It’s not supposed to happen, at least according to the airline industry, but there’s a growing acceptance by the World Health Organization and even the US Congress that toxic fumes can seep into airplane cabins, causing anything from nausea to long-term neurological problems in the crew and passengers.
Admittedly, the phenomenon— known as a fume event—is relatively rare, but some pessimistic estimates reckon it happens on at least 1 percent of flights. If that’s true, of the 100,000 flights taking off every day around the globe, a fume event is happening on a thousand of them.
Although fume events have been a feature of air travel since jet engines were refigured in the mid-1950s to draw cabin air from the engine, the airline industry has consistently denied they happen—and, if they do, they don’t cause any health problems—and they have recruited scientists to agree with them.
But the tide is finally turning, and it’s
