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Cancer-related mortality among US pilots and flight attendants

cnn.com

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Re: Cancer-related mortality among US pilots and flight attendants

#21

Post by strictnein »

4d4m wrote: post #8

Boeing, Bombardier, Learjet, Embraer and Airbus should be forced to clean up aircraft cabin air they poison us with. For people who don’t know how GROSS this is: on almost every modern passenger jet, the air you breathe is pulled through the engine’s Bleed-Air system before entering the cabin. As oil, hydraulic fluid, or other contaminants leak into that system, those superheated fumes can be pumped directly into the…

> This is so pervasive you'll see airline attendants spraying glycol-based air fresheners during these times to COVER UP the smell of this toxic stuff

I've never once seen a flight attendant do that. Flown hundreds and hundreds of times. You'd think something that's "so pervasive" would have been common enough that I'd have seen it dozens of times?

Re: Cancer-related mortality among US pilots and flight attendants

#22

Post by jader201 »

RajT88 wrote: post #7

Attendants have higher risk than pilots. This kind of makes sense, as my understanding is they don't have pilots fly too often. Meanwhile, attendants are flying all the time.

> as my understanding is they don't have pilots fly too often

From a quick search, I can’t find evidence of this. If anything, pilots are in the air more of their week/lives vs. flight attendants.

Re: Cancer-related mortality among US pilots and flight attendants

#23

Post by [deleted] »

4d4m wrote: post #13
technothrasher wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These incidents are literally called "fume events" Your first FAA link says that these 'fume events' are rare: "The report found that the rate of cabin air quality events is less than 33 events per million aircraft departures." This is about one event every 30,000 flights.

https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/study-shows-toxic-... If you think of the last 10 flights you were on, how many had the gym sock smell? That's the real occurence rate. I'd say in my experience across all airlines its around 7/10 flights I can detect via smell a fume event.

[deleted]

Re: Cancer-related mortality among US pilots and flight attendants

#24

Post by criddell »

4d4m wrote: post #11
seizethecheese wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article specifically says flight attendants are only at increased risk of radiation related cancers, but not others.

Quite interesting. My reaction is that one of these is much more easily controlled and an input for cancer than the other. Radiation shielding is a tougher solve due to weight and other factors, where air quality is an easy, known fix. Would love both to be solved, which would lead to good outcomes. Any thoughts on why attendants have different outcomes?

Off topic: when did using solve as a noun take off? There are so many good nouns that work there (challenge, task, etc...) or use the verb form (is tougher to solve).

Re: Cancer-related mortality among US pilots and flight attendants

#25

Post by RajT88 »

jader201 wrote: post #22
RajT88 wrote: post #7

Attendants have higher risk than pilots. This kind of makes sense, as my understanding is they don't have pilots fly too often. Meanwhile, attendants are flying all the time.

> as my understanding is they don't have pilots fly too often From a quick search, I can’t find evidence of this. If anything, pilots are in the air more of their week/lives vs. flight attendants.

I guess I am going off when a pilot spoke at my high school for career day. (Decades ago...)

Re: Cancer-related mortality among US pilots and flight attendants

#26

Post by jmpman »

4d4m wrote: post #8

Boeing, Bombardier, Learjet, Embraer and Airbus should be forced to clean up aircraft cabin air they poison us with. For people who don’t know how GROSS this is: on almost every modern passenger jet, the air you breathe is pulled through the engine’s Bleed-Air system before entering the cabin. As oil, hydraulic fluid, or other contaminants leak into that system, those superheated fumes can be pumped directly into the…

I believe the pilots air source works differently than the rest of the cabin - at least on the 737. Maybe that explains the difference between the pilots and the flight attendants.

Re: Cancer-related mortality among US pilots and flight attendants

#28

Post by NegativeLatency »

technothrasher wrote: post #12
4d4m wrote: post #8

Boeing, Bombardier, Learjet, Embraer and Airbus should be forced to clean up aircraft cabin air they poison us with. For people who don’t know how GROSS this is: on almost every modern passenger jet, the air you breathe is pulled through the engine’s Bleed-Air system before entering the cabin. As oil, hydraulic fluid, or other contaminants leak into that system, those superheated fumes can be pumped directly into the…

> These incidents are literally called "fume events" Your first FAA link says that these 'fume events' are rare: "The report found that the rate of cabin air quality events is less than 33 events per million aircraft departures." This is about one event every 30,000 flights.

I have a pretty sensitive sense of smell, and I regularly smell oil/smoke/hydrocarbon smell after they're starting the engines. It also sticks on your clothes after the plane ride, and I'm quite sure it's not just stinky seat smell.

Re: Cancer-related mortality among US pilots and flight attendants

#29

Post by ch4s3 »

4d4m wrote: post #13
technothrasher wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These incidents are literally called "fume events" Your first FAA link says that these 'fume events' are rare: "The report found that the rate of cabin air quality events is less than 33 events per million aircraft departures." This is about one event every 30,000 flights.

https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/study-shows-toxic-... If you think of the last 10 flights you were on, how many had the gym sock smell? That's the real occurence rate. I'd say in my experience across all airlines its around 7/10 flights I can detect via smell a fume event.

I’ve never noticed this in 35 years and I have an unusually sensitive sense of smell.

Re: Cancer-related mortality among US pilots and flight attendants

#30

Post by philipallstar »

bertil wrote: post #18
dukeofdoom wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Your comments makes problematic suggestions, but I found it funny that the more childish one —farts– is actually very true: with the lower pressure, people do fart more on airplanes.

What problematic suggestions?
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