Commercial Air Carriers Research Articles

How Safe Is the Food We Eat?

In this issue of JAMA , three useful studies are presented that demonstrate the potential of transmission of bacterial enteropathogens through food vehicles destined for public consumption. In the first, 1 an impressive number of Campylobacter jejuni outbreaks were reported to be associated with drinking raw milk (the outbreaks were most common among young children during school functions). In the second, 2 a multistate outbreak of Salmonella javiana and Salmonella oranienburg was caused by contaminated cheese from a single manufacturing plant. In the third, 3 an extensive Shigella outbreak occurred as a result of consumption of contaminated cold sandwiches prepared in an airline flight kitchen and served on a commercial air carrier. The fact that the airline-associated illness involved a professional football team brought the outbreak to the attention of the health authorities. See also pp 3203, 3208, and 3228. While the reported outbreaks relate to different bacterial enteropathogens and vehicles

Air Travel in Patients With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Air travel exposes patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to the risk of severe hypoxemia. We sought to determine the frequency and outcome of airline travel in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. A cohort of 100 patients (76 men and 24 women; age 67 +/- 7 years [mean +/- SD]) with severe chronic pulmonary obstructive disease examined by means of spirometry (forced expiratory volume in the first second, 0.04 +/- 0.35 L), all military retirees, or their dependents, comprised the study population. Forty-four patients traveled by commercial air carrier over a 28-month interval, giving an annual frequency of 18.9% of these patients per year. The group that did not travel by air (n = 56) had a lower mean value for forced expiratory volume in the first second and greater prevalence of home oxygen use than did the group that did travel by air. Twelve of the travelers (27.3%) consulted a physician beforehand. Flights reached foreign destinations for 22.7% of patients. The median duration of the longest flight segment was 3 hours. A minority of patients (34.3%) occupied seats in the smoking sections of aircraft. A majority (56.8%) ambulated aboard the aircraft during flights. Eight patients (18.2%) reported transient symptoms during air travel. We conclude that patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease travel with appreciable frequency, often without medical consultation, and develop symptoms in some cases.

In-flight Deaths-Reply

In Reply.— Drs Davis and Schurict raise two important points about our article on in-flight deaths during commercial air travel: first, that the data reported by commercial air carriers on travel-related deaths and on in-flight medical emergencies are an inaccurate underestimate of the problem, and second, that a new definition of deaths related to air travel is necessary. I agree strongly with both points. Other articles 1-3 have discussed the problems of in-flight deaths and medical emergencies, and they concur that underreporting occurs. In a 6-month survey at Los Angeles (Calif) International Airport, Speizer and colleagues 1 observed 7 in-flight deaths out of 8.74 million passenger arrivals. This rate of 0.8 deaths per million passengers is significantly higher than the rate of 0.31 deaths per million passengers recorded in the voluntary airline reports to the International Air Travelers Association. 4 We recently reported on air traveler deaths in a 1-year

Is cholera a problem for US travelers?

Only ten cases of cholera in US travelers have been reported since the current cholera pandemic began in 1961. No important risk factors were apparent from assessing the age, place of acquisition, duration of mode of travel before infection, or history of cholera vaccination of the travelers who acquired cholera. All of the patients received medical treatment and all recovered; there were no secondary cases. Nine of the ten were infected by Vibrio cholerae 01 El Tor, the strain responsible for the current pandemic. Using the number of US citizens returning to the United States by commercial air carrier from Asia, Africa, and Oceania to estimate the population at risk, we found that the chance of acquiring a reported case of cholera is less than one case per 500,000 returning travelers.

National Risk Assessment for Carbon Fibers Released from Aircraft Fires

Carbon fibers released from accidental aircraft fires may present a hazard in electronic equipment within u large radius. Two separate methodologies to quantify the associated economic risks were developed and applied, each providing a useful general approach to probabilistic risk assessment. For the case of commercial air carrier accidents, which are infrequent but may release large amounts of carbon fiber. A Monte Carlo simulation was performed for 26 major airports and then the results were aggregated into a national risk profile. For the case of general aviation accidents, which are frequent but release only small amounts, an analytic approach based on the Poisson process was used to estimate the risk profile. The results indicated that the potential economic losses due to carbon fiber usage in civilian aircraft were relatively low.

At the Dawn of Commercial Aviation: Inglis M. Uppercu and Aeromarine Airways

Only a few years before Juan Trippe of Pan American Airways successfully established an international commercial air carrier based upon the flying boat, Inglis M. Uppercu, with apparently ample financial and managerial resources, failed to do so. In telling why, Professor Leary demonstrates the overwhelming importance of timing and a knowledge of the exact nature of market opportunities in the entrepreneurial process.

Compulsory Retirement of Air Line Pilots

One of the basic issues behind the continuing controversy over mandatory versus discretionary retirement of older workers is the capacity of such workers to meet standards of performance. In particular, it is debated whether there is any close association between age and performance, such as to justify the establishment of an arbitrary age at which all members of a particular occupational group should be required to retire from that employment. This issue has become acute in the air lines since the issuance of a regulation by the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Agency, on March 15, 1960, forbidding any individual who had attained age 60 to continue in service as a pilot on a scheduled air carrier. This regulation, which is now in litigation, was preceded by a series of retirement disputes between the Air Line Pilots Association and various commercial air carriers under the Railway Labor Act. This article traces these disputes, describes the arguments involved in the legal contest over the FAA directive, and discusses the industrial relations developments which may follow if the retirement regulation is sustained in the courts. (Author's abstract courtesy EBSCO.)

Radio Rack Cooling in Present Commercial Aircraft

Limited heat dissipation from the necessarily compact electronic equipment installations of airline aircraft has been a problem to commercial air carriers for many years. To deal with this problem, United Air Lines, in August, 1955, began equipping fleet aircraft with a forced air electronic equipment cooling system, with the following objectives: 1) improvement of electronic equipment reliability, 2) reduction of crew discomfort caused by electronic-equipment generated heat in the flight deck area, and 3) evacuation of any smoke from the flight deck area which might arise from electronic equipment failure. Observation of electronic equipment maintenance records during the subsequent transition period from convection to forced air equipment cooling shows characteristic failure rate trends which indicate the dependence of equipment reliability on operating temperature. These patterns occur independently in fleet records for the Convair 340, and DC-6 and DC-6B fleets, in time phase with the progress of conversion to forced air cooling in the fleet. These records, in conjunction with other comparative testing of forced cooled and convective cooled equipment installations indicate that forced air cooling provides an effective answer to airline equipment heat problems.