Safety Hazards provided by Air Quality Incidents on Commercial Aircraft: A Legal Analysis of the Issue

摘要

Even though safety has always been a priority in the airline industry, cabin air quality has only recently become a reason for concern. Every worldwide manufactured aircraft, except for the 787 Boeing, has a design for which the cabin air is directly taken from the engine. Several reports and researches show a high number of cases where the air in the cabin is contaminated: smoke and odours are pumped into the auxiliary power unit inlet, and, subsequently, into the air conditioning system the reason being pyrolyzed engine oil and other aircraft fluids (e.g. hydraulic fluids) leaking. Although it is difficult to come to a clear admission of the problem, those phenomena can reasonably be linked to acute and chronic symptoms and diagnoses, thus establishing causation. Airline companies and manufacturing industries claim that aerotoxic syndrome is not the reality, refusing to recognize it as a reason for illness. Surely, crew members and passengers do not have enough access to appropriate and reliable information that can alert them in regard to the hazards and risks of exposure.