Airline Fume Event Leaves Attendant Sickened by Toxic Air
Terry Williams, a flight attendant for 17 years with American Airlines, has filed a product liability lawsuit against Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, aircraft manufacturers associated with the MD-82 aircraft she worked on when she was allegedly exposed to toxic air.
On April 11, 2007, on flight No. 843 she says she noticed a "misty haze type of smoke" as the plane taxied toward a gate in Dallas, Texas.
What Terry Williams saw is reportedly known as a "fume event", and it has allegedly left her with vision problems, a tremor in her left arm, a prickly sensation in her feet, and a loss of childhood memories.
Terri claims she noticed a tickle in her throat, and developed a cough and headache shortly after the flight ended. Her symptoms became steadily worse, and at one point in time she developed a 'neon green' nasal discharge. After repeated visits to emergency rooms, she finally saw a neurologist who informed her that she had been exposed to toxins.
Her product liability suit claims that a lack of filters and sensors allowed toxins to seep into the cabin's air and made her sick, in what is known as 'bleed air'. Apparently, it is normal practice on commercial jet airlines to combine air bled off the engines with re-circulated existing cabin air with. The air pulled into the engines is cooled and compressed before it is pumped into the the plane. However, leaks in the seals designed to keep engine oil in the engines could result toxic air containing entering the cabin.
William Nazaroff, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at University of California, Berkeley, told CNN, who covered the story, that a specific chemical of concern is tricresyl phosphate, which is a chemical compound used in nerve agents and pesticides. "Historically, there have been some neurotoxic health consequences from high human exposures to TCP [tricresyl phosphate]," he said.
So how often does a fume event happen? The reported numbers seem low (around 0.05 percent of flights reported by the United Kingdom Committee on Toxicity). But Judith Murawski, an industrial hygienist with the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, who has spent nearly a decade studying the phenomanon, told CNN, "The frequency estimates may all sound low, but consider that there were 10.65 million flights on U.S. registered aircraft in 2008. Even 0.05 percent of flights translates into about 14 events per day." So Terri is not alone in her experience, but she has decided to file a lawsuit and help educate the traveling public, most of whom have likely never even heard of a toxic fume event.
JULY-03-09: Toxic plane air sickens flight attendant [CNN: TOXIC PLANE SICKENS FLIGHT ATTENDANT]
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