Seconds to Disaster: US Edition (5 page)

In 1993 international
scientists from the US, France and Australia proposed that Aerotoxic Syndrome
was responsible for the ill health of airline passengers and crew. In a rerun
of the battle about smoking, the response from the airline industry is akin to
the approach adopted by the tobacco industry which denied  the known harmful
effects of smoking for years.

But what is Aerotoxic Syndrome
and how is it caused?

In order to have a comfortable
environment and sufficient air pressure to breathe at the altitudes at which
jet airliners fly, a supply of warm compressed air is required.  This is
supplied directly from the jet engines and is known as bleed air. It is mixed
inside the aircraft with re-circulated cabin air at a ratio of 50/50. Although
some of the air is re-circulated, all of it originates from the jet engines.

But the air pumped in from
the jet engines is not usually filtered, so there is a danger of contaminants
reaching the passengers and crew in the cabin.

The seals between various
parts of the engines are prone to wear, or poor maintenance. They cannot be
100% effective and fail from time to time. Numerous studies show that if they
leak a little, trace amounts of oil fumes can escape into the bleed air on the way
to the cabin.
[43]
But if the seals fail completely, large volumes of fumes can escape into the
air conditioning system in what’s now known in the aviation industry as a “Fume
Event.” The fumes contain a cocktail of dangerous chemicals. The UK government
admits there is at least 1 fume event per 2000 flights.
[44]
That’s 50,000 passengers and
crew out of Heathrow alone per year involved in the
known
fume events.

If compounds are getting
into the aircraft cabin, why are they so dangerous? “Oils are complex and
designed to withstand the extreme environment of the engines. TCP is an
organophosphate (OP), and organophosphates were originally designed for their
neurotoxic properties and used in the manufacture of pesticides and nerve
agents,” says Hoyte, an ex-airline captain affected by contaminated aircraft
cabin air.

The inhalation of these
dangerous fumes may cause what has become commonly referred as “Aerotoxic
Syndrome”.

“There is a growing body of
evidence, globally, of compromised flight safety caused by oil fumes, as well
as documentation for near-daily oil fume events on the US Airways fleet,” says
Tom Kubik, Safety Chairman US Airways.

It is believed that US airways
suffers one fume event per week.

And this may be just the tip
of a very ugly iceberg. “Aerospace physicians have pointed out that Flight
Crew, as a cross section of society, suffer more neurological un-wellness than
most of society and the highest rates of cancer,” says Captain David Zaharik of
Air Canada, grounded due to TCP poisoning. “Many pilots put it down to a side
effect of the job, bad food, stress, jet lag.”

And perhaps passengers do too.

But why doesn’t it affect
everyone? Some scientists believe that, as with smoking, toxic compounds cause harm
to some people more than others.
[45]

This too is why some crewmembers
suffer recognizable symptoms and some don’t. Professor Jeremy Ramsden, a
leading researcher into this issue believes passengers and crew should be
educated to the risks of contaminated cabin air. “Vulnerable people should be
identified whenever possible and advised not to travel by jet airliners fitted
with bleed air technology. Given that there is some evidence for reproductive
toxicity of TCP, pregnant women should at least be made aware of the risk.”
[46]

Not only do the airlines,
regulators and manufacturers have to fight against the growing evidence of “Fume
Events”, it also appears they will have to contend with the emergent belief
that TCP’s are present in cabin air,
most of the time.

It is possible that people
reading this are suffering from the same symptoms as John Hoyte, who was finally
grounded in February 2006. “Passengers have no reason to think their sickness
may have its root cause on-board a commercial flight.” says Hoyte. “Have you
ever suffered ‘jet lag’ and simply not got over it for a long time? Light
headedness, tinnitus, loss of balance? Shaking and tremors?”

But the effects go far beyond
everyday symptoms that may be explained away. According to one of many experts
exploring this issue, Professor Abou Donia, “Exposed crewmembers were found to
have brain damage and cell death.”
[47]

David Learmount of Flight
Global magazine believes Europeans are washing their hands of the problem.
[48]
“They have
strenuously avoided getting involved in the passenger and crew health aspects
of bleed air contamination on the grounds that passenger and crew health is not
their business.”
[49]
He is among many aviation experts who hope the growing number of prominent
scientists working on the health effects of TCP poisoning will provide enough
momentum to bring this to a conclusion. “I wonder how many European passengers
know that the aviation authorities say that passenger and crew health on board
public transport airplanes is of no concern to them?”

Solutions are there in the form of organophosphate-free
engine oils; fitting filters to lessen the effect; a system of sensors to alert
crew to a fume event or using compressed air that does not come from the
engines—such as on the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

It could take years, perhaps decades, to prove without doubt
the health effects of contaminated cabin air.

“We prefer to follow the
principle of precaution when a serious doubt is present. None of us want to be
at the receiving end of a bio-chemical experiment,” say the Air Canada Pilots
Association.

The art of air travel
demands that every passenger and crewmember must have complete faith in the
system that ensures the integrity of every aspect of flight. Most of all, passengers
and crew must have complete trust in the actual aircraft they fly.

What if that trust is broken
by a world market leader in aircraft manufacturing, such as Boeing? As out of
character and disturbing a claim as it appears, Boeing stands accused of doing
just that.

Put simply, former managers at
the Boeing plant claim that their company airframes, the skeletons of over 1500
of its aircraft—mainly the 737 NG— are not airworthy and should be grounded.

In 1998 the much
anticipated Boeing 737NG (Next Generation) rolled off the production line in a
successful bid to compete with the high-tech Airbus A320.

Presented to the FAA as an
aircraft designed and built by computer controlled machines, the parts produced
were to fit together so well that there would be no gaps between airframe parts
that normally require fillers; no manually drilled holes that reduce airframe strength.
The metal would be cut to within 3000ths of an inch by extremely expensive
computer controlled machines and tools, creating an aircraft with superior
tolerances, elevated strength, and all at a lighter weight.

Based on the strict controls
Boeing would put in place, the high precision of the tools it would use, and the
plans submitted to the FAA for the aircraft’s approval—Boeing’s technological
advances would allow the 737NG to carry more, to fly higher, and in doing so
endure increased stresses.

However, according to Boeing
employees, the aircraft that rolled off the production line during full
production were
not
built to the same standard as the original prototype
and
not
according to the approved manufacturing system.

Instead of parts interlocking
seamlessly, hammers were used to make parts fit; out of alignment holes were
redrilled and some cuts of metal were off by up to 2 inches—far from the 3000
^th
of an inch approved by the FAA. Fillers
were
used and parts were hammered
into place; which produced pre-stresses on metal not made for ill-treatment.

This occurred not to
extraneous parts that simply fit onto the aircraft, but the parts that
make
the aircraft—Primary Structural Elements or PSE’S.

Here is an extract from
Boeing’s 737 repair manual:

WARNING
: THE FAILURE
OF PSE’S COULD RESULT IN THE CATASTROPHIC FAILURE OF THE AIRPLANE.

According to some experts,
failure isn’t a matter of if but when, and they believe it’s already happening.

These ill-fitting parts, and un-approved
parts, were not made by Boeing, but by a manufacturer called AHF Ducommun. If
the parts produced by Ducommun with their computer controlled machines didn’t
fit, why not? How could they be so far off?

300 of the 737 NG aircraft
were already in service by the time Boeing employee Gigi Prewit was promoted to
purchasing manager of parts for that project.

Immediately, shop fitters
alerted her to the ongoing problem
of parts arriving that just did not
fit. Prewit approached her managers and a team was sent in to investigate the
parts manufacturer AHF Ducommun. What they found over a two week period at the
manufacturer’s plant horrified them. They took photographs, “...because nobody
would believe us otherwise.”

The parts were being made not
by the FAA approved process-using high tech machines-but by hand. Templates
were used to draw parts with magic-markers which were then cut with handsaws
and resized by belt sanders in a process reminiscent of cabinet makers in a
carpentry workshop.

This not only violated the conditions
of the aircraft design but the parts created were weakened and already stressed
before being used to construct airframes in which passengers and crew were to
sit for the next 30 years or more.

What followed is like something
from a thriller novel. Threats against the investigating team by Ducommun were
alleged: “We have long arms that reach into Boeing, you will be shot...” “We
will shove 20 of your rejected parts up your....”

An email recommendation by the
team to cease using Ducommun as a supplier stated that, “continued trading…places
the Boeing company at risk.” The email was deleted by Boeing management the
following day.

The investigating team was
told not to divulge any of their findings to anyone but Boeing management or
face a law suit by Boeing.

Gigi Prewit and another
employee, Taylor Smith, had to decide where their loyalties lay—with the safety
of the public or with the company that employed them. In Gigi’s case, her
relatives had worked for Boeing for generations. It seemed that by now there
were so many aircraft flying, that to admit there was a problem could bring
about financial ruin for Boeing as the grounding of 300 Aircraft, or the forced
ongoing inspection and maintenance required would precipitate fatal lawsuits
from airline customers.

Despite warnings of legal
action from Boeing, Prewit and Smith approached the Department of Justice who
were initially horrified by the information. They ordered the FAA to
investigate. Public documents show that the only investigation the FAA carried
out was to look up the Ducommun website and note the address.

A criminal investigation by
the Department of Defense found there were non-conforming parts, saying that
the forced fit of these parts at the Boeing plant could cause problems.

This was all very soon
followed by an order from the US Department of Justice to cease all
investigation into the issue.

Yet still the aircraft rolled
off the lines, and flew, and carried passengers and crew at higher altitudes,
at a higher weight.

Despite promises from the
department of Justice to keep the whistleblowers’ names secret, and to protect
them, Boeing found out who they were.

Now they are out of work and unlikely to find any.

The first inkling that the
Department of Justice was trying to protect Boeing was when the Department
released a statement portraying the NTSB as having indicated that the breakup
of a Boeing aircraft—an American Airlines 737NG that crash-landed in Jamaica on
December 22
^nd
, 2009—had nothing to do with the allegedly unapproved
parts.

The NTSB denied making this
statement.

And when Boeing lawyers began
drafting statements for the Federal Aviation Administration to announce—for the
very authority whose job it is to regulate Boeing—this put the whistleblowers
in a very lonely place.

The still young 737 NG
aircraft were suffering from fatigue, cracks and structural failures after only
8 years into a 30 year life.

Airlines and military
operators of the aircraft are reporting (to the FAA) mounting problems with
these aircraft.

Former FAA official Dr Michael
Dreikorn is “very seriously concerned about a catastrophic cabin failure at
altitude,” that sooner or later one of these aircraft will lose its ability to
stay together. He believes it will be a 737 NG and it will become, “a smoking
hole in the ground.”

The FAA says it does not
believe there are any issues with the 737 NG.
[50]
’
[51]
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[52]

Other aircraft designs
were allowed to fly even though technical problems persisted. For years, the
Boeing 767 flew with its thrust reversers disabled after the Lauda Air
disaster, in which the aircraft’s reversers were inadvertently deployed by the
plane’s computers and caused a mid-air destruction of the Lauda Air aircraft,
killing everyone on board.

Yet regulators still permitted
that model aircraft to fly, even though the problem which caused a major
disaster and loss of life had not yet been resolved. The decision by regulators
put millions of passengers’ lives at risk.

The reason? Pressure from
airlines, which faced financial ruin in some cases, if a complete ban of flying
the 767 was enforced. So a compromise was reached with regulators and the
troublesome reverser was completely disabled on the 767 until a solution was
found.

Powerful lobbying from airlines, and their priority of
limiting costs despite the risk to passenger and crew safety, won out again in
the end.