Contaminated Air and Cabin Crew

Source: Aviation Contaminated Air Reference Manual

Cabin Crew © 10th April 2008
by Susan Michaelis

The AOM, FODCOMs etc. were not provided to cabin crew unions or the cabin crews themselves, nor did the much needed education process take place within the cabin crew community. Cabin crew who are usually trained by their respective airline employer would have also needed a strong educational campaign to enable them to understand what contaminated air events were and to educate them of the need to tell the pilots when such events occur. Its only by educating cabin crew and pilots to report all contaminated air events that these will be properly recorded so that maintenance action can be taken to rectify the problem. In fact it would be fair to say that the only people who have actually ever educated cabin crews to the risks of contaminated air in any form have been a select few unions. Cabin crew unions that have been active have been the Canadian Unions, CUPE and the Canadian Teamsters, the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) in the UK, Flight Attendants Association of Australia (FAAA) and the American Flight Attendants (AFA) in the US. In the context of education and campaigning for a healthier and safer working environment, the AFA have led the way. One of their health and safety representatives, Judith Murawski is an industrial hygienist with the AFA and must be commended for her tireless efforts to bring about change within the industry.


Exception to the Complacency Rule

There were two exceptions to the general trend of airlines ignoring the issue of contaminated air. Ansett Australia which operated the BAe 146 throughout the late 1980s and 1990s established a ‘BAe 146 odour inquiry committee’ in 1991-1992 and again from 1996 to 1998. Ansett worked closely with the Australian domestic flight attendant union, the FAAA in trying to get its crews to report contaminated air events as they clearly had a problem and had to get an understanding of the extent of the problem. However, as will be seen later, despite clearly recognizing fumes were occurring, not uncommonly, associated primarily with leaking oil and were found to be associated with short term adverse effects, the aircraft were still deemed to be safe. Appendix 6 shows several hundred examples of contaminated air events and effects reported to the Australian Senate Inquiry. It is well known that Air BC in Canada undertook significant modifications and investigations into the air quality issue on the BAe 146 in the 1990s.


Flight Safety Aspects of Contaminated Air


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