Travel the plane? That's how much air hurts inside.

How poisonous is the air in the cabin, and how dangerous are the effects to health?

The stewardess Kerstin Konrad well remembers the so-called” Fume Event”, as it is called in pilot language, air pollution on the plane.

In the back of the cabin, colleagues had smelled a strange smell.

The captain of the team had asked Kerstin Conrad to verify the situation.

I went and blew up my air pipes”, recalls Konrad.

I immediately felt severe headaches of my head and stomach, then a tremor on my limbs, which spread like a sort of numbness”.

Kerstin Konrad recalls that she was still confused and unable to perform the simplest of actions. I couldn't even tell the fluids anymore, it looks crazy, and so it was”, she says. ” I sat and looked staring, unable to do anything”

228 cases recorded annually

228 “Fume Events”, air pollution cases have been reported to “German Center for Accident Study at Avian” (BfU). Even higher is the figure that cabin personnel and pilots let employers know, reports German television ZDF based on aircraft documents.

If a pilot becomes a victim of air pollution, this situation may quickly turn into a major danger. But pilots can quickly wear masks that supply oxygen when they feel a strange wind. Passengers and stewardesses do not have that option, masks for them are only in the event of a drop in air pressure, supplied with oxygen - enriched cabin air.

Effects on Pilots

Jens Friedemann, an aircraft accident specialist, says that the subx0 circumstances that make pilots use oxygen masks, or the case of a pilot's inability to work are cases that we see in terms of air pollution. ”

Through this encryption filter it is achieved to register only 228 cases of “

The steward Kerstin Konrad thought she would not be touched by this phenomenon when she read about it. I thought this was as frequent as the plane crash, so extremely rare, and it won't touch me. ”

But by 2013 it has been affected four times by air pollution in the cabin, sometimes accompanied by smell, sometimes not. But she's always felt a headache, a stomach, a sense of numbness and frustration. But the worst for her is that the effects on her health are long-term and she is no longer seen as capable of being part of the flight team.

I've always been passionate and couldn't imagine that my employer considers the risk of being touched in such a way”, she says. “Discent nervous system and limited lung function” ) Konrad health problems are confirmed by the doctor. But the causes of such problems are debated.

What's wrong?

The air in the cabin is offered by aircraft turbines, but in this process it can be contaminated with components of carozine, oil, or plumbing. Producers and flight societies deny it. “The air supply system is used as standard from the 1960s for flights. He has shown himself to be resistant and reliable”, says Claudius Nehring of the German Federal Economics Association Air Traffic (BdL). “This is added to the air being taken from motor-burning rooms, caroline and burning as the process comes later, writes Tiranaobserver. Technically, it's disfellowshipped so the air is contaminated with gas or waste from burning”, Nehrig tells DW.

Technically disfellowshipped, however, medical Astrid Heutelbeck discovers through biomonitoring in blood and the urine of those affected by” Fume event” just such waste that is excluded from the flight authorities. “In Human Biomonitoring we find components that are not described as part of the normal environment, but as components of Kerozine, oil and plumbing juice”, the doctor says.

It has even been proven that these substances damage the nervous system and lungs, says the director of the Environment and Work Agency at the University of Göttingen. By 2014, Heutelbeck has treated “several hundred patients” of the air flight branch with such symptoms.