Based on a couple hours of thinking about the article, my interpretation is that fume-induced injuries are likely caused by chronic low-level exposure or rare, transient concentrated buildups of particularly noxious fumes at times or in parts of the plane to which crew are particularly exposed.
If the air routed in from the engine is vented into the crew space and cabin first, then the captain and flight crew might be exposed to more concentrated doses before fumes from occasional oil drops have a chance to diffuse into the total volume of cabin air. If particularly dangerous exposures occur during testing, then crew may be uniquely exposed. Crew members breathe a larger total amount of cabin air, while passengers collectively breathe more cabin air on individual flights, so health issues driven by chronic exposure should primarily affect crew.
The two doctors quoted in the article have each seen about 100 crew and 1 passenger for fume-induced brain injuries, as well as the fact that one of the mass-exposure incidents, in which the plane filled with white smoke, doesn’t appear to have caused a definitive mass-casualty event. This sounds like an issue of chronic or spatiotemporally specific exposure that primarily hits crew and rarely hits frequent fliers.
It is beyond question that alternative means of transit, such as cars, are drastically more likely to cause both brain injuries and death than flying. So from a safety standpoint, the question is whether the risk is high enough to be worth cancelling at least one trip entirely. However, if you’re only planning on cancelling a small number of trips (i.e. because most are too high-priority to forego), then the extent to which you’d be reducing your chronic exposure is minimal. Based on that, it seems plausibly just not worth worrying about in the absence of better information, given the time and potential stress that would factor into trying to factor this element into your decision making process for each flight.
On the other hand, the case for consistent masking on every Airbus flight for frequent fliers seems strong. KN95 activated carbon masks look like the ordinary masks to which we’ve become accustomed, but the activated carbon can absorb VOC. You can bring a whole pack and swap out the masks when they reach saturation on long flights. This gives the added benefit of protection from airborn microbes in flight.
Based on a couple hours of thinking about the article, my interpretation is that fume-induced injuries are likely caused by chronic low-level exposure or rare, transient concentrated buildups of particularly noxious fumes at times or in parts of the plane to which crew are particularly exposed.
If the air routed in from the engine is vented into the crew space and cabin first, then the captain and flight crew might be exposed to more concentrated doses before fumes from occasional oil drops have a chance to diffuse into the total volume of cabin air. If particularly dangerous exposures occur during testing, then crew may be uniquely exposed. Crew members breathe a larger total amount of cabin air, while passengers collectively breathe more cabin air on individual flights, so health issues driven by chronic exposure should primarily affect crew.
The two doctors quoted in the article have each seen about 100 crew and 1 passenger for fume-induced brain injuries, as well as the fact that one of the mass-exposure incidents, in which the plane filled with white smoke, doesn’t appear to have caused a definitive mass-casualty event. This sounds like an issue of chronic or spatiotemporally specific exposure that primarily hits crew and rarely hits frequent fliers.
It is beyond question that alternative means of transit, such as cars, are drastically more likely to cause both brain injuries and death than flying. So from a safety standpoint, the question is whether the risk is high enough to be worth cancelling at least one trip entirely. However, if you’re only planning on cancelling a small number of trips (i.e. because most are too high-priority to forego), then the extent to which you’d be reducing your chronic exposure is minimal. Based on that, it seems plausibly just not worth worrying about in the absence of better information, given the time and potential stress that would factor into trying to factor this element into your decision making process for each flight.
On the other hand, the case for consistent masking on every Airbus flight for frequent fliers seems strong. KN95 activated carbon masks look like the ordinary masks to which we’ve become accustomed, but the activated carbon can absorb VOC. You can bring a whole pack and swap out the masks when they reach saturation on long flights. This gives the added benefit of protection from airborn microbes in flight.