History of the attempts to educate flyers on the hazards and existence of toxic air in the cabins of airliners. The fight has been ongoing since the 1990’s and was led by pilots, crew and experts in Europe and Australia.
Toxiccabinair.com has been an active website since approximately 2007 and to our knowledge it was the first U.S. based website dealing with toxins in airline cabin air. We have attempted over the years to educate and expose regarding the TOCP and toxins that get into the cabin in commercial aircraft.
It has been a long struggle and a long path, and it continues. For so many years the airlines denied the existence of the toxic exposure and it’s danger. Only recently have some airlines begun to even acknowledge a problem. And after years of efforts, with Europe leading the way, there has been legislation proposed to at least test for contamination. To date only the Boeing 787 has developed a plane that does not have the cabin air come first through the engines where it can get contaminated with burnt or pyrolized oil creating TOCP. Although retrofitting may be a possibility no airline has addressed that issue on existing aircraft. We hope to educate you on these efforts to educate the public on the hazards of toxic cabin air as well as exposing the airlines denial of this hazard for so many years, and it’s resistance to acknowledging the health hazards and problems which have occurred. Here we will post articles and links on this fight past and present.
Some encouraging developements
Delta is replacing engines on Airbus aircraft to address toxic fumes issue
Delta Air Lines said it is replacing auxiliary power units (APUs), a type of engine, on its Airbus aircraft to address toxic fume incidents that can harm airline crew and passengers.
The airline confirmed to CBS News Thursday that its replacing engines on more than 300 of its A320s in an initiative that began in 2022. The airline did not comment on the cost of the undertaking, which is more than 90% complete.
Delta is replacing engines that can cause toxic fumes to leak into the aircraft cabin’s air supply, posing health and safety risks to crew members and passengers.
Flight attendants have been calling attention to the issue for years, noting their own experiences with the dangerous toxins.
“I felt like I might die, and I thought, you know, I wonder what my mom is going to think — I went to work, and you know, I may not make it,” flight attendant Vanessa Woods told CBS News in 2016 of breathing in engine fumes on a flight she was crewing.
The leakage of fumes most commonly occurs on the Airbus A320 family of narrowbody jets, a recent Wall Street Journal investigation found.
Breathing in the toxic engine emissions can lead to general nervous system problems, Dr. Robert Harrison, an occupational medicine specialist at the University of California San Francisco who has treated more than 100 flight crew members for exposure to fumes, told CBS News.
Delta on Thursday said it is also exploring new synthetic turbine oils from different manufacturers for its engines.
Reached for comment on the issue, United CEO Scott Kirby recently told CBS News that it is a matter he has “personally been focused on for over a decade.”
United has a “proactive maintenance program” that tracks the plane engine’s oil consumption and oil pressure, and proactively replaces APU seals to prevent oil leaks and oil burns that would lead to fumes entering airplane cabins, Kirby said. The issue, he added, isn’t a concern on newer airplanes, like Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which have a different design.
Barry Biffle, CEO of Frontier Airlines, which operates an Airbus fleet, said that while the company is following the toxic fume issue, incidents occur very rarely.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/delta-engines-airbus-toxic-fumes/