The toxic subject that won't die 5

Filtering out - or neutralising - neurotoxic organophosphates in engine bleed air used to ventilate and pressurise aircraft cabins is a great idea, although eliminating them at source would be better.

Hopes were raised in September when BAE Systems launched a cabin air treatment system that shows great promise. Called AirManager, and manufactured by UK-based Quest, this unique high-tech system looked as if it could make contaminated bleed air safe, and at the same time improve the quality of recirculated air filtration, removing viruses, bacteria and particulates.

Unfortunately AirManager, recently in service with Lufthansa Cityline in some of its BAE Avro RJ85s, does not appear to be living up to the industry's hopes. With luck we are just witnessing a new system's  "teething troubles", but BAE, Quest, and Lufthansa are working on it.

Meanwhile Lufthansa continues to take the situation seriously, advising crews on power handling techniques that reduce the frequency of "smell" or "fume" events, which occur when engine oil seals leak, allowing highly toxic organophosphates from the anti-wear additives into the compressor bleed air and thus into the cabin. Just one of the tricks is to add power more slowly, because the oil seals become more effective as oil pressure rises with power.

Of course they could use oils from French manufacturer Nyco, which uses non-toxic anti-wear additives for this very reason.

Meanwhile the regulatory and industry reaction continues to be obscenely obstructive and painfully slow, without any guarantee that the authorities will do anything useful even when they have the "proof" they say they are seeking as to the precise chemicals involved.

The UK Department for Transport has just posted on its website a new FAQ on the subject, and it's much more comprehensive that the previous one, even if it remains totally anodyne.

There is, however, a massive advance contained in it: the DfT is no longer denying that regular fume events occur, and they admit that neurotoxic organophosphates, including isomers of tri-cresyl phosphate, are present in them.

I do not understand how a government agency with a duty of care to crew and passengers can admit that poisons get into aeroplane cabins and still argue that they need do nothing yet, especially when the GCAQE and the Aerotoxic Association can provide details of hundreds if not thousands of pilots and cabin crew who have suffered neurological damage. And, of course, the unknown numbers of passengers who are suffering but don't know what their disease is or why it occurred.

Read the DfT FAQ for their story, then read the 16 March issue of Flight International for a short, sharp dose of how it really is.