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Toxic fumes seep into the air you breathe on planes
- jim-jim-jim 6y agoGreat article. If Boeing won't install them and flight crews can't use them, is there anything stopping normal passengers from bringing detection equipment in their carry on luggage?
- kaikai 6y agoThe TSA might have something to say about carrying unusual electronics into a airplane
- smnrchrds 6y agoReminds me of this: > Belgian police has blocked off a part of downtown Brussels over a man wearing a thick coat with wires hanging out of it. The suspect turned out to be a radiation student doing research. https://www.dw.com/en/radiation-student-raises-fake-bomb-alert-in-brussels/a-19415441 https://www.dw.com/en/radiation-student-raises-fake-bomb-ale...
- ta988 6y agoIf the battery of the detector is not too big, there should be no problem. I did bring an oscilloscope (with probes and all) and lot of other electronics with no issues. The only piece of electronics TSA checked longly was a half broken laptop with no battery. This really intrigued them (so it got re xrayed and the full strip test plus hands and clothes).
- rsync 6y agoI once brought a sun netra 4U server, unboxed, onto the plane and somehow got it up in the overhead. Full length 4U... weighed about 70 lbs. San Jose to dc ... pre 911 ...
- bonestamp2 6y agoThat's Legendary.
- ta988 6y agoOk you win by what... 40 lbs
- colechristensen 6y agoI have carried unusual electronics on an airplane, was expecting trouble but nobody cared. It was a small black foam box with a jumble of wires connecting various pieces of equipment for a high altitude balloon experiment carried on the plane somewhere around 2010. got nothing more than a momentary glance
- wooptoo 6y agoCO detectors are very compact and could be taken on board with the hand luggage.
- benhurmarcel 6y agoThe concern isn't about CO.
- wooptoo 6y agoWith enough proof that life threatening fumes are released court proceedings can be brought forward.
- icedistilled 6y agoFAA seems like it has really let america down. The Max 8 thing and now they've sat on their hands for almost 2 decades after being ordered to assess the way pilots are being poisoned.
- redis_mlc 6y agoThe FAA delegated safety to mfgs. (ODM), which in general doesn't work as well as expected. The actual 737 Max design problems were caused by Boeing, then false documents were filed with the FAA, so you could argue that beyond the ODM system, Boeing deliberately misled the FAA, subverting the safety certification process. The challenge with cockpit/cabin air quality is that fundamentally air flows from high pressure to low pressure in both a local as well as a global manner. So each airplane model and perhaps each example would need to be studied for air quality. Although airliners are air-tight pressure vessels, I don't think this is as simple as one might think. I also have noticed strange smells or emissions in the cabin on some flights, so it appears to be a real issue. What people don't understand is that an airliner is a big machine beyond human scale, so even a minor problem on the scale of an airliner can have a big effect on a row of passengers. Source: commercially-rated pilot, study aerodynamics.
- icedistilled 6y agoAccording to the article, one main culprit, known to the airline mfgs, is the typical location of the air intakes means that a leaking seal can lead to toxic organics spreading to the cabin. In fact, they cite the novel intake location on the 787 dream liners as avoiding this air quality issue. A first step to investigating how serious of an issue the air quality is during fume events would be to actually measure the air quality during fume events, which congress instructed/mandated the FAA do in 2003, per the article. But to paraphrase, the airlines told the FAA to take a hike, and they obeyed. If the mfg can repeatedly mislead the regulators and the airlines they are purportedly regulating can tell them to pound sand when they try to investigate, it means the regulators are failing. Yes it also means Boeing is in the wrong and the airlines, but it means the FAA has dropped the ball. I'm not sure what you're trying to say with the statement that gas flows along pressure gradients... temperature flows along temperature gradients... why does that standard behavior change anything in the analysis.
- exabrial 6y agoCan we please change the click bait headline to reflect what actually happened
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- vmception 6y agoSuch as? It looks like what I just read, how about you
- aaron695 6y agoGoing from a lie to the truth would be a start "Toxic fumes seep into the air you breathe on planes" -> Toxic fumes can seep into the air you breathe on planes" The original title is also not as bad, I think HN automatically removes the "how" "How toxic fumes seep into the air you breathe on planes" We are still at clickbait territory, but it would now be within HN rules with either of those titles.
- exabrial 6y agoThe occurrence rate on this is so small, you have a better chance of inhaling fumes from the editors car on the way to LAX then you do of this actually happening IRL. If an engine bleed is sucking in fumes, there are much bigger issues, like the law of gravity and being 30k feet above a hard surface. When I see articles like this written so poorly and based on crap science, I usually look for alternative motive. In this case, I can only speculate... Like what on earth?
- dathinab 6y agoI have no idea what that site is meant to be but it doesn't work on FF/Linux. There is only a headline and a no-sound not-telling-me-anything video... EDIT: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-12-17/how-we-investigated-toxic-chemicals-on-airplanes https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-12-17/how-we-i... Seems to be a link to the actual article? Or a different article related to it?
- vvanders 6y agoIf I recall correctly the 787 bypasses the use of bleed air and similar systems by using electrical power instead to pressurize the cabin. That comes with its own set of interesting issues but I wonder if you could get some useful data from the fact that these events shouldn't occur on that plane.
- jfoster 6y agoIt feels much better whilst in the air, but at least some airlines don't run the air conditioning whilst on the ground, so it can feel horrible in the event of warm weather & a delay on the tarmac.
- fastball 6y agoI've loved the 787 every time I've flown it, which is probably 30+ times, predicated entirely on the air + lighting (though this could just be confirmation bias).
- ipunchghosts 6y agoFoia request fume events
- remexre 6y agoThat's the great benefit (for the airline/manufacturer) of not having detectors -- there aren't proper records of fume events to foia
- bigmattystyles 6y agoTo be honest, even just the amount of jetfuel fumes you take in while on board waiting to push off the from the gate bothers the hell out of me. I think that's just because the jetway connector mostly has unconditioned exterior air and with the door open, that makes its way into the cabin, but it can be very nauseating.
- octoberfranklin 6y agoBonus points to SEATAC for conditioning the jetway air. Few airports do this.
- thadk 6y agoI'd seen an ad about this in the airport but wasn't sure whether it had to do with the bleed issue. Seems not: "A jet bridge (also termed jetway, jetwalk, airgate, gangway, aerobridge/airbridge, skybridge, airtube, or its official industry name passenger boarding bridge (PBB)) is an enclosed, movable connector which most commonly extends from an airport terminal gate to an airplane"
- pacamara619 6y agoI can only agree that it's nauseating. One time on a trip from Copenhagen to Munich it was so unbearable that I had to throw up. I've told about a dozen friends about this when I got home. While all of them found it very unpleasant, only one other person had to be sick.
- bcatanzaro 6y agoI was not surprised this article buries the 787 deep inside where no one will read it. Honestly the bleedless air system of the 787 is one of the things that makes me enjoy flying it.
- Aeolun 6y agoIt’s weird they do that. It’s one of the largest red flags that indicate it actually is a problem.
- ashtonkem 6y agoExactly! Boeing can't claim that engine bleed air is clean on one hand, and tout that a bleed-less air system improves air quality. It's either one, or the other, not both.
- rowanG077 6y agoOf course they can. Air quality is not binary. Air can be clean yet it could also be cleaner.
- waiseristy 6y agoI don't think Boeings primary reason for switching to no-bleed air was air quality reasons anyway. Electrically powered air is way lighter, more reliable, efficient, etc...
- benhurmarcel 6y agoIt's not that straightforward. I work in that domain and the general consensus is that the 787 system is about as efficient as a conventional bleed system would be. It doesn't offer any significant efficiency advantage. The mechanical power offtake affects the engine fuel consumption less than the equivalent bleed offtake, but on the other hand their system is significantly heavier, and creates a lot more drag. Basically, the engine compressor is the best compressor you will find aboard. To provide air supply you need pressurized air. So it makes sense to directly take the compressed air you already have with that excellent compressor. With their bleedless system they add 2 large extra electrical compressors, and 2 large extra air intakes (to take the air to be compressed). So of course there are advantages to the electrical route, but efficiency isn't a given.
- spodek 6y agoToxic fumes seep into the air we breathe everywhere. Coincidentally, planes are a major cause, as part of a system that has lost its value of health and safety in favor of craving and profit.
- 762236 6y agoSounds like the Dreamliner is the only plane designed to avoid this problem. Oddly the article hardly mentions Airbus, so it isn't clear to what degree their planes suffer this problem. And I wonder why European regulators aren't addressing this issue (which seems implied by the article).
- jeffrey_t_b 6y agoI wouldn't say "designed to avoid this problem", because I'm pretty sure that cabin air quality didn't play much of a role in the engineering trades regarding ECS architecture. The 787 was intended as a more electric aircraft, from the very start, even called the "7E7" during development. An electrical ECS requires special cabin air compressors with big motor drives and power electronics, but there was significant savings for the engines by removing bleed air. It makes sense as a system: Electrical main engine start, generator-optimized engines/APU, electrical cabin air compressors. But the trade criteria were the typical ones: weight, installation volume, total lifecycle cost, etc. The choice of a lower cabin altitude _was_ a big deal though, and if I had to guess, is the main source of a more pleasant experience. The main ECS vendors (Honeywell, Hamilton Sundstrand, and Liebherr) all have cabin air quality products, which have mostly gone without interest by the aircraft manufactures and the airlines.
- octoberfranklin 6y ago> ECS Please to expand the acronyms?
- jeffrey_t_b 6y agoSorry, thought that was in the story: Environmental Control System, which is the aircraft subsystem responsible for pressurizing and cooling/heating the cabin.
- matt123456789 6y agoWhat drives the vendors to create those products if nobody is buying them?
- swayvil 6y agoThe whole airport-and-airplanes experience always leaves me feeling like crap. Like I have the flu. My friends report similarly. I figured it's common knowledge. Plastic vapors. Bad food. Weird solvents. Toxic af.
- thaumasiotes 6y agoAirport food varies pretty wildly. SFO and PVG are terrible. LAX is bad. HKG is good. SEA is great.
- haram_masala 6y agoThe food in SFO’s international terminal is excellent.
- thaumasiotes 6y agoWe'll have to disagree on that.
- vmception 6y agoThis better explains not really remembering events of movies I watched in flight than the prevailing air-pressure explanation.
- vecinu 6y agoDoes anyone else have a hard time putting up with flying (pre-pandemic) recently? 20 years ago I used to fly without any issue but since they've made the seats smaller, the food somehow got worse and the TSA pre-boarding eats another hour of time I wouldn't have spent in the airport. I recently started trying to fly business class to actually arrive at my destination like a functioning human being and not anxious/sick to my stomach. Unfortunately it's prohibitively expensive. Add in the toxic fumes and I'm not surprised how bad I feel after a transcontinental flight.
- hourislate 6y agoThe reason flying was easier 10-15 years ago was because passenger loads increased by 50% while airlines seat capacity remained at 2005 levels. https://www.statista.com/statistics/564717/airline-industry-passenger-traffic-globally/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/564717/airline-industry-... Airlines learned from previous mistakes and basically would not add any capacity until load factors were incredibly high and they knew they could easily fill another flight. Very rarely would someone get bumped 10 plus years ago but in the last few years it was common practice. The planes were stuffed full where even the very back rows typically left open for flight attendants were filled. I used to take at least one trip every week for 20 years and it wasn't so bad. After 911 it became worse but the flight was still ok. The last 3-4 years have been absolutely terrible. Even 1st/Business class was a joke and always oversold. I developed anxiety every time I had to fly simply because of the nightmare of getting through the lines (TSA/Customs/DHS), fighting the crowds, no where to even sit, dirty planes, etc. Flying became like riding in a cattle car. I still fly about once a month and ever since the pandemic it's a lot more pleasant. My last flight had over 100 empty seats and absolutely no lines or people at the airport. Reminded my of a flight I once took to YYZ from DFW on a 727 in 91. I and two more guys were the only passengers on the whole plane, 2 in coach and the other in 1st. Three of us on the whole plane. Felt like a Rock Star on my own private jet.... I'm confident that flying will become miserable again. In another year I expect everything will be back to shit/normal.
- tootie 6y agoIn the two years pre pandemic I had to do a ton of business travel. I could expense whatever I needed, fly biz class for international. It still started to wear on me. I think it's just getting older. It's more emotional effort to be away from home. I started feeling some anxiety just about being trapped in a flying tube and not being able to leave. Also because seats are narrower and I'm wider.
- sfard 6y agoI've heard people say they feel different when they fly on 787s. I wonder if this is why. On another note, I'm more concerned with the toxic gases coming out of people sitting next to me.
- yryan 6y agoLike, farts?
- onemiketwelve 6y agoHa
- steffan 6y agoThe 787 also pressurizes the cabin to a lower altitude. Most aircraft pressurize to an altitude of 8,000 ft (~2,438m). The 787 pressurizes to 6,000 feet (~1,828m), which is a noticeable difference - it's like being in Denver vs. higher up on a mountain. Your blood oxygen concentrations will be higher as a result.
- octoberfranklin 6y ago> On another note, I'm more concerned with the toxic gases coming out of people sitting next to me. Air nozzle. First thing I do when I get to my seat is turn it on full blast, point it at my nose. Leave it that way until deplaning.
- denkmoon 6y agoIs bleed air the only air intake for cabin? Couldn't they just go down to <10,000ft and depressurise thus allowing atmospheric air in?
- ta988 6y agoThat would be horribly costly at scale so i doubt they would envision that.
- leetrout 6y agoFumes reportedly killed a pilot in 2012 https://metro.co.uk/2019/04/08/ba-pilot-died-inhaling-toxic-cabin-air-9133942/ https://metro.co.uk/2019/04/08/ba-pilot-died-inhaling-toxic-...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- haecceity 6y ago> An internal Boeing memo described it as a “risk” to give air sensors to even one airline, according to a deposition of a Boeing executive. > “Flight attendant, pilot unions, and congressional supporters could use this effort as evidence that sensors are needed and ... to drive their agenda forward to have bleed air sensors required on all aircraft,” said the 2015 memo, which Boeing turned over in litigation. > Boeing told The Times that it has not equipped its planes with air sensors because suppliers have not “demonstrated the existence” of devices that could “reliably detect contaminated bleed air.” The company said in a statement that scientific studies have not proved a link between fume events and health problems. “The cabin air inside Boeing airplanes is safe,” the company said. Thanks Boeing
- vmception 6y agoSeems like they are intentionally asking for regulation, saying they have absolutely no consensus mechanism to do what is necessary until Congress forces them to
- sjg007 6y agoThey are already regulated but apparently this is most likely a major and intentional oversight. Why? My best guess as to why you can't have a separate air intake from bleed air is that you need the pressurization and the heat. And the extra weight of a different system is cost prohibitive and maybe less reliable. I would hope you could have a primary system that was all electric and taken from a safer bleed or entire system and then use the secondary bleed air system.
- vmception 6y agoI’m referring to the regulations requiring them to detect bad air with a sensor, not an actual solution. Just more data for now, they seem to be asking for that.
- benhurmarcel 6y ago> why you can't have a separate air intake from bleed air You can, the 787 does it, but it has significant drawbacks as well. Also it basically can't be retrofitted onto an existing aircraft series.
- Scheherazade 6y agoFume events are the dark belly of the aviation industry. The stuff used to lubricate turbofan engines is incredibly toxic when breathed in, literally orders of magnitude more potent than simple kerosene fumes.
- ta988 6y agoDo you have any idea what that lubricant is?
- ddeck 6y agoThere are a variety of lubricants, but it is believed that the primary contributor to the problem is the organophosphate (Tricresyl phosphates - TCP / e.g. Durad 125[1]) added as an anti-wear additive. TCP is a known neurotoxin: "It is a toxic substance that causes neuropathy, paralysis in the hands and feet, and/or death for humans and animals alike. It can be ingested, inhaled, or even absorbed through the skin." [2] Below is a presentation based on a PHD thesis on the subject with a lot of detail: https://www.fzt.haw-hamburg.de/pers/Scholz/dglr/hh/text_2012_11_08_AircraftCabinAirContamination.pdf https://www.fzt.haw-hamburg.de/pers/Scholz/dglr/hh/text_2012... [1] https://petrico.com/products/durad-125/ https://petrico.com/products/durad-125/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricresyl_phosphate#Health_calamities_from_TCP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricresyl_phosphate#Health_cal...
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- scarier 6y agoOBOGS is supposed to be a relatively mature technology at this point, but many military aircraft have had significant issues with it over the last decade or so, and it's interesting to see similar issues crop up in civilian aircraft. I'm kinda mind-blown that the air quality isn't monitored on passenger aircraft, because the military has been doing it for decades.
- Diesel555 6y agoOBOGS is terrible. We fly OBOGS and non OBOGS aircraft of the same type. Everytime I fly OBOGS I cough all day. Liquid Oxygen - it's great.
- scarier 6y agoIt's cool to be able to do a back-to-back comparison. I guess I've always been more worried about cabin pressurization failing than OBOGS--oxygen lights are pretty chill, but I've heard some horrifying DCS stories.
- colechristensen 6y agoI once actually briefly lost consciousness in my seat after boarding due to fumes coming in with the bleed air. I had some other things going on at the time and was physically and mentally burned out, but still as a more or less healthy young man I passed out in a plane seat for a few seconds largely because of the bad air. I never thought to say or do anything about it.
- andy_ppp 6y ago> Senior Boeing engineers worried that data from sensors would prove damaging in lawsuits by sick passengers and crew members, according to internal emails and sworn depositions obtained by The Times. Oh, definitely nothing to do with Boeing’s consistently poor management, an engineer thought up not implementing sound technical safeguards because of imaginary lawsuits. Bullshit.
- mleonhard 6y agoSenior engineers frequently align with poor management. For example, in March 2018, Jeff Dean defended Google making Tensor Flow video analysis software for the US military (to use to decide which Pakistani families to assassinate [0]). He calmly and normally presented the technology. When he presented his rationalization for the project, he blinked continuously. I think he was lying. Having a senior engineering position in a large company does not imply integrity. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_strikes_in_Pakistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_strikes_in_Pakistan
- cpncrunch 6y agoThe article has pretty poor reporting. I checked the first couple of examples they gave: https://abcnews.go.com/US/american-airlines-jet-suffers-fume-incident-months-flight/story?id=44535862 https://abcnews.go.com/US/american-airlines-jet-suffers-fume... https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/2019/02/26/alaska-airlines-flight-diverted-due-odor-3-crew-members-hospitalized/2994132002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/2019/02/26/ala... In both cases only the pilots/crew had issues, none of the passengers. In one case it was a "dirty sock" smell. If it was a bleed air problem, it would have affected passengers as well. A lot of research has been done, and there isn't actually any evidence showing that bleed air causes any health problems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerotoxic_syndrome#Research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerotoxic_syndrome#Research Obviously there are some cases where the seals do break, and there is actual smoke in the cabin, but that is not what the majority of these cases are referring to.
- nikolay 6y agoThis keeps recirculating over the years and nothing gets done about it!
- slifin 6y agoOur first intercontinental flight the smell was unbearable, I thought it was just normal So we spent time on our trip getting vicks vapor rub etc to combat the smell Only for the return flight to be fine