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Toxic fumes seep into the air you breathe on planes

latimes.com

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Re: Toxic fumes seep into the air you breathe on planes

#71

Post by rsync »

ta988 wrote: post #44
kaikai wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The TSA might have something to say about carrying unusual electronics into a airplane

If the battery of the detector is not too big, there should be no problem. I did bring an oscilloscope (with probes and all) and lot of other electronics with no issues. The only piece of electronics TSA checked longly was a half broken laptop with no battery. This really intrigued them (so it got re xrayed and the full strip test plus hands and clothes).

I once brought a sun netra 4U server, unboxed, onto the plane and somehow got it up in the overhead. Full length 4U... weighed about 70 lbs.

San Jose to dc ... pre 911 ...

Re: Toxic fumes seep into the air you breathe on planes

#72

Post by redis_mlc »

icedistilled wrote: post #3

FAA seems like it has really let america down. The Max 8 thing and now they've sat on their hands for almost 2 decades after being ordered to assess the way pilots are being poisoned.

The FAA delegated safety to mfgs. (ODM), which in general doesn't work as well as expected.

The actual 737 Max design problems were caused by Boeing, then false documents were filed with the FAA, so you could argue that beyond the ODM system, Boeing deliberately misled the FAA, subverting the safety certification process.

The challenge with cockpit/cabin air quality is that fundamentally air flows from high pressure to low pressure in both a local as well as a global manner. So each airplane model and perhaps each example would need to be studied for air quality. Although airliners are air-tight pressure vessels, I don't think this is as simple as one might think.

I also have noticed strange smells or emissions in the cabin on some flights, so it appears to be a real issue. What people don't understand is that an airliner is a big machine beyond human scale, so even a minor problem on the scale of an airliner can have a big effect on a row of passengers.

Source: commercially-rated pilot, study aerodynamics.

Re: Toxic fumes seep into the air you breathe on planes

#73

Post by jeffrey_t_b »

octoberfranklin wrote: post #67
jeffrey_t_b wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say "designed to avoid this problem", because I'm pretty sure that cabin air quality didn't play much of a role in the engineering trades regarding ECS architecture. The 787 was intended as a more electric aircraft, from the very start, even called the "7E7" during development. An electrical ECS requires special cabin air compressors with big motor drives and power electronics, but there was significant sa…

> ECS Please to expand the acronyms?

Sorry, thought that was in the story: Environmental Control System, which is the aircraft subsystem responsible for pressurizing and cooling/heating the cabin.

Re: Toxic fumes seep into the air you breathe on planes

#74

Post by sjg007 »

vmception wrote: post #45
haecceity wrote: post #25

> An internal Boeing memo described it as a “risk” to give air sensors to even one airline, according to a deposition of a Boeing executive. > “Flight attendant, pilot unions, and congressional supporters could use this effort as evidence that sensors are needed and ... to drive their agenda forward to have bleed air sensors required on all aircraft,” said the 2015 memo, which Boeing turned over in litigation. > Boei…

Seems like they are intentionally asking for regulation, saying they have absolutely no consensus mechanism to do what is necessary until Congress forces them to

They are already regulated but apparently this is most likely a major and intentional oversight. Why? My best guess as to why you can't have a separate air intake from bleed air is that you need the pressurization and the heat. And the extra weight of a different system is cost prohibitive and maybe less reliable. I would hope you could have a primary system that was all electric and taken from a safer bleed or entire system and then use the secondary bleed air system.

Re: Toxic fumes seep into the air you breathe on planes

#75

Post by thaumasiotes »

haram_masala wrote: post #28
thaumasiotes wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airport food varies pretty wildly. SFO and PVG are terrible. LAX is bad. HKG is good. SEA is great.

The food in SFO’s international terminal is excellent.

We'll have to disagree on that.

Re: Toxic fumes seep into the air you breathe on planes

#76

Post by jeffrey_t_b »

matt123456789 wrote: post #70
jeffrey_t_b wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say "designed to avoid this problem", because I'm pretty sure that cabin air quality didn't play much of a role in the engineering trades regarding ECS architecture. The 787 was intended as a more electric aircraft, from the very start, even called the "7E7" during development. An electrical ECS requires special cabin air compressors with big motor drives and power electronics, but there was significant sa…

What drives the vendors to create those products if nobody is buying them?

Well, maybe I should have said "made proposals, research projects, and demos". It takes a lot of time and money to bring an actual product to market through flight qualification, and nobody will take that on until there is sufficient interest.

Re: Toxic fumes seep into the air you breathe on planes

#77

Post by andy_ppp »

> Senior Boeing engineers worried that data from sensors would prove damaging in lawsuits by sick passengers and crew members, according to internal emails and sworn depositions obtained by The Times.

Oh, definitely nothing to do with Boeing’s consistently poor management, an engineer thought up not implementing sound technical safeguards because of imaginary lawsuits. Bullshit.

Re: Toxic fumes seep into the air you breathe on planes

#78

Post by sjg007 »

gen220 wrote: post #68
octoberfranklin wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's a fancy bus? Is that like the sawed-off schoolbus?

It’s basically a greyhound bus with 1/2 the seats, a complimentary hot meal, functional air conditioning, and comfortable chairs. They charge a premium, but you bring as many bags as you like and the pickup locations are usually less chaotic (a hotel rather than a regional mass transit center). They still suffer from traffic and the movement of the vehicle (trains are way better in this dimension). They’re kind of li…

Well... umm.. 300 miles is nothing. That's an 8 hour drive max with really bad traffic. That's not really a comparative point.

Re: Toxic fumes seep into the air you breathe on planes

#79

Post by andy_ppp »

ashtonkem wrote: post #53
csnover wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony is that Boeing are currently the only ones who produce an airliner with bleedless air (the 787); all Airbus jets still use bleed air.

That is indeed ironic, although in my defense all of my flights are going to be on 737/A320 sized aircraft. I can't remember the last time I flew on a wide bodied aircraft, and I'm not likely to do it again soon. My issue is mostly that everything that comes out of Boeing makes me feel like they're more worried about suing them than them hurting me or killing me. Maybe Airbus isn't much better, but it sure seems hard…

Airbus are European, of course they have better safety standards and working culture than American companies ;-)

Re: Toxic fumes seep into the air you breathe on planes

#80

Post by testfoobar »

bcatanzaro wrote: post #9

I was not surprised this article buries the 787 deep inside where no one will read it. Honestly the bleedless air system of the 787 is one of the things that makes me enjoy flying it.

Not entirely rational - but I still haven't flown on a 787. Long term behavior of composite construction concerns me.
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