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We wanted to know: How many such cases are there in Germany?
We asked Lufthansa, but they declined to comment.
Same with their competitors.
And our civil aviation authority, the LBA ...
does not wish to answer this and other related questions at all.
Only the accident investigation branch, the BFU is commenting.
As with the LBA, serious incidents should be reported to this agency.
But apparently not all reports reach them.
We show the investigator logbook entries from incidents which we obtained ...
during our research from an informer. The BFU then has to admit:
I do have to conclude that we do not receive reports on all events.
We have seen times where we obtained many reports ...
and then there are times where this is not the case.
I presume we’re not getting all reports that exist.
This is strange as there is a legal requirement ...
to forward such information to the authorities.
Almost no reports have been filed by Lufthansa.
But problems with contaminated air exist on the Airbus A340-600 fleet,
as documents in our possession prove.
A possible explanation for this “deficit” is known by Attorney Fischer:
Within Lufthansa there is the requirement for the pilots to report ...
only to their Lufthansa superiors and not to the Government Agencies.
Lufthansa, as before, declines to comment.
But meanwhile their employees are becoming concerned.
Internally the airline admitted:
Lufthansa told us that they assume one event every 2000 take offs and landings.
That would mean one event per day within their European operation alone.
This is a grave concern to us and our passengers.
As we were not given answers as to the extent of this problem ...
we decided to secretly take swab samples from aircraft of well-known airlines.
If we find TCP this would be an indication that oil residue gets into the cabin air ...
and that such events occur much more often than airlines admit.
Professor van Netten has analyzed our samples in Canada.
The results confirm our fears.
For your particular project we have done 31 wipe samples,
and 28 of those were highly positive for tricresyl phosphates.
The highest amount of TCP was found in a sample ...
from this Boeing 757 belonging to Condor:
154.9 micrograms of TCP on a 2 by 2 cm surface.
This is 1000 times higher than the average of all other samples.
We asked Condor for an interview but this was cancelled at short notice.
In a written statement Condor states that they take our findings very seriously,
but they emphasise:
“The existance of TCP on part of the cabin and cockpit equipment ...
does not permit any conclusions about a possible concentration in the cabin air.”
This is correct, as it has not been researched.
But how much TCP is allowable in the cabin?
The expert says:
There shouldn’t be any in the aircraft.
The tricresyl phosphates are meant to be in the engine and not in the aircraft itself.
That certainly means that oil has been burnt and enters the cabin,
and that people are inhaling this material.
This is bad news for passengers, flight attendants and pilots,
as no one can really protect themselves.
And it can happen at any time.
Although the Swedish incident of flight BU 437 was thoroughly investigated,
the results were inadequate in the eyes of Captain Niels Gomer.
And he cannot pilot any aircraft today, due to medical reasons.
But Gomer, like many of his colleagues, also suffers from other effects.
Nevertheless he speaks out:
I lost my licence due to this, and my job.
So I think I can do some guesses because they can’t take anything more from me.
But I would say it is the money.
So it’s the industry, but it’s also governments.
They are very slow to respond ...
because they have lobbies performed towards them,
from different parts of the industries and the airlines.
Until today no preventive measures have been taken by the aviation industry ...
as they may fear a legal battle if they admit the problem.
Regulators and politicians continue to turn a blind eye to the issue.
But incidents occur worldwide as contaminated air ...
enters into the aircraft cabin silently and undetected.
Many people won’t have any sense of smell, so we can’t rely on the pilot’s nose.
There are no detection systems in aircraft, no matter what anyone says.
And therefore if you’ve got no detection systems,
and a pilot or pilots that have no sense of smell,
the passengers down the back are in trouble.
As long as airlines do not report events and are not obliged ...
to inform their staff and passengers when contaminated air is suspected,
the problem will remain unsolved.
Most passengers will probably not connect their sudden strange symptoms ...
like strong headaches or respiratory problems to the flight where, for some moments,
there was this “strange smell” in the cabin.