandemic, fume events and injuries appeared to peak. Reportedly one airline had 60 pilots on fume-injury recovery time off. We wonder why the FAA did not ground these pilots. Is it because in the current pilot shortage a neurologically impaired pilot on the flight deck is better than no pilot at all?
Air travel then slumped. Scheduled flights were and continue to be cancelled. Fume event contingencies continue amid covid-related contingencies. Now, in 2022 normal operations strive to recover to pre-pandemic levels, but many pilots and other crew are not returning. The aircrew workspace has become much more unsafe.
__________________________________
Carbon Monoxide Poisoning
Suggestions for reducing toxic effects
This emergency document recognizes S.1626 – Cabin Air Safety Act of 2017. Passage into law is Imperative.
29 March 2022 proposed USA legislation Cabin Air Safety Act:
“(a) Requirement To Include On Aircraft.—Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this section, the Administrator shall promulgate regulations requiring an air carrier, after 90 days for public comment and not later than 1 year after the regulations are finalized in the Federal Register—
“(1) to install and operate onboard detectors and other air quality monitoring equipment that—
“(A) are situated in the air supply system to enable pilots and maintenance technicians to identify the location of the source or sources of air supply contamination in real time, including any concentration of carbon monoxide that is dangerous to human health;
“(B) continuously monitor any relevant marker compound consistent with engine oil and hydraulic fluid fume concentration in the aircraft cabin and air supply system; and
“(C) alert the pilot and flight attendants to poor air quality that is dangerous to human health;
To minimize illness and disability likely to arise from carbon monoxide exposure, oxygen must be provided as soon as possible after aerial flight or encountered at or contiguous with the contaminated location.
Establish procedures and locations from which 100% oxygen can be distributed among airline employees, passengers, and ground personnel who have been exposed to carbon monoxide fumes.
Standard Procedures – an FAA responsibility to establish and enforce.
Forty years of cabin air incidents, accidents, and casualties do not lie. The task now is to recognize individual health emergencies inflight and at departure and arrival gates. Here listed are some possible response options:
FAA Standards of performance with respect to toxic fumes in aircraft
FAA to develop standard operating procedures for all airlines to follow during fume events. Response commences upon discovery of fumes and includes – First, establishes the captain as sole decision-making authority. Absent the captain, first officer becomes sole authority. Then, isolation of fumes, go/no go decision making, alternate landing options, request for first response emergency medical, and as may be necessary.
Procedures essential to differentiate toxic from benign fumes. Consider that exact identification of toxic compounds may not be possible, practical, or necessary. Carbon monoxide fumes dominate and are relatively easy to detect within the cabin air space or from an exposed individual’s exhaled breath. Relate appearance of illness symptoms. See CO – breathalyzer in appropriate attachments.
The standards should consider unique physiological characteristics of exposure symptoms to assure necessary and sympathetic response by appropriate specialists.
Recognize the response immediacy demanded by CO fumes and other contaminants, if any. For instance, CO is life threatening. Priority response is imperative.
Procedures should be international and developed in association with ICAO.
Participating parties could include representatives of airline safety departments, labor unions, airport services, and emergency response personnel.
General procedures to assure exposures are recognized and treated where necessary for the health of passengers as well as flight and ground employees.
Recommendations
Symptoms collected from casualties of so many fume events among our friends are expected to convincing. Illnesses and disabilities caused as a result of these symptoms should indicate an overpowering need to respond in ways that will prevent others from suffering into the future. The options as we see them include:
Mediate the hazard by managing the effects of the unsafe condition
This option leaves the unsafe condition untouched. Instead, using guidance found in scientific research, take steps to interdict the deleterious effects by detoxifying the blood and tissues of injured employees and passengers.
Oxygen is the one and only method of available to provide this service.
Oxygen at normal (ground level) pressure (normobaric) must be accomplished by treating exposed individuals as soon as possible after landing.
Oxygen under pressure. According to some research sources, if hyperbaric oxygen treatment (HBOT) is determined necessary for chronic or acute intoxication, it must be accomplished within 24 hours after leaving the contaminated environment.
Eliminate the unsafe condition:
Redesign environmental control systems using non-bleed air systems. Ideas include:
(1) Retrofit modern turbocompressor fed ECS systems.
(2) Perfect an innovative idea using high bypass air as the clean air source.
(3) Combinations of (1) and (2).
Facilitate bearing seal replacement by redesigning low and high bypass engines to make disassembly at the forward compressor bearing station easier and less expensive to accomplish. This must be accomplished while the engine is on wing. Similar redesigning will be necessary for the APU.
Testimonials – Media Reports – Aircraft Accident Reports.
The international airline industry, which includes its regulators, has never confirmed that any injuries have been caused by contaminated cabin air on aircraft. Therefore we must provide that evidence ourselves. Individual victims made ill and disabled tell their tails of suffering. Their histories and medical records confirm preponderantly the evidence needed to establish the truth of this public and occupational health hazard.
BBC 25 February 2020:Fume events: The toxic gases that may be harming aircrew and passengers
LA Times 31 March 2022:After Times investigation, Congress is moving to curb toxic fumes on airplanes.
This attachment an objective view of the specific time separating the eras before and after the appearance of cabin air contamination in the airline industry. It discusses the politics of the day and discusses a dangerous 18th century economic theory, which has arguably caused great pain and suffering in the world. It questions free market enterprise and the fall of morality.
Closure of the Civil Aeronautics Board on January 1, 1985 threw the airline industry into an immediate tailspin, which resulted in the actual free market scourge that continues today.
The proximate cause of contaminated cabin air
Replacement of manufacturers time between overhaul (TBO) maintenance with the modern digital communication system of engine health management (EHM) that monitors engine performance while in flight. Possible reasons for the change and the deleterious effects it has imposed upon human health and flying safety is discussed.
Results of condition based maintenance and predictive maintenance placed into airline service without concern for health and safety is presented.
Airline industry response to competitive market forces.
Ticket prices created as intended by Congress’s mandate led to aggressive cost cutting and upside down balance sheets. A extreme lesson in very bad managerial accounting, which ended in systemic fraud. See workers compensation attachment.
Bloody warfare.
Engine and APU seals, wear, tear, engine oil, pyrolysis, particles and gasses.
Toxic fumes result. A short discussion of perpetual airline secrecy and silence about the contaminated air issue.
Era 1985 – 2000
Creeping increase of fume events – 5 attach 6
Evidence of the slow onset of cabin fumes, crewmember and airline management response, and who knew what when. Increase in disability among flight attendants. The pilot and speculative differences in the fume experience front to back.
Carbon monoxide in detail. Symptoms and their association with CO exposure levels.
Diagnosing carbon monoxide poisoning. TCP as an early suspected toxicant. The potentiality of NOx.
Era 2000 – 2019
Accounting, cabin sensors, culpability of regulators.
Conspiracy of Silence, Ethics, Morals,
Workers Compensation.
Options supporting total elimination. (of aerotoxic syndrome).
Attach #1
Root Cause
Airline industry response to competitive market forces.
2493 – The Airline Deregulation Act of 1978.
We have hinted at the roll of the U.S. 95th Congress having too hastily and with little foresight ratified the deregulation act. Why did Congress settle upon free enterprise as the savior of the airline industry?
The very first sentence of the Act states: “To amend the Federal Aviation Act of 1958, to encourage, develop, and attain an air transportation system which relies upon competitive market forces to determine the quality, variety, and price of air services, and for other purposes.” (Emphasis is mine.)
“Competitive market forces”! All the rage in the 1970s, even Dr. Paul Samuelson, author of the primary text, “Economics”, fell into line with the popular interpretation that the very best economic outcome for all of society was to remove all government oversight from business enterprise. In this fashion the world’s economies could benefit from Scottish father of modern economics, Adam Smith, and his late 18th century theories. Smith’s still-influential work, “Wealth of Nations” (1) states that regulations on commerce are ill-founded and counter-productive. He then explains the theory based upon his personal ethics and “moral sentiments”. He explains that when a businessman pursues his own self-interest (2) , An “invisible hand” acts to assure that everyone, including society, benefits.
The airline industry at deregulation
Ticket prices began to loosen somewhat and the when the CAB closed, fell drastically as the newly-released airlines began to compete. Revenue that had been available at CAB fares and that were set so as to finance and service debt and the costs of those regulated times. Then of a sudden the costs were there, but the revenue was no longer available. Nowhere in the deregulation literature are costs of airline operations mentioned. From lawmakers to executives, no one thought about it. For the air carrier executives it was swim or sink.
The airline deregulation act threw air carrier executives into a passionate obsession with corporate survival. From 1985 to deep into the 21st century, survival was the only option, the only goal. If we consider the histories of 24 air carriers from a 1970s list of major air carriers, we soon realize that five-sixths, 83%, failed through acquisitions, mergers, or liquidation. The last important merger, U.S. Airways (Survivor)/ American airlines (acquired), occurred in December 2013. Upon merging the victor, U.S. Airways, changed its name to American Airlines. Today only four (4) airlines from the old days survive. (3)
Reference, “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, 30 Years of US Airline Deregulation”, tells a portion of the story. (4) What this document does not mention is the Really Ugly. The Really Ugly (5) has evolved since CAB closure on 1/1/1985 – toxic air slowly began to enter occupied areas of airliner cabins where pilots and flight attendants spend their careers; where unsuspecting passengers enjoy low fares to travel.
FEAR
The Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 imposed a very foreign environment upon air carrier executives. Micromanaged by Civil Aeronautics Board officials for 40 years, competition between carriers was forbidden. Airline executives had no experience with competition. They did suspect unfettered competition would reduce ticket prices, which was the one and only goal of U. S. lawmakers. They didn’t fully anticipate the aggression that would soon develop into a survival-of-the-fittest war on each other.
Zealously cutting costs in an effort to align expenses with depressed income from falling ticket sales they soon created balance sheets that were upside down . . . cost over revenue . . . expense over income. We cannot view these old profit and loss statements, but we can accurately understand why bankruptcies soared. One consequence was the necessity to avoid expensive engine overhauls. This created slow deterioration of engine oil seals. It was and remains a long-term process of unmitigated wear and tear that would create the cabin contamination problem.
How would members of the air transportation industry react:
Executives and Senior Managers:
Did not at first believe that oil leaks would occur in a way that could affect occupants inside the aircraft. They denied all allegations. Because of the curtain of silence, we can only surmise that manufacturer design and build personnel would have told them the truth. Assuming that carrier executives were truthfully briefed, that is where the truth stopped. That is where truth resides today.
Spin untruths (to deny, rebuff, deflect, falsely assert) that have and continue to be spoken in response to employee pleadings, workers compensation claims, and media fume reports.
Bewail when because of fumes a captain must divert to an airport short of destination. The cost: a spare airplane with crew, passenger inconvenience, crew injuries or illness, passenger illness, another landing fee, connecting flights missed or delayed. $$$$$$
Some carrier managers are now prohibiting diversions. Their orders: fly to destinations; work through the fumes; fumes are not dangerous, if you feel ill it will soon pass.
Yes, fumes are dangerous. These kinds of procedures are dangerous.
On June 17th 2022 I received a report from a flight attendant saying that at her airline flight attendants are required to be at work regardless of whether they (a) have been made ill by fumes, (b) need time to recover from respiratory or neurological injuries from fumes, (c) have contracted Covid-19 and are ill from the virus. Failure to be at work flying their schedules results in punitive demerits on their employee record.
Pilots:
Do not wish to speak of the cabin fumes problem. Their jobs are their lives. As they age and grow experience, alternative employment options decline. Nearly all purchase loss of license insurance. More than a few file claims against this insurance from time to time. One airline captain specifically would not chat about fumes because, he said, “I’m afraid I’ll lose my job.
Some of them, defend their positions of responsibility as captains. They make inflight decisions, especially emergency decisions, according to their education, training, and experience with the risk. To them safety and health is paramount. Safety and health inflight is their responsibility and they accept it willingly.
Some captains, do as their employer demands. At one airline a senior management directive prohibited the flight crew from diverting to an airport short of destination. The assertion was that fumes are not dangerous. If illness results you will soon recover. Fly through it!
Serious health issues can result when (a) pilots are not told the truth about toxic cabin air, and (b) when directed to disregard a dangerous situation on an aircraft.
Flight attendants
normally love their job. The last three decades have not been normal. Today they:
fear being injured. Injured they need recovery time off, forfeiting wages. Injured by fumes, many are denied workers compensation benefits. Their “self-insured” employer has authority over compensability, which is a conflict of interest. The employer’s effort to support corporate profits, can impose debt upon the employee.
have shared with me their bankruptcy experiences. Some have become destitute and unable to continue to fly. Some resign without benefits. Attachment 8 to this report will discuss workers compensation and the fraudulent cases being imposed upon airline employees.
are being intimidated by punitive demerits upon their work record. This is retribution, which is illegal under OSHA rules. The Memorandum of Understanding between the FAA and OSHA does not contribute to aviation health and flying safety. Among the work rules infractions are:
i) Refusing to fly while ill or suffering from certain injuries.
ii) Taking time off to recover from illness and injury from fume events. These periods of incapacitation can be short term, temporarily incapacitating, permanently disabling, and life threatening.
iii) allegedly, at some airlines flight attendants are required to work while positive for the Covid virus.
Working while ill from Covid-19 while also recovering from CO poisoning.
This allegation is new and unique. It must be researched as soon as possible. Unable to leave the environment a flight attendant exposed CO fumes, which by statements in the research literature could be in the air in small quantities at all times, plus currently active symptoms of Covid 19 in combination, is an exposure of serious concern.
Could it be extremely damaging to the lungs, hemoglobin, tissues, immune system health? A vaccine needs strong immune system support in the battle toward recovery. An anoxic circulatory system could neutralize or seriously inhibit the vaccine.
The FAA:
By supporting industry defenses against contaminated cabin air, the FAA is complicit. FAA authorities deny and generally dismiss toxic issues alleged in cabin air. The FAA and NTSB do not investigate incidents of cabin contamination. **
But for the Memorandum of Understanding, 6) OSHA could investigate and would easily uncover the toxic problem on aircraft. The MOU prohibits OSHA from involving itself with any airline issue other than hazard communication, bloodborne pathogens, and occupational noise.
Silence prevails around all aspects cabin fumes both inside and outside of the industry.
** An incident confirms FAA and NTSB unwillingness to investigate:
The premise – Incidents are precursors of accidents as defined in the Federal Air Regulations. The FAA says it investigates “incidents’, but it does not.
U.S. airways flight 1041, January 16, 2010, the return leg of service between Charlotte and St Thomas, was the final leg of a three part schedule in the same aircraft. (7) The crew did not notice the insidious onset of fumes on the first two legs. We speculate at some physiological impairment as the cycles and flight hours increased.
Slight fumes were noticed just after departure St. Thomas. At cruise flight attendants noticed red eyes of both pilots. The pilots did not notice any flight deck odors. Unaware of fume incidents and feeling no illness, the pilots continued to destination. Upon descent and approach both pilots had become incapacitated. They could not discern the need for their ready and available oxygen. They managed somehow to land the aircraft at Charlotte without becoming unconscious. Both lost their medical certification. The captain took his own life six years later.
The event was reported to the FAA where it was assessed as an incident not requiring investigation. Only one crewmember among the seven ever returned to work. In 2017, upset by the FAA’s decision not to investigate, the crew petitioned the FAA to reconsider. Since the flight had nearly ended in catastrophe, they thought “incident” should be changed to “accident” and case investigated. The crew collected their recorded histories including health records. Senior FAA authorities invited the crew to present their case in person, which they proceeded to do.
The interview went well. Officials were to discuss their request, review the documents, and reply with their decision. Several months elapsed when they received their documentation returned unopened. No reply was ever made. No investigation was made. To this date, fume events have never been investigated.
Airline Ground Safety Departments
Appearance suggests that the old-time concept of a ground safety departments at each air carrier had faded away after deregulation. For certain, such a department with its professional safety manager would have been a drain on essential revenue; revenue the carriers could no longer muster.
Appearances again suggest that the safety departments that continued after deregulation are managed by employees selected from within; flight and ground safety being always independent from the other.
An Alliance
between the
S. Department of Labor, Occupational Health and Safety Administration
and the
Airline Ground Safety Panel (AGSP)
Through the OSHA and AGSP Alliance, both organizations are committed to providing AGSP members and others with information, guidance, and access to training resources that will help them protect the health and safety of workers, particularly by: 1) reducing and preventing falls; 2) addressing issues related to small businesses, motor vehicles, and hazard communication; and 3) understanding the rights of workers and the responsibilities of employers under the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act).
Signed May 20, 2008; renewed October 10, 2012; and April 08, 2015; concluded April 24, 2018.
Apparently the airline industry saw a need once again in 2018 for ground safety. The airline Ground safety panel alliance with OSHA was concluded in 2018, now reinstated in 2022 – for two years. The alliance will concentrate on ground safety issues such as slips, trips, falls, ground equipment, and classification and labeling of chemicals. These are the usual sources of accidents that traditionally swell the frequency and severity statistical records in the airline industry.
However, no mention is made of help for flight attendants and the many occupational issues that occur while serving the airborne public. Airline executives for decades seem not to have been adequately concerned with the inflight, passenger cabin side of the business. Accident trends can be just as problematic up there as on the ground. Clearly OSHA still has not been granted access to the passenger cabin. The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the FAA and OSHA blocks access to aircraft, firmly establishing and enforcing the barrier. Only the FAA has safety jurisdiction over the flight attendants in the passenger cabin. Since 1985, the FAA has done nothing significant to improve safety in aircraft cabins.
Cost cutting
Cost cutting qualifies within the ‘Fear’ category. Fear of failure to be sufficiently frugal and aggressive against cost was and to some degree remains a significant part of raw survival in the airline industry. In the beginning wages and benefits were drastically cut along with inflight services and other passenger comforts. So cornered by insufficient funds were some airline executives that they offered workers voluntary furloughs “for the good of the company”. Loyal flight attendants among others stepped up. My daughter served her employer without reward by taking a six-year voluntary furlough. Her sacrifice was a contribution to her employer, U.S. Airways, as it navigated its bankruptcy reorganization that began in August 2002. That sacrifice may also have helped American Airlines avoid bankruptcy, the only U.S. airline that did not file for court managed reorganization. (8)
Workers compensation insurance in the USA is governed under individual state oversight. This means that 50 different plans must be reviewed to understand how on-the-job injuries are addressed. Commercial insurance policies required by law at every airline were cancelled all at once in 1980. For years they had felt that relinquishing claim management to insurance companies, premium and claim auditing by outsiders, and our built-in 1% profit margin were not in their best interest. That decision by carrier management ended my one and only executive career path, so I guess I’m a victim of deregulation, too.
Those most hurt by abandoning commercial workers compensation were the employees. Flight attendants especially, all of whom receive no assistance to recover from carbon monoxide poisoning and other injuries that are no longer covered for medical and wage indemnity, must accept the cost on their own account. Work-related injuries, incurred and uncompensated at no fault of their own, employees are at risk of developing lifelong health problems.
(See Attachment 8 – Workers Compensation).
Perhaps the largest expense to be avoided or ignored by carrier executives is major maintenanceof high cycle, high time engines, auxiliary power units (APUs), and the environmental control system (ECS) of aircraft. The cost of engine overhauls is seen as a big reason behind the onset of oil seal deterioration, oil leaks, and cabin fumes. It is the exact point where lack of lawmaker knowledge allowed this prohibitive situation to become established at the risk of human health and safety. Inadequate maintenance of APUs is a significant contributor to the problem. Some of our most debilitating injuries are caused by inadequately serviced and maintained APUs.
From 1994 to 2004, maintenance problems have contributed to 42% of fatal airline accidents in the United States. Maintenance-related accidents and incidents are caused by a breakdown of organizational processes, decisions and culture. (9)
(TBO –> EHM)** Maintenance operations are also affected by human input that shows up as weaknesses in organizational processes leading to
EHM and toxic cabin air has never been admitted by the airline industry. To admit and pay the cost of essential aircraft engine overhauls at as much as $3,000,000 each would be to disregard the Airline Deregulation Act’s low-fare goal. (JML)” v:shapes=”Text_x0020_Box_x0020_15″>Lack of motivation
Fatigue and stress
Time pressures
Misperception of hazards
Inadequate skills (10)
** TBO –> EHM – Manufacturer recommended time since new or between overhauls, suspended in favor of, engine health management, condition based maintenance, and predictive protocols and no set hourly recommendations for maintenance.
Aircraft designers and engineers of the day were considering technical aspects of the world’s first airliner, the De Havilland Comet. As the storytellers at magazine “Flight International” would write, “the comet enjoys a great advantage over all other pressurized airliners.” (1)
This was a new concept aircraft intended for commercial passenger services. They were concerned about the cabin environment and its effect upon air travelers’ years into the future. Compressed air extracted from the engine compressor at 2000 C (3920 F) would be cooled, then sent through an air processing unit before entering the aircraft interior where occupants would find it comforting and pure for breathing.
Bleed air, it came to be known. Cheap and plentiful, it would assure rapid and affordable public transportation while flying over two-thirds of the earth’s atmospheric cocoon. The experience would be worry free for the air traveler.
Or would it? The air conditioning system was working very well. Designers, engineers, manufacturer and air carrier executives at the time had no definite reason to be concerned. But these technical experts appear to have been not entirely sure. As “Flight International” goes on to state: “It was at one time feared that contamination of the compressor air within the engine might prove a problem, but this has fortunately proved unfounded. In the few cases where an engine oil leak has occurred, the affected engine has immediately been shut off from the air supply.”
How did they know, “immediately”, that an oil leak had occurred? Had designers provided sensors that would alert the flight crew? Was the oil quantity gage of a vernier scale design? Why do not the aircrews of today have that information? Did oil leaks from our modern engines become so frequent that warning devices were removed?
For years the Comet and its successor aircraft operated to the best of this common-sense ideal without a hitch. Supported for safety by “engine manufacturer recommended time between overhaul (TBO) strongly suggesting turbine engines be overhauled each 5,000 hours of operation, seals, we presume, were regularly replaced. We suggest that by air carrier executive order, this was routinely accomplished. These were the years of airline dictatorial oversight by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB). All aircraft and engine maintenance costs would have been built into the ticket price formula and regularly paid. During the TBO era, which spanned the decades from 1938 to1978, no engine oil fumes of consequence leaked into areas inhabited by air travelers. We knew, then, of no civilianillnesses or injuries arising from chemical fumes or particulate matter.
The U.S. Air Force had some problems with fumes-related injuries, mostly related to the J-57 engine.
We cannot verify the truth of the previous statement; however, I was responsible for monitoring air carrier operations in support of workers compensation insurance programs. My employer, U. S. Aviation Underwriters, Inc., New York, N.Y., insured half of the major airlines of the day for hull insurance, liability insurance, and workers compensation. Reviewing current accident and incident cases throughout the 1970s, no cases of oil leakage into occupied areas of aircraft ever came to my attention. No claims were ever made to cover the cost of work related environmental illnesses. Jet engine fumes were everywhere. Passengers had to walk across the tarmac at many airports, but no official complaints were brought to insurance companies.
The same can be said about the other half of the industry. Our competitor’s workers compensation department manager was a friend, and we would have discussed cabin fumes if any had been rumored.
In addition, The Hartford and Travelers Insurance Companies employed a few aviation-savvy safety engineers. They provided field safety services to airlines (workers compensation) and airports (general liability) respectively. Neither brought any environmental complaints into our discussions.
The Proximate Cause of Contaminated Cabin Air
Engine Health Management
Manufacturers of aircraft and engines prepared for the revolutionary new industry in advance of deregulation. They appear to have been aware that the new model engines and airframes would be expensive to maintain. Multitudes of sensors were placed in and around the new low and high bypass turbofan engines destined for new models of highly reliable aircraft. The old engine TBO protocol in place since at least 1950 was discontinued. The engine health management scheme would provide maintenance only when necessary according to performance data recorded and transmitted by satellite to monitoring stations. Operators and manufacturers would have real time control over equipment efficiency into the future.
It should have been the best of all worlds. It is hardly arguable that these new jet engines are the most highly engineered and reliable mechanical tools ever built. But the original assumption about engine oil leaks remains. No one considered the value of TBO over Engine Health Management and Condition Based Maintenance. In fact, engine manufacturer sales departments had sold new engines at a premium discount expecting to recover some of their cost when they were returned for overhaul. Manufacturers were unaware that their airline clients would take advantage of removal of the 5,000 hour TBO protocol by operating engines continuously for 30,000, 40,000, and even more hours without significant maintenance. No one thought about deteriorating compressor bearing seals, oil leaks, and cabin contamination. (2)
Consequences
As time passed and fumes became noticeable, the industry failed to have air quality sensors installed on aircraft. By then authorities must have been aware, yet associated internationally, they determined not to act. They apparently did not even investigate, or if they did investigate, they may have found the information too sensitive to follow-up.
They might have become “willfully ignorant”. For if they knew they would need to act: if any one country lawmaker, one airline official, one regulator, had acted responsibly, all would need to act responsibly. They would need to act to protect their reputations and their dwindling market share.
Clearly, the courage to act ethically and morally to protect public and occupational health is insufficient throughout the industry.
Flying safety takes a back seat
A disturbing fact – Engine Health Management systems contain no sensors for engine oil leaks; no sensors for cabin fumes; no indications to warn pilots of toxic conditions aboard their aircraft; conditions that could threaten their health, the health of their cabin crew associates, and the health of their passengers.
(2) https://www.reuters.com/article/us-air-show-engines-idUSBRE95F0F220130616
But high reliability that has become industry standard is hampering that spare-part business. CFM said that CFM56 engines delivered nearly a decade ago were due to come in after six years but are just now coming in for service. The revenue is thus arriving later than predicted and a “bow wave” hasn’t materialized in the way it was expected.
“We have a pretty substantial population of engines that are at around 40,000 hours” before their first shop visit, CFM spokeswoman Jamie Jewell said. In one case, an engine stayed on the wing 14 years before coming in for its first major repairs. While that affects CFM’s revenue, it is doubtless appealing to airlines.
Typical maintenance check intervals for different aircraft types, adapted from Eurocontrol [4]. Multiple sources, including Aircraft Technology Engineering & Maintenance, Aircraft Commerce and Boeing AERO.
A typical fume event
As I write this on 20 June 2022, a 17 June 2022 report arrived of an Allegiant Airlines Airbus 320 flying from Orlando to Tulsa having a fume event.
Fumes allegedly entered the cabin as the pilot reduced power for descent from cruise altitude. This is common. Reducing power causes a change in sealing air pressure in the #1 compressor bearing sump. The sump, or bearing compartment is where hot, pyrolyzed oil first encounters oxygen. As they mix a process of combustion begins. The encounter is rapid, a matter of seconds before the air is vented out of the sump toward the internal oil separator.
But now with sealing air pressure remaining low during descent, products of partial combustion of the hydrocarbons that make up the total volume of oil produce carbon monoxide (CO). instead of being vented internally, a portion of the CO leaks out through the bearing seals and into the compressor stream of new air. A portion of that CO in compressor air is then bled off for use in the cabin. The flight attendants began to feel ill, coughing continuously. Passengers too must have been affected. Emergency medical responders with respirators boarded that aircraft to begin treating those affected.
About this Airbus, the Allegiant fleet operates fifteen A320-200 aircraft. The list does not show a registration N230NV. It does show an N203NV.
N203NV was delivered to Allegiant in November 2021. The aircraft is posted to be 9.6 years old. Its first flight was on 9/11/2012. It had a private owner apparently in Singapore, was traded to Spirit Airlines in 2021 but never delivered. Stored under its Singapore registration from January 2021, it apparently sat idle during the pandemic for 10 or 11 months.
No information is available about the private owner in Singapore or about logged engine hours. The engines are likely to be original. Also likely to never have been overhauled. How effective was the post storage maintenance service? How long have oil fumes been leaking?
The event as reported by Avherald:
Accident: Allegiant A320 at Tulsa on Jun 17th 2022, fumes on board
An Allegiant Airbus A320-200, registration N230NV performing flight G4-2397 from Orlando Sanford,FL to Tulsa,OK (USA), was on approach to Tulsa when flight attendants noticed an odour and began to feel unwell. The flight crew, while maintaining routine communication, continued for a safe landing on Tulsa’s runway 18L.
Passengers waiting for the return flight reported that after the aircraft arrived at the gate suddenly emergency services surrounded the aircraft, emergency responders with respirators arrived and boarded the aircraft. The emergency responders were told that during the descent the flight attendants had become ill and coughed excessively. The return flight was cancelled.
Tulsa Airport reported their fire department responded to a call when Allegiant flight attendants felt ill after reporting an odour on board of the aircraft. No hazardous substances were found on board of the aircraft.
Attach 3 Carbon Monoxide – how it forms in aircraft engines
An assertion without an alternative.
Introduction
Carbon monoxide (CO) is a poison. It kills and disables more people than any other toxic compound. It is the most studied. As long as a victim’s feet are on the ground, someone, somewhere has studied it. Peer reviewed literature addresses every instance of its occurrence from every angle imaginable. But once a person leaves the ground as, perhaps on an airplane, the literature stops. No information at all exists to help us understand the why and how of CO at high flying altitudes. We must sort it out for ourselves.
CO poisoning hypoxic. 1 Affinity of red blood cells (hemoglobin) to bind with CO is about 240 times stronger than that for oxygen (O2). When a person becomes surrounded and breathes into the lungs the odorless, tasteless and colorless fumes, O2, which is also inhaled is shunted aside in favor of CO. Until the victim escapes the toxic environment, blood carries the poison throughout the body depositing it in skeletal muscle tissues, organs, especially the heart muscle, and the nervous system, especially the brain.
When the flight attendant closes the door on a commercial airliner prior to departure, the aircraft becomes an air conditioned pressure vessel. Arguably, clean air can be expected on most flights; it is, after all, the #1 requirement for an enjoyable trip. Thirty years of experiences reported by crewmembers and passengers confirm that clean air is not always available.
How Is Carbon Monoxide Produced in aircraft?
Until now, investigators from outside of the airline industry have never written about production of CO on aircraft nor contemplated how it can occur. If engineers within the industry have investigated this phenomenon, they retain the data as proprietary. They and their mangers also do not act to bring the process under control. Complete combustion of flammable carbonaceous material gives non-toxic carbon dioxide and water. When internal temperatures are high enough to begin the combustion process but not high enough to assure complete combustion, CO is formed.
Production of CO
Two units exist on aircraft where CO can be produced: the auxiliary power unit and the engines. Within each unit there are two areas where the process can occur:
(1) The wing mounted engines – Please see video explaining how bleed air works and how contaminants from engine oil can invade the cabin. Link: “Bleed Air System Explained”. 2
The APU is a turbine engine driven system that uses the same oil and supplies compressed air in much the same fashion as the main engines. The APU is used primarily on the ground to provide air conditioning, electric power, and compressed air for starting the engines. High above the tarmac, the APU is unhandy for regular maintenance inspection. When uninspected for extended periods of time oil leaks can occur unnoticed. Ducting leading from the APU into the main distribution duct can become fouled. When this occurs, which may be more common than we know, oil residue including contaminants can continue to taint cabin air while airborne. Whether this type of contamination includes carbon monoxide gas is unknown.
Our investigations discovered many serious illnesses caused by faulty APUs. Some of them are listed in the testimonials from aircrew.
Creation of carbon monoxide in turbine engines
Where is the point of CO generation and how does it occur:
Sealing air first contacts oil in the bearing compartments (sumps). This is the first and best opportunity to produce carbon monoxide.
Bearings support the rotating stages of the and the turbines. Although the seals located throughout the engines can wear, crack, fail, and leak oil, we are concerned only with the foremost bearing sump of the forward-located compressor section. This sump is closest to the air intake upstream from the bleed valves. This is the bearing section where sump air seal integrity is essential. (See CFM engine schematic in this section.)
Oil exists for the sole purposes of lubricating and removing heat from the few mechanical parts of the engine. The sumps contain the highest temperatures and pressures in the engine except for the combustion section itself.
The Engine Lubricating System
In this schematic, imagine a molecule of oil as it travels from the bottom of the oil tank through the amber route through the oil pump and supply filter directly to the compressor bearings, turbine bearings, and the accessory gearbox – the light brown oil lines to the blue inside the engine silhouette. After the lubricating job is done, oil is scavenged through boost pumps, a filter, the fuel/oil heat exchanger and back to the reservoir.
Bearing sump schematic.
Oil is sprayed through the oil jet directly onto the spinning roller and ball bearings that support the rotating core shaft. Temperatures are said to be less that 17000 C in this, the #1, or front bearing compartment or sump. Oil temperature approximates continuous 2180 C. Sealing air, shown at point X in this schematic, will be the heat of compression temperature at the 5th stage bleed valve, about midway along the 9 stage compressor, assuming the CFM 56 engine. The inward moving air meeting the spraying oil in the bearing inner compartment establishes the first and best point where combustion of carbon material can occur. Considering the constant, very dynamic environment here, combustion time will be very short. Weighing the combined temperatures of bearing sump, oil spray, sealing air and the seconds available for combustion before air is vented out the top of the sump and oil is scavenged from the bottom, production of carbon monoxide would seem to be reasonably good. 4
We have followed the oil to this point in the forward compressor bearing sump. Here is where seal integrity counts the most. When seal wear, deterioration, and the occasional failure occurs as the seal fails or is utilized beyond its designed useful life, we can imagine carbon monoxide gas forming by incomplete combustion in the high heat located here. The gas can then leak outward through the four banks of labyrinth and face seals into the plenum area outside of the sump. We might also imagine oil sliding upstream of air entering the inner sump compartment when the pilot reduces power at top of descent. We are told this happens but we have no visible evidence.
Once outside of the sump, gas laden air will exit the plenum and enter the compressor airstream, which speeds aft as it is compressed to supply hot compressed air for the burner section and production of thrust.
CFM 56 high bypass turbine engine.
Visualizing the above narrative, number 1 compressor bearing is located on the left in the schematic below. The plenum (empty compartment) is shown above and before the #1 bearing. Carbon monoxide gas will enter the empty plenum and escape from between the compressor rotor disks into the front stages of the compressor air stream. This airstream is flowing very fast, accelerating and compressing through the 9 stage compressor. From the location of the first four, low pressure compressor stages (hash lined blades) to the intermediate, 5th stage, bleed valve located half-way through the high pressure compressor stages, some of the CO must cross the gap from the inside diameter of the compressor core to the outside diameter, shroud, where the bleed valves are located.
Some of the contaminants, including carbon monoxide gas, will complete the crossing at the 5th stage bleed valve. We are solidly assured that enough CO gas does cross the airstream to be extracted through the bleed valve. Once extracted, the route to the cabin and flight deck is assured. Cabin occupant exposure to CO gas will be assured.
Passage of CO from the 5th stage (at cruise) and the 5th plus 9th stage (from top of descent to approach altitude) for landing.
Bleed air enters through the 5th stage bleed valve at “I”. This valve serves the cabin’s need for pressurization throughout taxi, takeoff, and cruise. When at top of descent when the pilot reduces power to start downward for landing, the compressor section spools down to a slower RPM. 5th stage bleed air becomes insufficient for cabin pressurization needs. The 9th stage bleed air valve then opens automatically to supplement 5th stage air. The ninth stage bleed stays open until power is added to level off at approach altitude in preparation for landing.
We can infer that when both the 5th and 9th stage bleed valves open, more CO can be extracted than through the 5th stage alone. This inference is supported by reports and testimonials of fumes becoming noticeable at top of descent with increasing inability of flight attendants to accomplish prelanding preparations. Several cases of pilot incapacitation are recorded from this actual occurrence. Threat of pilot incapacitation from odorless CO as the aircraft approaches ground level must be seriously contemplated as the airline industry considers how to cope with the carbon monoxide hazard on aircraft.
References:
(1) Hypoxia / Anoxia – what is the difference? MedicineNet
By this definition, with carbon monoxide we are dealing with hypoxia.
(2) Bleed Air Explained – You Tube
(3) What do auxiliary power units (APUs) do on aircraft?
(4) Is a Cumulative Exposure to a Background Aerosol of Nanoparticles Part of the Causal Mechanism of Aerotoxic Syndrome? PDF
Carbon monoxide poisoning
Introduction 1
At present, carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning remains a leading cause of unintentional poisoning worldwide [1]. In Italy, the estimated incidence is about 6.000 cases per year, resulting in more than 350 deaths per year [2]. The clinical symptoms range from headache and confusion to coma and death, with mortality rates reaching up to 3%. CO is a nonirritant gas generated during the incomplete combustion of carbon-based compounds. Upon exposure, CO binds to hemoglobin with an affinity known to be 200-300 times greater than oxygen, generating carboxyhemoglobin (COHb). It decreases both the oxygen carrying and oxygen-delivery capacity of blood, inducing tissue hypoxia (COHb) theory) [3]. While the hypoxemic hypoxia suggested by the COHb theory is undoubtedly a key component of CO poisoning mechanisms, it is not enough to account for some of the neuropathological manifestations of CO poisoning. In recent years, researchers have demonstrated CO interaction with soluble guanylate cyclase, ion channels, nitric oxide, nitric oxide synthase, mitochondria, cytochromes, NAPDH oxidase, and xanthine oxidase. Direct effects of CO poisoning on separate organ systems are well explained by these extra-hemoglobin effects, with the most important being the effects upon nitric oxide and on reactive oxygen species (ROS). In addition, a direct effect on cardiac ion channels has been established [4].
General symptoms
Symptoms immediate during fume exposure
Symptoms long-term or chronic
headache
dizziness
nausea
vomiting
fatigue
confusion
cognitive impairment (2)
tremor (2)
motor function (2)
weakness
influenza
high blood pressure
unconsciousness
loss of equilibrium
rapid heartbeat
red eyes
seizures (2)
collapse
Death incl. suicide
Immediate symptoms plus:
memory loss
sensory deficits
vision disorder
taste
touch
Parkinsonism & essential tremor
nerve demyelination
muscle pain
incontinence
emotion unstable
mentally unstable
shallow breathing
muscle spasm
hearing
smell
(2) CO competes with O2 in the lungs; at affinity 210 + times stronger than O2 . In a standard atmosphere of 21% oxygen and .1% CO, the blood will leave the lungs at 50% saturated with oxyhemoglobin and 50% saturated with carboxyhemoglobin.2
This chart of carbon monoxide symptoms was garnered both from many peer reviewed documents and also verified with and augmented by personal interviews with ill and disabled crewmembers.
Carbon monoxide is called “the great imitator”. Among a long list of symptoms, it can manifest as symptoms resembling:
Influenza
Angina – chest tightness, pain, palpitations
Fatigue – chronic fatigue syndrome
Depression
Parkinson’s disease-like tremors
Epilepsy-like muscle twitching and seizures
Concussion – chronic traumatic encephalopathy
Mountain sickness
Jet lag disorder – jet lag 3
Evidence suggests that disturbed circadian rhythms may not always be the cause. Reports from Bleed-free B787 travelers after long flights compare very favorably against reports from similar flights in bleed aspirated aircraft. San Francisco to Sydney – three days recovery seems usual after flights in conventional ECS environments. Bleed free evidence suggests arrival feeling fresh with little or no perceived fatigue. Reference: my daughter’s & son-in -law’s flight to Sydney, Australia, plus other incidental comments.
Hydrocarbons make up the full complement of synthetic engine oil. When present, an acrid odor offers a warning, not a timely warning, but incentive for the captain to act. By refusing to install CO sensors on aircraft pilots must rely on human olfactory evidence, the sense of smell, to advise of problems pending. Odorless early exposure cannot be sensed making the pilot vulnerable to the insidious onset of unconsciousness and his job significantly more difficult.
How often do aircraft fume events occur?
Engine time on wing
Common sense suggests that fume events will vary directly with engine time on wing since new or since major overhaul (SMOH), and the apparent lengthy time between critical inspection of APU performance. We have shown in our lead document (Anatomy of an Occupational Hazard) how the larger, more sophisticated engines of today remain on wing over periods of 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 hours or more before transmitted sensor data tells maintenance that overhaul is needed.
Fumes can be generated by any engine at any time, even new engines. Without access to aircraft logbooks or maintenance records, we cannot assure that more fumes events happen more frequently on high time engines. We challenge regulators and carrier managers to correlate fume-incident records with engine time SMOH. If found to be true, preventive maintenance on high time engines should emphasize the trend and replace bearing seals as fleet performance dictates.
No one knows for sure the frequency and severity of toxic conditions on aircraft. We do know that crewmembers, especially flight attendants, become ill and injured every day. Passengers too. Should we accept carbon monoxide exposure as part of air transportation service; a cost of doing business? That decision is left to you. Although the FAA and other regulators require contamination to be reported, it is mostly not reported. Regulators neither enforce the requirement nor maintain records of cases that are reported. This encourages us to speculate:
(a) Concentration of contamination
Small oil leaks cause mild, low level fumes undetectable by smell.
Reportedly, seal designers say that a small amount of leakage oil is designed into the seal to extend seal life. 4 Seals leak a small amount always, they say. Age related deterioration and loss of designed tolerances of seals can be expected to cause leakage, increased evidence of contamination to be sensed, and the threat of low-level accumulation of CO in cell myoglobin (“cell hemoglobin”), which can result in muscle dysfunction. Tremors can result in tissues; the heart muscle; the brain.
Chronically weakened immune systems can lead to multiple chemical sensitivity. Flight attendants are candidates for MCS.
Repeated low level exposure to fumes can lead to accumulation of CO in blood and tissues of crew and passengers that increase throughout a crew duty day, or over several days in the same aircraft.5,
Moderate oil leaks may be steady or come and go throughout a flight.
Pilots can become concerned when fumes are first reported, then concerned but wary as fumes clear away, only to return later in a flight. They may try to isolate the offending engine by deselecting one bleed air source then the other to learn if the condition ceases. Confusion and uncertainty can last for an entire flight.
Fumes may be constant and build throughout a flight. When over water or when pilots do not divert to emergency landing, unhealthy exposure to crew and passengers increases. Entire crews of flight attendants have been seen to become incapacitated, unable to rise.
6, 7
Continuous exposure throughout a flight can result in pilot incapacitation at landing. This possibility increases when the pilot reduces power to begin the descent for landing. Sealing air pressure in the engine bearing sump may reduce. Oil pressure in sumps remain the same. We suggest this might cause increase of CO production and leakage as less oxygen is available to produce complete combustion, plus the possibility that effectiveness of air seals decline allowing more fumes to pass through the seal.
Moderate to heavy smoke and fumes in the cabin and flight deck.
Without question, this occurrence is caused by a seriously impaired seal. Inflight emergency procedures should begin. Land as soon as possible is the one and only proper response.
As with all levels of toxic exposure, emergency medical personnel must be requested before landing. All affected aircraft occupants must be treated with oxygenor bear the risk of long term illness or disability;common consequences of untreated CO poisoning.
(b) To what comparative degree are occupants affected?
Flight attendants:
Evidence confirms that flight attendants are far more susceptible to cabin fumes than all other occupants. Up and working throughout a flight, attending to passengers needs and desires, flight attendants breathe the most cabin air. When contaminants are present, especially carbon monoxide, they are by far the most affected. They display symptoms readily: mild headache and dizziness to falling unconscious in the isle. Headache, nausea, dizziness, trouble breathing, tremors for weeks and months afterward.
Pilots:
Similarly, pilots remain immobile for most of the flight. They are working, however, and may endure strains that impose some mild but increased respiration. Contrary to some industry suggestions, pilots do not panic; they do not hyperventilate.
Pilots have immediate access to aviator’s breathing oxygen, which they use throughout a fight if necessary.
Passengers:
Passengers are relatively the most relaxed among aircraft occupants. They read, use electronic devices, sleep. They respire the least among occupants and by remaining relaxed will be least affected by fumes.
An historical perspective. Insurance data forgone.
In the 1970s, before deregulation and airline cancelation of commercial workers compensation policies, insurance companies maintained accurate records of all incidents, accidents, and claims made of on-the-job injuries. It was required by state law. Statistics were built around this data. I used the data to identify accident trends to be used in our airline accident prevention programs. That data is now 100% lost to the public. Comprehensive industry-level accident prevention data is unavailable today.
Concentration of carbon monoxide as altitude increases.
No research above that equivalent to the last camp on Mount McKinley is available to help. Evidence suggests greater concentrations of CO as altitude, and, incidentally, reduced partial pressure of oxygen in air increases as height above sea level increases. CO is generated in engines in the front bearing sump on the compressor section. Cabin altitude of the aircraft does not affect the process. Temperatures here will approximate less than 1,7000 C near the bearing in the sump, steady oil temperatures 2180 C, and generally, the adiabatic lapse rate. These high, medium, and low temperatures in combination conceivably could combine to create just the right environment for large amounts of carbon monoxide, only some of which are syphoned through the bleed air valves and into the ECS system.4
Some additional CO might occur from heat of compression in the early stages of the compressor, but the likelihood is not firmly understood.
We would like to theorize what could happen as man breaks from the bounds of earth, but il-equipped and without sufficient parameters of CO concentration, internal bearing sump temperatures, and a scale of altitude partial pressures to work with, we stand on positive speculation that the risk of CO is actually greater as altitude increases. 8, 9, 10, 11
References:
General reference – every subject – “Carbon Monoxide Toxicity”, David G. Penney, Editor
(1) CO IDNS.pdf – A Case of Carbon Monoxide-Induced Delayed Neurological Sequelae Successfully Treated with Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy, N-Acetylcysteine, and Glucocorticoids: Clinical and Neuroimaging Follow-Up
(4) “Is a Cumulative Exposure to a Background Aerosol of Nanoparticles Part of the Causal Mechanism of Aerotoxic Syndrome?” Howard, Johnson, Michaelis, & Co.
(5) S. Airways flight 1041, January 16, 2010 – Summary at appendix hereto.
(6) NWA SFO Narita – Summary at appendix hereto.
(7) XLA120 – Summary at appendix hereto.
(8) “Carbon Monoxide Toxicity at High Altitude”- ResearchGate, Wilderness and Environmental Medicine
(9) “Alveolar O2 and Altitude” – PFT Blog
(10)“Physiological Hazards of Flight ate High Altitude” – Pilmanis, USAF Research Laboratory.
Recognize that these accounts of fume events are happening at all airlines
and in all makes and models of aircraft that rely on bleed air
for air conditioning and pressurization.
Summaries of Testimonials pertinent to this document.
Note: These fume event cases occurred as the progressive deterioration of engine and APU compressor bearing seals wore on since deregulation and cessation of CAB oversight of the airline industry. Aircrews were unaware what was happening. They were not prepared to recognize toxic fumes or possible sources. Everyone was confused, it would appear true also for regulators and carrier personnel, including maintenance and pilots. Manufacturer awareness is suspected but not confirmed. Much time had passed.
(5) U.S. Airways Flight 1041, January 16, 2010 – Source Avherald – From court documents.
Flight departed Philadelphia for Charlotte. Next sector flight departed CLT for St Thomas, Virgin Islands. Both flights apparently uneventful. On return, STT – CLT, fumes were noticed shortly after takeoff. Headache, nausea symptoms among cabin crew. During cruise altitude, flight attendant entered flight deck with refreshments noticing also pilots both had red eyes. Puzzled, pilots now recognized slight headache, sore throat, neck stiffness. Flight attendants report “random”, slightly acrid, dirty socks odor in cabin. Over duration of flight no noticeable odor occurred on flight deck.
Pilots recall feeling fatigue, woozy, groggy. Pilots sent message to dispatch requesting medical examination for crew upon landing.
From personal discussion with pilot, my interpretation of the approach and landing, J.M.Lind: During descent, pilot capabilities deteriorated. Unaware pf their illness and together through mutual assistance they were able to land, apparently fighting against unrecognizable, pending unconsciousness. After landing, both pilots needed assistance to rise from their seats. Strapped onto gurneys they went by ambulance to emergency hospital services. Flight attendants also went for emergency medical help.
Medical examination. All suffering headache, nausea, etc. crewmembers were placed on oxygen for 2.5 hours after which they all received COHb tests. Results showed elevated CO among every member of the crew. Symptoms lasted for more than a week. Pilot neurological performance remained substandard for years afterward; both pilot medical qualifications were cancelled. First officer could not differentiate among highway signs and signals for a long time post-event and could not safely drive a car. All flight attendants became seriously disabled. Only one returned to work. Both the first officer and the returning flight attendant have become important friends in the aerotoxic battle.
Passengers were also ill. Separated from crew for medical help, almost no information is available. One nurse remained in contact with crew. Doctors at her hospital of affiliation were unable to diagnose her illness. Upon contacting the airline for details of what happened on the aircraft, airline authorities declined to cooperate. The doctors insisted. Authorities relented only after all attending medical personnel had signed non-disclosure agreements. At that point, crew contact with the nurse ended. Aerotoxic syndrome retreated behind the airline industry conspiracy of silence.
(6) NWA, B-747, SFO – NRT – December 2000. Aircraft not airworthy because of oil leaks. Four trans-Pacific flights, fumes repeatedly, illness, failing ozone converters.
Pilots write-up fumes and ozone converters. Converters changed on third flight. R=Engine oil leaks are not repaired. Line maintenance foremen refused to release aircraft. Management signed off. Maintenance foreman advised all passengers and crew drink much water. All passengers plus children very sick during flight. Reporting flight attendant’s second flight on this aircraft, became badly injured, disabled, never able to resume work. Now has multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS). Other flight attendants ill, subsequent condition unknown.
Notable: Normal useful life of ozone converters is 11 years – many thousand hours. When oil is present in bleed air, ozone converters fail in 4 hours. This happened twice in 4 consecutive cycles on this aircraft.
Reporting flight attendant’s symptoms became chronic; multiple chemical sensitivity.
No oxygen services offered or taken.
(7) XLA120 – 1 February 2007 Gatwick, UK – Orlando, USA
Twenty – forty passengers seriously ill. Acrid dirty sock smell. Symptoms severe headache, nausea, incontinence, skin blisters, extreme fatigue, and more. Long legal battle results in
2017 among passengers – Long-term, chronic symptoms: severe respiratory and neuronal, memory loss, insomnia, fatigue, mood swings, cognitive difficulties, joint/limb pains.
Narrative: Mrs Samantha Sabatino and her family flew from London to Florida in February 2007. During the flight some 40 passengers became ill, including herself and three members of her family. Upon arrival to Florida she was hospitalised suffering from wheezing and crackles in her chest. No infection or viruses were found either in Florida or upon her return home. Her family were still experiencing ill health including violent nausea, stomach cramps, blisters on arms and hands, chest pain, severe headaches, vertigo, insomnia and loss of balance. She had complained to the carrier, XL Airways, who had denied that other passengers had complained of ill health. The Environmental Health Department have not carried out an investigation into the issue. She received unsatisfactory replies from the Health Protection Agency, the CAA and the Air Transport Users Council. She complained of being swept aside and questioned the effectiveness of these organisations.
References:
(1) 2007 HOUSE OF LORDS Science and Technology Committee 1st Report of Session
(3) 21 April 2008 BBC Panorama ‘Something in the air’.
(4) 3 May 2010 Stewarts Law legal case – ‘Great victory’.
(5) 13 December 2013 ABC Australia 60 minutes ‘Toxic Flyer’
Full details of Flight XLA120 can be seen at the end of this paper under ‘References’.
OXYGEN
Recovering from carbon monoxide poisoning. 1
Crew members usually do not have access to oxygen after landing. When ill they need medical help immediately. They may be transported via ambulance to emergency facilities, their employer may agree to send them, or they pay their own way after employers refuse to help. These incidents cause delayed access to emergency help during which time CO resides in blood and tissues. It flushes from the body at the half-life rate of 4 to 5 hours whole breathing ambient air. Depending upon
concentration level,
time exposed while remaining airborne, and the
depth of saturation of myoglobin in muscle tissue,
enhanced invasion of tissues as predicted by increased exposure factors at altitude, detoxification recovery time after landing can be lengthy.
From reference (1) “The treatment of CO poisoning rests on the rapid restoration of oxygenation to bodily organs. The elimination half-life of CO is 4 to 5 hours; however, with the administration of 100% O2 via a tight-fitting face mask at normal atmospheric pressure, the half-life can be reduced to 1 hour.4 Use of 100% O2 increases the conversion of COHb and carboxymyoglobin to hemoglobin and myoglobin, thus increasing the oxygen saturation of the plasma and the end-organs.17”
Lack of oxygen treatment and delayed detoxification response after landing will assure increased injury among affected aircraft occupants! Any extended time lag in the effort to locate and deliver 100% oxygen treatment cannot be tolerated.
Education and training for medical personnel at all levels:
Exposure of air travelers to carbon monoxide in the pressure vessel of an aircraft is a threat never before contemplated. It is unique, has never been investigated, and is neither understood nor recognized by healthcare personnel at any level. This imperative is included as prerequisite to this request for recognition and response by medical emergency and recovery healthcare personnel.
The Center for Disease Control has been kept informed of our effort to prevent injury from airline exposure to carbon monoxide. They will have a copy of this presentation. If they wish, we will try to work with them to provide a standard for all airline employees and passengers to guide the service when they arrive at any airport that has available resources. 2
Acute Care Testing
Effects of Carboxyhemoglobin (COHB)
Saturation in blood (%) with associated symptoms
Carboxyhemoglobin
In-blood %
Symptoms
10
No appreciable effect except shortness of breath on vigorous exertion, possible tightness across forehead
20
Shortness of breath on moderate exertion, occasional headache
30
Headache, easily fatigued, judgement disturbed, dizziness, dimness of vision
40 – 50
Headache, confusion, fainting, collapse
60 – 70
Unconsciousness, convulsions, respiratory failure, death if exposure continues
80
Immediately fatal
Half-life Scale 3
Elimination half-life of CO is 4 to 5 hours breathing ambient air,
Breathing 100% oxygen, half-life is lowered to about 1 hour,
100% hyperbaric oxygen at 2.5 atmospheres reduces half-life to about 20 minutes.
In addition to restoring tissue oxygenation, hyperbaric oxygen therapy appears to:
i) Improve cell function,
ii) Alter CO induced inflammation,
iii) Reduce brain damage after oxygenated blood supply returns to normal.
If here is evidence of severe CO poisoning all patients may be at risk of subsequent development of long-term neuropsychological sequelae. They should be treated aggressively with hyperbaric oxygen.
Options for access to oxygen after-landing – emergency basis. 4
The airport locale will be the first reasonable option for urgent access to oxygen. Minimum service availability must include:
Facility within the terminal or adjacent thereto. Transportation to a remote facility wastes precious time and threatens increased tightness and depth of CO binding within muscle, heart, and brain tissues. At deplaning from the flight, access to oxygen is urgent for all who are affected.
Until permanent facilities are established, local emergency responders could set up temporary mobile triages to treat victims. Access to temporary triage should be as close as possible to the disembarkation point to assure rapid access and to minimize public awareness of an emergency in progress.
Since the urgency is acute, other options requiring any delay are not suggested.
Testing for carbon monoxide in the process of identifying and evaluating need for oxygen treatment.
(1) Test options:
(a) Invasive COHb testing is best left with those qualified to do so.
(b) Pulse CO oximeter 5– Pulse CO-oximeters estimate carboxyhemoglobin with a non-invasive finger clip similar to a pulse oximeter.
(c) CO breath monitor 6 – device similar to an alcohol breathalyzer.
Very little is written about carbon monoxide in the breath, however. Units are designed for anti-smoking treatment and for workers in industrial environments.
(2) Oxygen facilities affording both normobaric and hyperbaric treatment options as required.
(3) Records must be maintained to develop statistical data for risk evaluation purposes as well as fair and accurate cost allocation.
(4) (eCO) – exhaled carbon monoxide. (From an internet source.)
The eCO levels in exhaled breath are most commonly measured with electrochemical (chemiluminescence) technology [24, 74–76]. The values thus obtained correlate with parallel gas chromatographic analysis and these sensors are sensitive in the 1-500 ppm range. Current analytical devices are portable which makes them ideal for clinical use [77]. More recent CO detection systems suitable for clinical measurements include a gas sensor adapted from a controlled potential electrolysis method, which is sensitive to 0.1 ppm [77]. At the experimental stage, several novel techniques based on infrared laser spectroscopic methods have been recently developed which report enhanced sensitivity for CO in the parts per billion (ppb) range. Variations on these techniques include cavity leak out spectroscopy (CALOS), integrated cavity output spectroscopy (ICOS), cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CRDS) and quantum cascade laser absorption spectroscopy (QCLAS) [78–84].
References:
(1) Complications of Carbon Monoxide Poisoning: A Case Discussion and Review of the Literature. gov
(3) Internet Book of Critical Care. Carbon Monoxide Poisoning
(4) Causes and clinical significance of increased carboxyhemoglobin. Higgins, Acute Care Testing
(5) What is the role of pulse oximetry and carbon monoxide (CO)-oximetry in the workup of smoke inhalation injury? Medscape 2021.
(6) Why a carbon monoxide test is an essential part of a GP and practice nurse’s kit, Noel Baxter
Attach 6
Workers Compensation
In the airline industry
Introduction
The airline industry with its lack of financial flexibility due to anemic revenue opportunities imposed by low airfares has been forced to downgrade issues of health, safety, and certain important maintenance functions. Dependability of modern equipment plus crewmember and maintenance professionalism to a considerable degree have combined to avoid catastrophes. Beyond that, stress from hazardous jobs, cabin fumes, and punitive rules of conduct exists in day-to-day operations.
We find deregulation to be the causative background. Deregulation removed oversight and imposed a style of survivalist competition that too often shortcuts reasonable business decisions. A large and vibrant industry, demanding ever-evolving sophisticated equipment, indispensable but expensive maintenance routines, depending upon highly trained professional aircrews and mechanics, high costs of fuel and supporting services, susceptible to many day-to-day operational uncertainties in service to the public, cannot be left to the corporate managerial staff alone. Across the scope of air transportation services, oversight is the missing factor that antagonizes the deregulation experiment.
This article examines:
Airline workers compensation
Accidents and Incidents left uninvestigated
Employees injured and poorly served by a hijacked work-injury indemnity system.
Conflict of interest
Punitive incentives.
By the time this document has presented the story, perhaps a seed of responsible action will have been planted. We are here to expound further, and to assist as necessary.
Pre-deregulation
Airline operations present risks of loss that exceed those found in the usual commercial business environment. One insurance company’s financial capacity to provide insurance to cover an airline’s exposure is insufficient. As the aviation industry grew after World War I and prospects for a role in public service became apparent, entrepreneurs formed two managing general agencies (MGAs) each with a membership of several general insurance companies. These companies dedicated a portion of their established underwriting capacity which, when added to the capacities of their associates within the group, would add up to sufficient monetary strength to cover airline risk. Companies signed on to insure aircraft hull exposures, aircraft and airport liability exposures, and workers compensation.
The two MGAs were Associated Aviation Underwriters (AAU) in New Jersey and U. S. Aviation Underwriters (USAU) in New York City. I worked through most of the 1970s for USAU.
Aviation workers compensation is administratively intense, frequency of accidents is high. Most accidental injuries are minor requiring only medical services and involving no time lost from work. Some airline job descriptions include exposures not found in other industries or exist with higher probability among airline workers. Here are some cases:
Catastrophe potential, although very low, is real and unique to air operations.
Air turbulence is truly unique, can be very rough, and is often unanticipated by pilots. Flight attendants up and working are very exposed. When the pilot announces turbulence and turns on the seatbelt sign, too often flight attendants cannot get strapped in before being thrown to the ceiling or across rows of seats.
Strains and sprains inflight by pushing and pulling food and beverage service carts.
Lifting to assisting passengers with overhead luggage.
Galley hazards – hot coffee, burns.
Lift equipment, maintenance stands, their use and maintenance – very hazardous.
Aircraft maintenance hazards of fuel and fluid splash, fuel service accidents, high electrical exposure, fuel tank cleaning, aircraft flaps, brakes, tire changes, and other heavy systems repair exposures can be fatal.
Baggage handling strains may be usual but is much more strenuous in tight areas of aircraft cargo compartments.
Aircraft parking areas at busy terminals with continuous bustle of service vehicles.
MGA and Insurance Company Management and Services. – pre-deregulation.
Frequency and severity of airline losses are many and entirely predictable from year to year. Administration requirements are intense. Administrative services by professional insurance companies are necessary.
Underwriting: Loss costs being so predictable, standard rating procedures are not required. As such, being “self-rated” and virtually risk free, annual premiums are paid in installments on a cost-plus-expenses, reinsurance, boards and bureaus fees, taxes, and a small margin for manager’s profit. Risk of loss from catastrophe is reinsured separately with other specialty insurers.
Claims management:Compensability was determined by licensed and experienced claims managers employed by the member company insurers. Managers and adjusters of commercial insurance companies must and did comply with the established intent of the labor / management covenant – “in exchange for employer immunity from lawsuit, employee injuries incurred while performing the duties of the job will be accepted for compensation without regard to fault”.
Claims adjusters manage individual claims in compliance with state laws for the state in which a loss is filed.
Auditing: State bureaus provide periodic auditing of businesses to monitor statutory compliance, rates identification and procedures, payroll-based rate allocation, claims services, and much more.
Loss control services: USAU provided loss control services for several of our insured airlines. Services were provided by me and the special aviation loss control department at The Hartford Insurance company.
This arrangement performed smoothly and with rarely a complaint during the regulated decades.
Post-airline deregulation
(No dependable references exist.The following information is drawn from personal experience working beside airline management and insuring workers compensation programs.)
In mid-1980 every major airline in the USA cancelled their commercial workers compensation insurance at about the same time. We surmise that flush with revenue from C.A.B. dictated ticket prices, they were able to service all operating expenses leaving excess balance to prove financial responsibility. They then adapted to a brand of self-management of their workers compensation risk that suited themselves and seen to be suitable to the bureaus in various states of operation.
Underwriting: Since airlines were accustomed to paying all medical and indemnity costs plus expenses, underwriting, per se, remained unnecessary. They would pay claims as determined “in-house”.
Compensability: No information is available from any airline on just how this is accomplished and whether statutory requirements are considered. Interviews and testimony from injured flight attendants suggests little or no compliance.
Elaborating: We know that in1985 when the Civil Aeronautics Board closed for business, air carriers fell upon each other to grab city pairs, routes, airports, gates, and schedules sufficient to establish competitive advantage each against the others. Although anticipated, aggressive cost cutting ensued that saw many expenses of benefit to employees and passengers stripped from the balance sheet. Termination of regular maintenance of engines and APUs are thought to be the most damaging of avoided costs, perhaps with one exception – Workers Compensation.
Injured flight attendants, every one of several dozen I’ve spoken with, attest to total denial of their injury claims or at best, some coverage that lasted until their files were closed, often prematurely. Since the buck stops in the chief executive’s office suite, we assign compensability decisions to the office. Not only are statutorily compensable claims being denied, the covenant of no fault acceptance of employee claims has been abandoned. The employer’s freedom from lawsuits, however, remains in place.
Conflict of Interest: From this evidence we conclude that when a corporate executive is responsible for the corporate bottom line; while always under pressure to appease shareholders, he becomes torn with conflict when faced with large obligations to pay for employee health issues. When bona fide claimants are denied statutory compensation, the executive is transferring the cost of its corporate obligation onto the personal accounts of employees. I have presented this case to the Chief Fraud Investigator of a state workers compensation bureau. He understands.
Claims management: Managing workers compensation and the more demanding claims administration burden is beyond an airline’s corporate business description. Perhaps airline staff were incapable of accomplishing this tedious work professionally. Airlines soon contracted with claims management specialty companies. These companies are not affiliated with the insurance industry. Several such companies have come and gone over the last 40 years. Some appear to be out of business. Most have departed airlines for reason unknown.
Sedgwick: Sedgwick Claims Management Services appears now to be managing claims for all or nearly all of the seven major carriers in the USA. Sedgwick manages claims by telephone and by email as follows:
Dealing with Sedgwick claims adjusters is a frightful experience for airline flight attendants. When a “first report of injury” is filed, the automatic response is to deny (At least this is so at American Airlines, although other airlines experience a similar initial responses). Thereafter, the injured employee must make her or his case directly by telephone or electronically. This often leads to:
he-said-she-said telephone tag that makes the process extremely frustrating.
allegations suggesting the claimant did not respond to requests for information even though the documents were sent.
Recorded telephone requests by Sedgwick for documents are alleged but no such calls were received or recorded.
Unending requirements for independent medical examiner (IME) review usually in a city far removed from the injured employee’s residence.
a) One such case on file involves a permanently fumes-disabled flight attendant to fly from Florida to Boston for the IME. During the return trip, the aircraft had a fume event (carbon monoxide) causing crew fatigue and the flight attendant and her husband to go to sleep. When they awakened, both were groggy and ill. They managed to drive home where the flight attendant could access her personal oxygen system. Her husband needed a week or more to feel well again.
b) Similarly, a flight attendant friend who is partially crippled was made to travel to another city to a specific doctor. The doctor turned out not to specialize in the injury that he was supposed to evaluate. (Auditors of workers compensation programs might be watchful for questionable alliances between claims adjusters and favorite medical examiners.)
Sedgwick assigned a “special investigator” to shadow her for days. He almost ran her off the road while driving. She finally reported him to the police who then intervened.
This treatment is always applied to fume injury claims where virtually all are permanently denied. It seems also to apply to physical trauma where medical and lost time from work will be expensive.
A flight attendant with a serious back injury incurred while working was made to wait more than a year for the necessary operation.
A flight attendant from another airline suffered a seriously torn rotator cuff as she tried to get seated and into her seatbelt and shoulder harness before expected turbulence occurred. The harness wasn’t quite secured when the aircraft lurched. Her injury would require surgery.
The airline had installed a rule stating, “When the captain turns on the seat belt sign and announces passengers should remain in their seats, flight attendants not seated with seat belt and shoulder harness securely fastened who become injured will be denied workers compensation benefits.” The injured employee filed for compensation, was honest in reporting how her injury occurred, and was denied workers compensation. Cost to her family for medical services was approximately $60,000, as confirmed to me by her husband.
(In the 1970s we accepted many similar injuries and the airlines were able to cover them. Is this cost now so high that a corporation is not expected to comply with rules of workers compensation?
For a flight attendant who is up an working and may be the length of the cabin away from her assigned jump seat, such a rule is unfair and operates in defiance of the no fault covenant that is the underpinning foundation of workers compensation.
Still another: on a trans-Atlantic flight where fumes were apparent before or shortly after takeoff, flight attendants displayed illness symptoms. One soon became unusually incapacitated. Seeking rest in a below deck compartment, she continued to worsen. The captain on this flight was dismissive of flight attendant concerns and continued the flight. During the crossing, reports from her friends confirm unconsciousness on four occasions. Onboard physicians and other medical specialists revived her each time but could not diagnose her illness, which was simply, carbon monoxide poisoning from the combination of hot engine oil meeting with warm sealing air in the engine compressor bearing sump. The resulting CO leaks from the sump and into the Environmental Control System that serves breathing air into occupied areas of the aircraft. The captain now burdened by ill passengers and cabin crew landed at a remote airport in Canada from where the victims needed to be bused to a larger town for medical help.
The flight then continued to destination where most occupants were by this time also ill.
The seriously ill flight attendant was denied workers compensation, became destitute., and has been rescued by her family. Suffering from multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), she lives the life of a semi-recluse trying to recover alone from her experience.
Last and perhaps most important, some airlines have not only denied indemnity for all cabin fumes-related injuries, they have also forced crewmembers to work in cabins with known fumes telling them the fumes are not dangerous. Management either doesn’t know or doesn’t tell employees these incidents are dangerous carbon monoxide fumes. They also charge punitive points against employment records if ill employees take time off to recover from fume injuries. Employers do not provide oxygen for detoxification of CO from their circulatory systems. Ill, injured, and disabled crewmembers, and possibly airline passengers, exist in society today as the icebergs exist in the sea.
The Federal Aviation Administration
When the C.A.B. closed for business on January 1, 1985, it emphasized that FAA responsibility for safety and health oversight of the airline industry would remain in force. Officially, FAA responsibility has remained. Actually, FAA oversight has been missing for the last 37 years. This may not be the fault of FAA officials. In 2012, a soon-to-retire FAA official was awaiting the new fiscal year allocation from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Our telephone conversation confirmed that inadequate congressional funding had hamstrung for decades the ability of the FAA to meet its responsibilities. This person was beginning to consider which services could be continued and which would have to be curtailed.
It is commonly known that airlines contract with foreign maintenance and overhaul facilities where labor costs are low. The FAA is mandated to assure all such facility operate in compliance with related repair and service regulations, FARs. Funds are not available.
Reports of aircraft fume events and the illnesses, injuries, and disabilities that result are categorized by the FAA as defined in FARs – “incidents”. As such, investigation of fume events need not be investigated. Incidents are accidents waiting to happen. I have never seen or heard of a fume event being investigated. I have personally investigated more fume events, however remotely, than the FAA. Since prevention is, or should be a primary responsibility of the FAA, Congress is derelict for not allocating funds. Case in point:
The U.S. Airways crew of flight 1041 made its January 16, 2010 approach to Charlotte, N.C. with two fumes-incapacitated pilots at the controls. The crew has long been keen to assure their story is told, the nearly catastrophic situation investigated. Seeing no concern from the FAA, in 2017 they consolidated their considerable medical and experience records confirming the flight, their trauma, and disabilities caused by diagnosed carbon monoxide poisoning. Granted an appointment with FAA officials, they went to Washington, D.C. taking the boxed-up records along. their purpose was to ask the FAA to redesignate the “incident” as an “Accident” under the FARs so that they FAA could investigate their case. The meeting went fairly well. The authorities agreed to review the document and respond with their decision. At least three months went by with no response.
Finally, their box of records was returned without comment – unopened
Goals and Objectives
This project petitions Congress and the airline industry to change, primarily for CO detoxification purposes using 100% oxygen.
First and Foremost
Oxygen will start the process ridding hemoglobin and myoglobin of carbon monoxide.
Affected employees and passengers will be spared most if not all short and long term illnesses that follow untreated carbon monoxide poisoning.
In addition, and by association, we affirm and ask that:
Government oversight is guaranteed in support of sound business practices. Oversight must be brought back to the industry with sensitivity for those conditions that affect human health and flying safety.
FAA work diligently to find cost-effect solutions to the contaminated cabin air issue.
Workers compensation auditors survey airlines for standard issues and by questioning employee groups of aircrew members, labor union members, and others to arrive at a reasonable assessment of accident causes, frequency, and severity of accidents.
Re-affirm airline financial responsibility to be allowed to continue to be self-insured. If any one airline fails financial responsibility tests, all airlines must return to commercial workers compensation programs. Allowing some to proceed with self-insurance while others return to statutorily sound programs will be competitively unfair.
Investigate Sedgwick Claims Management Services. Emphasize injured worker interests over and above that of the employer. Come together with other states to form a unified front against substandard workers compensation claims services.
References:
Sedgwick is blatant in its defiance of state laws. Sedgwick Claims Management Services is the industry’s fraud enabler.
Please refer to Sedgwick Complaints Board websites. This evidence is not airline specific but the complaints mirror the tales herein.
Perhaps the best documented of much recorded evidence of ‘Aerotoxic Poisoning’ on a single, one way ‘non fume event’ flight to a large (40) group of unknown passengers (including young children) with elements of possible CO exposure ever recorded over six years:
Flight XLA 120 1st February 2007 – 20 plus group of UK passengers ‘seriously injured’.
HOUSE OF LORDS Science and Technology Committee 1st Report of Session 2007–08 Air Travel and Health: an Update. Page 53.
Mrs Samantha Sabatino and her family flew from London to Florida in February 2007. During the flight some 40 passengers became ill, including herself and three members of her family. Upon arrival to Florida she was hospitalised suffering from wheezing and crackles in her chest. No infection or viruses were found either in Florida or upon her return home. Her family were still experiencing ill health including violent nausea, tummy cramps, blisters on arms and hands, chest pain, severe headaches, vertigo, insomnia and loss of balance. She had complained to the carrier, XL Airways, who had denied that other passengers had complained of ill health. The Environmental Health Department have not carried out an investigation into the issue. She received unsatisfactory replies from the Health Protection Agency, the CAA and the Air Transport Users Council. She complained of being swept aside and questioned the effectiveness of these organisations.
Boeing 767 Flight Number XLA 120 Aerotoxic Poisoning
03 May 2010
The Stewarts Law Attorney Group represents 20 British passengers who were seriously injured by aircraft toxic fumes exposure on 1 February 2007. The incident occurred when they were flying on board an XL Airways Boeing 767 from London Gatwick to Sanford International, Florida.
The dangerous toxins were released into the cabin through the bleed air system which (as on most airliners) draws high pressure air from the core of the engines to pressurise the aircraft with breathable air. It has long been known that this design can result in the cabin air becoming contaminated with toxic oil vapour when the engine oil seals leak.
The toxins were detected by passengers as they began to notice and odd smell similar to ‘smelly socks’. The cabin seemed more ‘stuffy’ and ‘hot’ than any previous flight they had been on and the air severely their eyes, nose and throat. The passengers quickly became ill, suffering respiratory symptoms, severe headaches, vomiting, bowel problems, skin blistering and extreme fatigue. The toxic air also caused long term chronic effects such as respiratory problems, memory loss, sleep disturbances, chronic fatigue, mood swings, cognitive difficulties, infections, and joint/limb pains.
In order to put pressure on the US manufacturers to deal with these known cabin air problems and to obtain fair compensation for the passengers, on 29 January 2009 specialist litigation firm Stewart’s Law filed the case in Illinois, the state where the Boeing has its Headquarters. In addition to Boeing, the case was filed against Hamilton Sundstrand (which manufacturers air systems components), United Technologies (which manufacturers the Pratt & Whitney engines) and the owners of the aircraft – AAR Parts Trading Inc.
This is an out right US product liability case against US defendants. However, the defendants were intent on having the case sent back to the UK courts (which are much more expensive for claimants and award much lower compensation) so they filed a forum non conveniens motion arguing that the UK is the most convenient place for the litigation.
After the prolonged legal battle, on 3 May 2010 Judge Quinn decided in favour of the passengers and dismissed the defendants’ forum non conveniens motion. Stewart’s Law has achieved a great victory for the passengers. Securing US jurisdiction along with the prospect of a high profile jury trial is a wake up call for US manufacturers – unless they take measures to improve the quality of cabin air now, they will face the credible prospect of expensive and public US litigation for future incidents where there is an identifiable toxic fumes leak that causes injury.
Contact us
Aviation and Travel Department
5 New Street Square
London, EC4A 3BF
T: +44 (0)20 7822 8000
How did the legal case for 20 UK passengers who were seriously injured conclude?
ENDS.
Testimonials
Foundation material for this document and all documents in this project are based upon statements made to us personally by ill, injured, or disabled aircrew members and passengers. Supporting material is provided by lists of fume events at airlines where such information could be requested of crewmembers. Local media reports of fume events are included.
This much supporting documentation is too bulky to be provided initially. Accommodation will be made upon request.
Boeing 767 Flight Number XLA 120 Aerotoxic Poisoning
03 May 2010
The Stewarts Law Attorney Group represents 20 British passengers who were seriously injured by aircraft toxic fumes exposure on 1 February 2007. The incident occurred when they were flying on board an XL Airways Boeing 767 from London Gatwick to Sanford International, Florida.
The dangerous toxins were released into the cabin through the bleed air system which (as on most airliners) draws high pressure air from the core of the engines to pressurise the aircraft with breathable air. It has long been known that this design can result in the cabin air becoming contaminated with toxic oil vapour when the engine oil seals leak.
The toxins were detected by passengers as they began to notice and odd smell similar to ‘smelly socks’. The cabin seemed more ‘stuffy’ and ‘hot’ than any previous flight they had been on and the air severely their eyes, nose and throat. The passengers quickly became ill, suffering respiratory symptoms, severe headaches, vomiting, bowel problems, skin blistering and extreme fatigue. The toxic air also caused long term chronic effects such as respiratory problems, memory loss, sleep disturbances, chronic fatigue, mood swings, cognitive difficulties, infections, and joint/limb pains.
In order to put pressure on the US manufacturers to deal with these known cabin air problems and to obtain fair compensation for the passengers, on 29 January 2009 specialist litigation firm Stewart’s Law filed the case in Illinois, the state where the Boeing has its Headquarters. In addition to Boeing, the case was filed against Hamilton Sundstrand (which manufacturers air systems components), United Technologies (which manufacturers the Pratt & Whitney engines) and the owners of the aircraft – AAR Parts Trading Inc.
This is an out right US product liability case against US defendants. However, the defendants were intent on having the case sent back to the UK courts (which are much more expensive for claimants and award much lower compensation) so they filed a forum non conveniens motion arguing that the UK is the most convenient place for the litigation.
After the prolonged legal battle, on 3 May 2010 Judge Quinn decided in favour of the passengers and dismissed the defendants’ forum non conveniens motion. Stewart’s Law has achieved a great victory for the passengers. Securing US jurisdiction along with the prospect of a high profile jury trial is a wake up call for US manufacturers – unless they take measures to improve the quality of cabin air now, they will face the credible prospect of expensive and public US litigation for future incidents where there is an identifiable toxic fumes leak that causes injury.
Contact us
Aviation and Travel Department
5 New Street Square
London, EC4A 3BF
T: +44 (0)20 7822 8000
Aerotoxic Syndrome (1999) DOES exist & the answer was – obvious?
Aerotoxic Syndrome (AS) was first published on 20 October 1999 by a US doctor, a French forensic scientist and an Australian toxicologist – yet it is only now, in July 2022, that carbon monoxide, the poisonous chemical of primary concern, which is now believed to have been identified by a few of those who have been poisoned over the past 30 years and are ready and expect to be challenged on the science.
Our Abstract A Group paper was previously published on 18 June 2022:
DANGER IN THE AIR
18 June 2022
When flying as a passenger in a commercial jet aircraft is there any danger in
breathing in the air? Although you will be told aircraft air is pretty clean – cleaner
than the air in your home and office, is this always true?
Except for the Boeing B.787 Dreamliner, commercial aircraft pump all the air
we breathe from a place deep inside each jet engine, only separated from hot jet
engine oil by seals that get worn and should be replaced at regular intervals but owing
to the cost of doing so these intervals in maintenance have tended to become longer
and longer. When these seals become worn, toxic contaminant particles and gas can
now get from the oil into the aircraft air in increasing number. The poisonous gas
carbon monoxide, certain other potentially toxic compounds including
organophosphates in small amounts, and finally ultrafine particles are found in aircraft
air – unfortunately, none of these are large enough to be stopped by filters. The airline
industry appears not to have investigated these issues nor has it provided reliable
evidence. The poisonous items in the aircraft air vary in concentration according to
how worn the sealing systems have become. On occasion, so many contaminants
enter the air, a ‘fume event’ occurs – here the air may have started to smell and can
become visibly hazy. The only way to find out the true state of aircraft air is to fit
equipment that can continuously monitor and record the presence of these toxic items
in real time. This is urgent, as a growing number of people (passengers, flight
attendants and pilots) have been and are getting ill. They present with a number of
unusual but distressingly persistent complaints that affect many parts of their body in
particular the brain and nervous system. Many affected staff have been told officially
they must be imagining this. Meanwhile in 1999, this group of illnesses was
published as Aerotoxic Syndrome.
In order to alleviate this state of affairs, medical protocols designed by experts should
be in place, and equipment such as oxygen and other remedies should be provided to
sufferers both in the aircraft and when they land. Those patients who have suffered
should not be discounted. They should be offered what medical support there is both
for them and their families. Meanwhile the design fault that allows incoming air
anywhere near hot jet engine oil needs to be re-designed in all aircraft jet engines in
the future.
Abstract published in the public interest on 18 June 2022 @ 1100 UTC by: ‘A Group’ Flight Attendant
Deanne DeWitt Freise with 30 years of experience investigating and advocating for improving cabin air quality
in aircraft. Captain John Hoyte, Chairman Aerotoxic Association The Charity (2007) Former BAe 146
Training Captain john.hoyte@aerotoxic.org & Captain John Lind former US Aviation insurer assessor
& A Group spokesman & Advocate crewadvoc8@yahoo.com
A full and final A Group paper will be published, in the public’s interest by Thursday 14 July 2022.
Carbon Monoxide (CO) is already well known to the public and H&S authorities as a silent, deadly killer gas which cannot be seen, smelt, or tasted.
CO is deadly to most humans at anything over 9 parts in 1,000,000 whilst those vulnerable members of the public such as mums to be, children and the frail are much worse affected as even ex RAF Test pilots who have chaired British Airline Pilot Association Balpa Union conferences on 20/21 April 2005 have also been severely affected leading those present to call in 2005 for:
“We need better health systems that treat affected employees with sympathy and respect and not contempt. We need better models for monitoring, diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation and compensation of affected workers. We need this for the legacy we have of pilots and flight attendants who have been affected, forced out of the industry and have been in the wilderness ever since.”
“(1) to install and operate onboard detectors and other air quality monitoring equipment that—
“(A) are situated in the air supply system to enable pilots and maintenance technicians to identify the location of the source or sources of air supply contamination in real time, including any concentration of carbon monoxide that is dangerous to human health;
For over 20 years, many eminent international scientific, medical experts and victims have blamed organophosphates, which are added at 3-5% as anti-wear additives to the jet engine oil which have warnings on the tin, so OPs have not unnaturally been linked with AS by many damaged and injured sufferers after being bamboozled with complex chemistry.
Whilst governments, airlines, airline manufacturers, politicians and the ‘media’ cite OP poisoning, only but then claim ‘No positive evidence’ – ever since the 1950’s.
There are over three hundred other highly toxic chemical compounds which are found in visible oil ‘Fume events’ or ‘soup’ which cause ‘accidents’ for both passengers and aircrew simply by making the CO exposure many times worse.
Yet CO can be present in ultra-low levels, all of the time and no one would ever know or apparently wants to know with a fundamental design flaw since the 1950’s – as no $15 CO sensors or alarms are deliberately not fitted in any confined spaces of multi-million-dollar public transport jets, which are more like modern day – gas chambers.
Whilst CO alarms are fiercely mandated by officials in most domestic and other confined spaces.
But in 1993 US Flight Attendant, Deanne De Witte Freise, was severely injured by an oil ‘fume event’ and from that time on, her Carboxyhaemoglobin (COHb) levels were high and have been found in countless other flyers but dismissed by certain parties as irrelevant.
Carboxyhaemoglobin is the complex formed within red blood cells when hemoglobin is exposed to carbon monoxide, subsequently binding to hemoglobin with an affinity 200 times that of oxygen.
Carbon monoxide (CO) is an odourless, tasteless, and colourless gas levels were elevated and Deanne has been certain of the role that CO played in her chronic sickness over nearly 30 years.
In 2007, Captain John Hoyte who had also been severely sick for 16 years from 1990-2005 when flying as a BAe 146 pilot founded the UK based Aerotoxic Association www.aerotoxic.org to support other members of the public who have also been made severely sick, after commercial jet flying.
In 2011, Captain John Lind, formally a USAF Vietnam C130 pilot and aviation commercial risk assessor for decades and advocate whose Flight Attendant daughter was also injured by ‘toxic oil fumes’ learnt of the sickness and has dedicated the last 11 years of his life to campaigning as an Advocate for formal recognition with the known solutions of ‘enough oxygen’ available at all airports.
Around 5 years ago, John Lind and Deanne logically worked out that simple CO, which has been cited in all previous published science since the 1950’s, as the more likely main culprit chemical and last September 2021 managed to eventually persuade John Hoyte of their breakthrough.
This required a fresh look and perspective of a known problem and an alternative analysis of the existing published data.
As no one else around the world has been able to prove in a public court that tiny amounts of organophosphates (OP’s) were responsible for the ACUTE symptoms found after first exposure to oil fumes of headache, nausea & vomiting. These are so-called ‘Jet Lag’ symptoms…
There had to be another – unknown and for some, an ‘unwanted to be discovered factor’?
Whilst every tin of oil has 100% carbon atoms in it, waiting to be part combusted with oxygen and converted into CO.
It is well known that the long term or chronic effect of CO mimic the known severe symptoms of nerve agent OP’s – hence the almost deliberate obfuscation, since Aerotoxic was first published over 20 years ago by certain vested interests.
Two rabbit holes OP & CO with now only one-way, or a more correct Rabbit hole has been entered…?
As no one knowing this new information – can somehow ‘Unknow’ it.
Chronic effects may be first misdiagnosed and then mistreated with ‘expensive drugs’ as MND, Parkinson’s, epilepsy, seizures and Alzheimer’s – and a whole host of ‘other’ neurological diseases, which could simply be caused by repeated low level CO exposures for all frequent flyers – passengers or crew and other members of the public.
But for those who do not ever fly, but can still be exposed to CO as with farmers on tractors and the like and then suffer deadly MND?
A published Dutch frequent flyer survey of 2016 estimated that around 1,000,000 frequent flyers and passengers had AS, in Europe alone with around 20,000 in The Netherlands – this shocking survey was mostly blamed on OPs at that time, as OP has been the dominant potentially incorrect theory, for decades.
The only way to prove the above theories are to finally install low cost $15 CO sensors in all commercial jets, but they have been banned for some reason, by ‘governments & authorities’ who supposedly are charged with putting human health – first.
CO molecules are tiny molecules of just two atoms – carbon and oxygen and the reason that filters have not been employed to stop the larger OP molecules going through is because CO molecules are so tiny, they pass straight through so there’s little point in filtering the bleed air?
Plus it would be a tacit legal admission of an H&S issue and practically impossible to implement as half of all jets are airborne at any one time and invisible poison has never been taken seriously and is a fundamental, exiting design flaw.
So bleed air, piped off the jet engine has never been either filtered, not monitored. Ever.
Whilst the seals which were designed to keep the oil and air apart in the jet are not true ‘seals’ as they are actually designed to leak and are so-called ‘wet seals’.
The original seals were given a life of 5,000 hours of service in the 1960’s but after deregulation which heralded ‘cheap flying’ in 1978, intervals were extended to 10,000 hours, then 20,000, then 30,000, then 40,000 and now must be changed at 50,000 hours or around ten years.
But for a seal which was designed to leak in the first hour is, by 50,000 hours….leaky?
Back in the 1950’s 60’s 70’s and 80’s tobacco smoking was common which also caused CO injury to smokers and has been outlawed in recent decades, that’s why traditionally CO sensors are still not used in jets, whilst tobacco smoking was finally outlawed in most public places in the late 1980’s but those smells and visible oil fumes in jets were still present – please recall that CO has NO SMELL…!!
However, as CO sensors are now readily available on devices/mobile/cell phones, it is only a matter of a short time before the banned, ‘A word’ gets out into the public domain with the new CO theory and then mountains of social media evidence/data will be available to public courts, which will effectively and eventually ground all ‘bleed air’ jets, until fixed.
This will leave only around 1,000 Boeing 787’s flying, which do not use ‘Bleed air’ and coincidentally were also first commissioned by Boeing in 1999 – as truly ‘airworthy’.
Airbus are still in total denial and the A word is taboo and prohibited.
A two day Carbon Monoxide London conference on 5/6 July 2022 confirmed much of known medical effects on other members of the public of CO and was attended by Captain John Hoyte where he explained the part of CO in aviation.
As over £300,000 has been invested by JGH since 2006, it is now wished to fulfill the mostly known and available solutions, with urgent outside financial help of public money for public good as follows:
Extra evidence, which must or should be ALL be read & watched.
There are countless evidence accounts of flyers getting sick after flying, but perhaps the best documented passenger flight ever, was on 1st February 2007 from the UK to USA:
Flight XLA 120 1st February 2007 – 20 plus group of UK passengers seriously injured.
HOUSE OF LORDS Science and Technology Committee 1st Report of Session
2007–08 Air Travel and Health: an Update. Page 53.
Boeing 767 Flight Number XLA 120 Aerotoxic Poisoning
03 May 2010
The Stewarts Law Attorney Group represents 20 British passengers who were seriously injured by aircraft toxic fumes exposure on 1 February 2007. The incident occurred when they were flying on board an XL Airways Boeing 767 from London Gatwick to Sanford International, Florida.
The dangerous toxins were released into the cabin through the bleed air system which (as on most airliners) draws high pressure air from the core of the engines to pressurise the aircraft with breathable air. It has long been known that this design can result in the cabin air becoming contaminated with toxic oil vapour when the engine oil seals leak.
The toxins were detected by passengers as they began to notice and odd smell similar to ‘smelly socks’. The cabin seemed more ‘stuffy’ and ‘hot’ than any previous flight they had been on and the air severely their eyes, nose and throat. The passengers quickly became ill, suffering respiratory symptoms, severe headaches, vomiting, bowel problems, skin blistering and extreme fatigue. The toxic air also caused long term chronic effects such as respiratory problems, memory loss, sleep disturbances, chronic fatigue, mood swings, cognitive difficulties, infections, and joint/limb pains.
In order to put pressure on the US manufacturers to deal with these known cabin air problems and to obtain fair compensation for the passengers, on 29 January 2009 specialist litigation firm Stewart’s Law filed the case in Illinois, the state where the Boeing has its Headquarters. In addition to Boeing, the case was filed against Hamilton Sundstrand (which manufacturers air systems components), United Technologies (which manufacturers the Pratt & Whitney engines) and the owners of the aircraft – AAR Parts Trading Inc.
This is an out right US product liability case against US defendants. However, the defendants were intent on having the case sent back to the UK courts (which are much more expensive for claimants and award much lower compensation) so they filed a forum non conveniens motion arguing that the UK is the most convenient place for the litigation.
After the prolonged legal battle, on 3 May 2010 Judge Quinn decided in favour of the passengers and dismissed the defendants’ forum non conveniens motion. Stewart’s Law has achieved a great victory for the passengers. Securing US jurisdiction along with the prospect of a high profile jury trial is a wake up call for US manufacturers – unless they take measures to improve the quality of cabin air now, they will face the credible prospect of expensive and public US litigation for future incidents where there is an identifiable toxic fumes leak that causes injury.
Contact us
Aviation and Travel Department
5 New Street Square
London, EC4A 3BF
T: +44 (0)20 7822 8000
3 December 2013 60 minutes ABC Australia TV documentary. ‘Toxic Flyer’.
‘Life is a jigsaw of pieces – when all pieces are in the right place – a full picture finally emerges’
This personal piece has been written with the public interest in mind, with freedom of speech, ‘public duty to report’, for the general public good. It may be used in a public court of law as evidence as that was exactly why it was written! No lawyers will be necessary, as no lawyers know much about Aerotoxic Syndrome except for Frank Cannon of Cannon Law, Glasgow
Scotland who did his absolute best for the public for many years. It is written to the memory and in tribute to BA pilot Richard Westgate who died on 12.12.12 – if only Richard had known, what others now know and cannot ever, be unknown…
This piece is dedicated to my long-suffering family, my former wife, my two children and granddaughter, as the next generation.
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