Pilots and Flight Attendants On Delta Air Jet to Paris Sickened After Strange Odor Fills Cockpit and Cabin of Airbus A330

Both the Captain and the First Officer on a Delta Air Lines flight from Boston to Paris, along with five flight attendants, had to be taken to the hospital after they were sickened when a strange odor started to fill the cockpit and cabin last week.

Delta Air flight DL224 departed Boston at around 7:42 pm on August 7, but shortly after takeoff, the flight attendants reported that there were fumes in the cabin and that several of the crew members were feeling unwell.

What’s interesting, however, is that the Captain felt discomfort in his eyes while the five-year-old Airbus A330 was still taxiing for takeoff, and around the same time, the First Officer said that he detected a slight odor in the cockpit.

Despite the strange odor, the flight departed Boston as normal. The pilots quickly stopped the climb as they attempted to determine exactly what was going on.

A third ‘relief pilot’ was dispatched into the cabin to assess the situation, but they didn’t detect any kind of odor. Shortly afterwards, the Captain went into the cabin to see if they could find out what was going on.

After returning to the cockpit, the Captain decided to divert the aircraft back to Boston and prepared for an overweight landing rather than entering a holding pattern to burn off fuel.

The aircraft landed without incident back in Boston nearly an hour and a half after takeoff, where it was met by emergency responders who took the crew members to a local hospital. All seven crew members were later discharged after a medical evaluation.

A common cause of strange inflight odor events is when so-called bleed air from the aircraft engines becomes contaminated with oil vapor. On most aircraft, fresh air to the cabin is supplied via the engines which is then filtered by the onboard air-conditioning system.

Sometimes, an oil leak can cause vapor to mix with the outside air being bled through the engine into the aircraft which, in turn, can cause smoke-like conditions and a strange odor which is often described as smelling like damp or dirty socks.

In this case, however, Canada’s Transportation Safety Board which carried out an investigation because the aircraft was in Canadian airspace when it diverted, said that Delta’s maintenance personnel had carried out an inspection of both engines and the auxiliary power unit, and carried out engine test runs but couldn’t find any evidence of a strange odor onboard.

The aircraft remained on the ground for nearly two days in Boston before being returned to service.