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Scores of pilots and flight attendants have suffered brain and nerve damage akin to battered NFL players after breathing toxic fumes leaking into airplane cockpits and cabins, according to an investigation.
Since 2010, airlines have filed thousands of reports with the Federal Aviation Administration warning toxic fumes are seeping into cockpits and cabins. The leaks come from a system that draws in engine air and pushes it through the plane unfiltered, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The number of cases has surged in recent years, with Airbus’s widely used A320 jets at the center of the spike, records obtained by the Journal show.
One Delta jet bound for South Carolina was forced back to Atlanta after thick white smoke poured through overhead vents in the cabin, sending crew members and passengers scrambling for air.
“Breathe through your clothing, stay low,” a Delta flight attendant told passengers over the loudspeaker at the time as the pilots declared an emergency.
JetBlue flight attendant Florence Chesson said she was left with a traumatic brain injury and permanent nerve damage after breathing contaminated air on a flight to Puerto Rico.
She recalled feeling drugged in midair, then watched a fellow crew member collapse and vomit before both were rushed to a hospital after landing.
“I felt like I was talking gibberish,” Chesson told the Journal, recalling how she kept repeating, “What just happened to me? What just happened to me?”
The next morning, she woke up feeling like her brain was on fire, she said.
“I felt like someone poured gasoline and lit a match,” Chesson said.
Her neurologist, Dr. Robert Kaniecki, compared the damage to a chemical concussion “extraordinarily similar” to those suffered by NFL linebackers after brutal hits.
Kaniecki said he has treated more than 100 flight attendants and about a dozen pilots for brain injuries tied to toxic cabin air over the past two decades. He described repeated exposures as “micro concussions” that primed crews for a major event — “the straw that breaks the camel’s back.”
Dr. Robert Harrison, an occupational medicine specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, told the Journal he has treated more than 100 aircrew for injuries linked to fumes.
“This is real, this can’t be just all in their heads,” he said.
A Delta rep told The Post on Sunday that the airline’s “safety management system and safety culture help us address root causes of potential issues to reinforce that air transportation remains the safest form of travel in the world.”
A Delta source added, “Smoke, fumes and odor events are exceedingly rare though we take each seriously, as we do with all matters of safety. Delta and Delta Connection operate approximately 5,000 daily flights.
“Delta teams have taken action to replace auxiliary power units on our A320 family fleet of aircraft. This is work that continues and is more than 80 percent complete.”
Airbus and Boeing have admitted that oil and hydraulic fluid can leak from engines and vaporize at extreme heat, releasing toxic compounds into the air supply.
In an internal 2017 email revealed in a lawsuit, Boeing quality inspector Steven Reiman warned oil leaks could make “aircrew sick to the point of death.”
Publicly, Boeing insists, “the cabin air inside Boeing airplanes is safe,” while Airbus said its aircraft meet “all relevant and applicable airworthiness requirements.”
The FAA says such tainted-air incidents are “rare.”
But records reviewed by the Journal showed the rate of fume events has climbed to nearly 108 per million departures.
An FAA safety inspector warned in 2018 that modern jet oils contained organophosphates once used “as a nerve agent for warfare” and were entering cabins unfiltered.
At JetBlue and Spirit, which operate mostly Airbus jets, the frequency of A320 fume incidents spiked 660% between 2016 and 2024.
Under pressure from airlines, Airbus loosened its maintenance rules in 2016, allowing aircraft that emitted “sweaty sock” odors to keep flying without immediate inspection.
JetBlue pilot Andrew Myers reportedly collapsed after inhaling fumes during a maintenance test and was later diagnosed with a “chemical-induced nervous system injury.”
He lost his FAA medical license in what became the first US case where a court recognized long-term health damage from a fume event.
“There are pilots that we’re both aware of that should not be flying,” his wife Wendy told the Journal.
Florentina Tudor, a senior cabin crew member at Wizz Air, reported about 10 fume events in the year before she was suspended and later fired.
She said a captain dismissed a sick colleague as “just pretending” before medics carried the attendant away.
“At some point I asked myself, is it just me, am I paranoid?” Tudor said.
In 2017, then–NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt was told of a fume event but said it fell outside the agency’s jurisdiction.
A recent FAA-funded study found chemicals such as formaldehyde and tridecane exceeded workplace safety limits when vaporized at engine heat levels.
“It’s clear to me that there’s concerning data in these studies, and it’s inappropriately downplayed,” Joseph Allen, a Harvard air-quality specialist, told the Journal.
Airbus told customers last year that its “Project Fresh” redesign could cut cabin odor events by 85% with a relocated vent, but the fix will apply only to new jets starting in 2026.
English (US)