Toxic Fumes Are Leaking Into Airplanes, Sickening Crews and Passengers

Posted4 months agoActive3 months ago

yeknoda

50 points

16 comments

wsj.comResearchstory

skepticalnegative

Debate

60/100

Air Travel SafetyToxic FumesAviation Technology

Key topics

Air Travel Safety

Toxic Fumes

Aviation Technology

The WSJ article reveals that toxic fumes are leaking into airplanes, causing health issues for passengers and crew, sparking discussion on the safety of air travel and potential mitigations.

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01Story posted
Sep 13, 2025 at 9:49 PM EDT
4 months ago
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02First comment
Sep 13, 2025 at 10:02 PM EDT
12m after posting
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03Peak activity
10 comments in Day 1
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04Latest activity
Sep 24, 2025 at 11:06 PM EDT
3 months ago
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Discussion (16 comments)

Showing 15 comments of 16

anonym29

4 months ago

1 reply

Looks like WSJ finally killed archive.is.

Anyone have any alternatives?

bookofjoe

4 months ago

https://www.wsj.com/business/airlines/air-travel-toxic-fumes...

elmerfud

4 months ago

1 reply

A lot of people think planes are this sealed tube in the air. Nope, they use compressor stages of the engines to pressurize the cabins. This kind of thing can happen. They should have been able to close off the effected engine from pressurizing the cabin and the other should have been able to clear the air quickly, unless the was another failure too.

I've been on some where you can smell the jet fuel (kerosene) when they start the engine because they forgot to close off the cabin. They said it was normal and "harmless". It was probably harmless for me, considering the infrequent flights I take, but not to cabin crew.

bn-l

4 months ago

1 reply

Do planes use leaded fuel?

rcxdude

4 months ago

Not something like a passenger jet. Leaded fuel is generally a thing for smaller general aviation aircraft where the designs are ancient and there's a huge barrier to updating anything about how they are operated within regulatory boundaries (which might, finally, have been worked through and there's now I think a lead-free alternative).

LargoLasskhyfv

4 months ago

2 replies

Airbus A350, Airbus A220(ex Bombardier C-Series), Boeing 787, Embraer E-Jet E2 Series, don't use it. Maybe future models of ATR-72(or descendants) won't.

bob_theslob646

4 months ago

1 reply

Is there any easy way to book flights that displays the plane model information?

LargoLasskhyfv

4 months ago

In theory probably. On sites like:

https://matrix.itasoftware.com/search

https://www.flighthub.com

https://www.ca.kayak.com

any many others.

In practice not so much, because of so called "code sharing" of flight numbers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codeshare_agreement

Which can lead to sudden surprises, because the plane/carrier changed for whichever operational reasons at the last minute.

appreciatorBus

3 months ago

I don’t think this is correct. As far as I understand, the 787 is the only commercial airliner that does not use bleed air.

Outside of that, different models that use bleed air may have different susceptibility to problems, but they all use it.

OutOfHere

4 months ago

1 reply

I advise always tightly wearing a "3M Particulate Respirator 8577, P95, NIOSH APPROVED, with Nuisance Level Organic Vapor Relief" mask while in flight. An N95 won't do it, and a P95 without the carbon layer won't do it either.

Even then, obviously it won't help with carbon monoxide. Only the oxygen mask could. I would stick to Boeing planes for now to lower the risk since it's greater in Airbus planes.

Note that a standard pulse oximeter could continue to falsely show good oxygenation when having carbon monoxide poisoning, so do not trust it then if it shows a high value.

bob_theslob646

4 months ago

1 reply

Is there any simple way to detect the presence of this while aboard?

OutOfHere

4 months ago

Yes. Search for CO meter on Amazon, many of which are portable enough to be placed in a backpack. I used to have one, but its battery leaked which damaged it. These days there are disposable lithium batteries and also models with a built-in rechargeable battery. There are also some that measure both CO and CO2, and it's good to measure both. An example is B0CRQZNPLV.

Note that some these meters can alarm, and sometimes alarms can be false, so if you don't want one that alarms, then find that one.

Note that there is nothing much that one can do while in flight except take pictures, videos, complain loudly, change seats from back to front, threaten to sue, maybe use the oxygen mask if lucky, and take down information of other passengers, all before fainting.

mitchbob

4 months ago

https://archive.ph/2kNLj

4d4m

4 months ago

Another name for this is Toxic Air Syndrome

burnt-resistor

4 months ago

I refuse to fly. 75% of the time I've flown, I've smelled the diesel fuel-like odor of Jet A in the cabin at startup. It's way too normalized.

Also, like astronauts, flight crew receive significant cumulative ionizing radiation exposure.

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