Suit over cabin air quality could change the industry Boeing and Honeywell are accused of knowing for years that design flaws in MD-80s and DC-9s let harmful chemicals into aircraft cabins
By Byron Acohido
USA TODAY

SEATTLE -- Three Alaska Airlines managers conducted an extraordinary experiment on an MD-80 jet in 1996. Frustrated by complaints about noxious mists on MD-80 flights, the managers tried to recreate the problem on a jet parked inside a hangar.

John Fowler, then chief of maintenance, ordered a mechanic to squirt 8 ounces of hydraulic fluid into a scooplike ''air inlet'' on the jet's underbelly, where it was sucked in by a small engine pumping fresh air into the passenger cabin.

In a few minutes, the managers noticed a waviness in the air inside the cabin that looked like automobile exhaust or a heat wave. ''I recall a metallic taste in my mouth, some burning around the eyes and sensitivity in my nose,'' Fowler would say later.

Fowler told his story recently during a trial that's been unfolding for 10 weeks in state superior court here. Twenty-six current and former Alaska Airlines flight attendants say they have suffered severe neurological damage from being repeatedly exposed to toxic chemicals on MD-80 flights during the 1980s and 1990s.

The case is expected to go to the jury this month, and the verdict could ripple well beyond Seattle, Alaska Airlines' hometown. A victory for the flight attendants could damage the public's confidence in the more than 1,700 MD-80s and DC-9s, the MD-80's predecessor model, used by airlines worldwide. It could also force airlines and aircraft makers to confront contaminated air problems that regularly turn up on other models. And it might stir further action to reduce the health risks for millions who fly, especially flight crews, young children and people sensitive to certain chemicals.

''This is a big environmental issue with serious consequences,'' says Jean Christophe Balouet, an environmental consultant based in Paris who has worked for flight crew unions in several countries. Airlines and aircraft makers, he says, have been ''reluctant to admit contamination takes place because they'd have to compensate the people who have been exposed.''

Last year, the Alaska flight attendants won a $725,000 out-of-court settlement from Alaska Airlines, and now they're going after two of the nation's biggest companies: Boeing and Honeywell.

The plaintiffs contend both companies have known for decades that the MD-80 and DC-9 have design flaws that make it easy for leaking chemical fluids to get sucked into the auxiliary power unit, or APU, and mix with cabin air. The APU is a small turbine engine used to generate electricity and circulate cabin air before takeoff.

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