By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Published: 10 June 2007
Two official investigations are being opened into alarming leaks of poison into commercial airliners in flight. They follow scientific research showing that fumes have rendered pilots incapable of flying their aircraft safely and have put hundreds of thousands of British passengers at risk.
The House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology is about to examine the threat as part of an investigation into air travel and health. And the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) told The Independent on Sunday that the Government is to fit equipment in at least one plane in the hope of studying a leak when it takes place.
Next week a new pressure group, the Aerotoxic Association, will be launched to campaign on the issue - and will start by publishing the Aviation Contaminated Air Reference Manual, which includes details of more than 1,050 incidents in Britain alone.
Air travel has been made possible over the past 60 years by a technique called "bleed air pressurisation", which takes hot air out of the engine, cools it down and then feeds it - without first filtering it - into the plane's cabin and cockpit.
Sometimes, however, this becomes contaminated with engine oils containing many different chemicals, which are wafted into the plane to be inhaled by passengers and crew alike. Campaigners are particularly concerned about a neurotoxin called tricresyl phosphate (TCP).
Article continues here (UK Independent)
I wonder where the engine get its air from? Couldn't be that, could it?
Only asking.
