A1FlyBoy
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SEATTLE -- Three Alaska Airlines managers conducted an extraordinary experiment on an MD-80 jet. Frustrated by complaints about noxious mists on MD-80 flights, the managers tried to recreate the problem on a jet parked inside a hangar.
John Fowler, then chief of maintenance, ordered a mechanic to squirt 8 ounces of hydraulic fluid into a scooplike ''air inlet'' on the jet's underbelly, where it was sucked in by a small engine pumping fresh air into the passenger cabin.
In a few minutes, the managers noticed a waviness in the air inside the cabin that looked like automobile exhaust or a heat wave. ''I recall a metallic taste in my mouth, some burning around the eyes and sensitivity in my nose,'' Fowler would say later.
Fowler told his story recently during a trial that's been unfolding for 10 weeks in state superior court here. Twenty-six current and former Alaska Airlines flight attendants say they have suffered severe neurological damage from being repeatedly exposed to toxic chemicals on MD-80 flights during the 1980s and 1990s.
The case is expected to go to the jury this month, and the verdict could ripple well beyond Seattle, Alaska Airlines' hometown. A victory for the flight attendants could damage the public's confidence in the more than 1,700 MD-80s and DC-9s, the MD-80's predecessor model, used by airlines worldwide. It could also force airlines and aircraft makers to confront contaminated air problems that regularly turn up on other models. And it might stir further action to reduce the health risks for millions who fly, especially flight crews, young children and people sensitive to certain chemicals.
''This is a big environmental issue with serious consequences,'' says Jean Christophe Balouet, an environmental consultant based in Paris who has worked for flight crew unions in several countries. Airlines and aircraft makers, he says, have been ''reluctant to admit contamination takes place because they'd have to compensate the people who have been exposed.''
Last year, the Alaska flight attendants won a $725,000 out-of-court settlement from Alaska Airlines, and now they're going after two of the nation's biggest companies: Boeing and Honeywell.
The plaintiffs contend both companies have known for decades that the MD-80 and DC-9 have design flaws that make it easy for leaking chemical fluids to get sucked into the auxiliary power unit, or APU, and mix with cabin air. The APU is a small turbine engine used to generate electricity and circulate cabin air before takeoff.
Boeing inherited responsibility for the MD-80 and DC-9 models when it bought McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Honeywell owns AlliedSignal, which made the APU.
Both companies dispute the flight attendants' claims. They say fumes that enter the passenger cabin don't contain enough chemicals to cause harm. The lawsuit is believed to be the first to assert that an aircraft maker is responsible for the quality of the air breathed by passengers and airline crews. Jets built in the 1980s and since use 50% recirculated cabin air, instead of 100% outside air, as earlier models do.
Yet a wider group of people now routinely travel by air. In no other public venue can you find infants, the elderly and the infirm crammed into a public space -- with no exits -- and air supply systems in close proximity to pressurized lines of toxic chemicals.
Over the past decade, flight attendants, pilots and public-health advocates worldwide have clamored for air quality testing and standards. In a report to Congress in December, the National Academy of Sciences called for establishment of a surveillance program to monitor cabin air quality and document health effects.
''If people had half a clue about the possibility that this environment they're entering for whatever period of time could jeopardize them, they'd be up in arms,'' says former flight attendant Debra Bradford, the lead plaintiff.
Problems on other models
The Alaska flight attendants point to evidence the problem goes well beyond their airline's jets. A July 1996 Alaska Airlines maintenance document, introduced during the trial, identifies 15 other airlines reporting instances of ''fluids entering APU air intake'' on DC-9s and MD-80s and resulting in ''associated passenger/crew complaints including illnesses.'' Among the most well-known airlines cited were Alitalia, American, Swissair, TWA and US Airways.
To gauge how often air quality problems are reported on DC-9s and MD-80s, USA TODAY checked the Federal Aviation Administration's Service Difficulty Reports (SDRs) database. The FAA requires airlines to file the one-page documents each time a mechanical problem arises. They are an imperfect indicator because some airlines are more rigorous about filing them than others.
Even so, safety experts consider SDRs a useful tool for spotting industrywide problems.
From 1974 through mid-2001, eight U.S. carriers -- American, Northwest, TWA, Delta, Continental, US Airways, Midwest Express and Alaska -- reported 1,051 incidents of fumes, smoke, haze, mist or odors entering the cabin air supply system of DC-9s and MD-80s, USA TODAY found after reviewing SDRs supplied by Air Data Research of Helotes, Texas.
In a majority of the reports, the aircraft turned back to the gate or made an unscheduled landing. Typically, the air supply system was inspected, parts replaced and the jet returned to service.
The DC-9/MD-80 isn't the only model with cabin air problems. Through the 1990s, ''air quality incidents'' have been reported on Airbus 320s, Boeing DC-10s, 737s, 757s and the British Aerospace BAe 146, other airline maintenance records and union surveys of airline crews show.
In October, the British Air Line Pilots Association surveyed 93 crews who reported more than 1,600 events of fumes reaching the flight deck on Boeing 757s.
The events ranged from pilots ''noticing some smells'' and a few ''serious incidents where crews had to put on oxygen masks,'' says Bruce D'Ancey, assistant technical secretary for the union.
Honeywell and Boeing maintain that leaks, in general, occur so infrequently and pollutants mixing with cabin air are so minuscule that health risks are minimal.
''The level of (chemicals) that would enter the cabin environment in event of a leak is 1/1,000th to 1/10,000th of what would be required to even begin to be potentially harmful to human health,'' says Honeywell attorney Bradley Keller.
Though declining to comment specifically on the trial, Boeing provided a statement listing 11 studies purporting to show cabin air ''pollutant levels'' to be ''low and, in general, not different from ground-based environments such as your home or office.''
Medical experts say the right kind of research -- studies that analyze contaminated air, not just cabin air with no reported problems -- has yet to be done.
''Industry keeps saying there's no evidence that people have been hurt, but there's no evidence people have not been hurt either,'' says Christiaan van Netten, a professor at the University of British Columbia's Department of Health Care and Epidemiology.
''Basically, we don't know because we have yet to catch one of these incidents with the proper instruments.''
Advice ignored
A good place to begin such detective work would be on any DC-9 or MD-80, says plaintiffs' attorney Randy Gordon. He and another attorney, Sam Elder, have spent four years gathering evidence of what they say are two design flaws involving the APU.
John Fowler, then chief of maintenance, ordered a mechanic to squirt 8 ounces of hydraulic fluid into a scooplike ''air inlet'' on the jet's underbelly, where it was sucked in by a small engine pumping fresh air into the passenger cabin.
In a few minutes, the managers noticed a waviness in the air inside the cabin that looked like automobile exhaust or a heat wave. ''I recall a metallic taste in my mouth, some burning around the eyes and sensitivity in my nose,'' Fowler would say later.
Fowler told his story recently during a trial that's been unfolding for 10 weeks in state superior court here. Twenty-six current and former Alaska Airlines flight attendants say they have suffered severe neurological damage from being repeatedly exposed to toxic chemicals on MD-80 flights during the 1980s and 1990s.
The case is expected to go to the jury this month, and the verdict could ripple well beyond Seattle, Alaska Airlines' hometown. A victory for the flight attendants could damage the public's confidence in the more than 1,700 MD-80s and DC-9s, the MD-80's predecessor model, used by airlines worldwide. It could also force airlines and aircraft makers to confront contaminated air problems that regularly turn up on other models. And it might stir further action to reduce the health risks for millions who fly, especially flight crews, young children and people sensitive to certain chemicals.
''This is a big environmental issue with serious consequences,'' says Jean Christophe Balouet, an environmental consultant based in Paris who has worked for flight crew unions in several countries. Airlines and aircraft makers, he says, have been ''reluctant to admit contamination takes place because they'd have to compensate the people who have been exposed.''
Last year, the Alaska flight attendants won a $725,000 out-of-court settlement from Alaska Airlines, and now they're going after two of the nation's biggest companies: Boeing and Honeywell.
The plaintiffs contend both companies have known for decades that the MD-80 and DC-9 have design flaws that make it easy for leaking chemical fluids to get sucked into the auxiliary power unit, or APU, and mix with cabin air. The APU is a small turbine engine used to generate electricity and circulate cabin air before takeoff.
Boeing inherited responsibility for the MD-80 and DC-9 models when it bought McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Honeywell owns AlliedSignal, which made the APU.
Both companies dispute the flight attendants' claims. They say fumes that enter the passenger cabin don't contain enough chemicals to cause harm. The lawsuit is believed to be the first to assert that an aircraft maker is responsible for the quality of the air breathed by passengers and airline crews. Jets built in the 1980s and since use 50% recirculated cabin air, instead of 100% outside air, as earlier models do.
Yet a wider group of people now routinely travel by air. In no other public venue can you find infants, the elderly and the infirm crammed into a public space -- with no exits -- and air supply systems in close proximity to pressurized lines of toxic chemicals.
Over the past decade, flight attendants, pilots and public-health advocates worldwide have clamored for air quality testing and standards. In a report to Congress in December, the National Academy of Sciences called for establishment of a surveillance program to monitor cabin air quality and document health effects.
''If people had half a clue about the possibility that this environment they're entering for whatever period of time could jeopardize them, they'd be up in arms,'' says former flight attendant Debra Bradford, the lead plaintiff.
Problems on other models
The Alaska flight attendants point to evidence the problem goes well beyond their airline's jets. A July 1996 Alaska Airlines maintenance document, introduced during the trial, identifies 15 other airlines reporting instances of ''fluids entering APU air intake'' on DC-9s and MD-80s and resulting in ''associated passenger/crew complaints including illnesses.'' Among the most well-known airlines cited were Alitalia, American, Swissair, TWA and US Airways.
To gauge how often air quality problems are reported on DC-9s and MD-80s, USA TODAY checked the Federal Aviation Administration's Service Difficulty Reports (SDRs) database. The FAA requires airlines to file the one-page documents each time a mechanical problem arises. They are an imperfect indicator because some airlines are more rigorous about filing them than others.
Even so, safety experts consider SDRs a useful tool for spotting industrywide problems.
From 1974 through mid-2001, eight U.S. carriers -- American, Northwest, TWA, Delta, Continental, US Airways, Midwest Express and Alaska -- reported 1,051 incidents of fumes, smoke, haze, mist or odors entering the cabin air supply system of DC-9s and MD-80s, USA TODAY found after reviewing SDRs supplied by Air Data Research of Helotes, Texas.
In a majority of the reports, the aircraft turned back to the gate or made an unscheduled landing. Typically, the air supply system was inspected, parts replaced and the jet returned to service.
The DC-9/MD-80 isn't the only model with cabin air problems. Through the 1990s, ''air quality incidents'' have been reported on Airbus 320s, Boeing DC-10s, 737s, 757s and the British Aerospace BAe 146, other airline maintenance records and union surveys of airline crews show.
In October, the British Air Line Pilots Association surveyed 93 crews who reported more than 1,600 events of fumes reaching the flight deck on Boeing 757s.
The events ranged from pilots ''noticing some smells'' and a few ''serious incidents where crews had to put on oxygen masks,'' says Bruce D'Ancey, assistant technical secretary for the union.
Honeywell and Boeing maintain that leaks, in general, occur so infrequently and pollutants mixing with cabin air are so minuscule that health risks are minimal.
''The level of (chemicals) that would enter the cabin environment in event of a leak is 1/1,000th to 1/10,000th of what would be required to even begin to be potentially harmful to human health,'' says Honeywell attorney Bradley Keller.
Though declining to comment specifically on the trial, Boeing provided a statement listing 11 studies purporting to show cabin air ''pollutant levels'' to be ''low and, in general, not different from ground-based environments such as your home or office.''
Medical experts say the right kind of research -- studies that analyze contaminated air, not just cabin air with no reported problems -- has yet to be done.
''Industry keeps saying there's no evidence that people have been hurt, but there's no evidence people have not been hurt either,'' says Christiaan van Netten, a professor at the University of British Columbia's Department of Health Care and Epidemiology.
''Basically, we don't know because we have yet to catch one of these incidents with the proper instruments.''
Advice ignored
A good place to begin such detective work would be on any DC-9 or MD-80, says plaintiffs' attorney Randy Gordon. He and another attorney, Sam Elder, have spent four years gathering evidence of what they say are two design flaws involving the APU.
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