After decades of denial, the transport minister of a serving government has now called for urgent action over toxic fume incidents in airliners.
Germany's Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer has written to the EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas calling for action from the European Aviation Safety Agency to come up with a solution to prevent the increasing number of reported incidents, nine of which were judged by the German accident investigator BFU to be high risk events.
Germany is the only country officially admitting that this issue even exists, and this is by virtue of its more rigorously applied reporting system and increasing restlessness among German pilots and cabin crew who are worried about their health in both the short and the long term.
This subject will not go away. The industry, which is quietly preparing to do something about it but keeps on putting off the evil day, will soon have to act. What Germany is trying to do, quite naturally, is to get EASA to make the decisions so that Germany does not have to act alone. Once EASA acts, the rest of the world will have to.
on November 16, 2012 4:25 PM | Reply
I worked as an airline pilot in Europe and NZ from 1974 until 2004 when I suddenly suffered a serious tonic-clonic seizure which cost me my ATPL. Although I have been tested in virtually every possible way no cause has ever been found. (No family history. no head injuries, and I am extremely fit for my age) I am now on permanent medication to control my seizures. It has been suggested that the cause of my affliction may well be long term exposure to toxic fumes as 5500 hours of my total 16,000+ hours were as a Captain on Bae146 aircraft.The 146 aircraft was known to be one of the worst culprits and I experienced severe cabin air pollution on a number of occasions. Boeing seem to be playing it safe with the new 787- currently the only new aircraft with bleed-less architecture but are keeping very quiet about this as they still have many thousands of aircraft flying with cabin air supplied from engine bleeds.