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The 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 fals

The 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 ago
According 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.

icedistilled 6y ago

According 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.