We hear a lot of incidents concerning fume development in the cockpit. I mean, a lot of flights who are.......

Question

...... flying from A to B in the US have the problem that, while in cruising level, there is fume coming out of the cockpit. So, of course, they say it to ATC and get an alternate aiport. BUT: What would they do if they are flying from the US to Europe, over the Atlantic? If they are at half-way, and with like a B767, and there is fume suddenly coming out, what would they do. The next alternate would be hours away (ETOPS)......

Answer 1

Well, that is a pretty worst case scenario!   If minor, obviously they could take a wait and watch stance.  If more major (especially with loss of instruments or the like) they can put on their oxygen masks and smoke hood (or goggles) and radio to declare an emergency.  With GPS no time would be lost calculating an exact position.  Worst case, the pilots will have to prepare the plane and passengers to ditch in the water.  Worse than that, the plane is lost with all souls on board.

Answer 2

i got somethin else that comes outta my cockpit LMAO

Answer 3

xactly y and wat type of fumes r coming outta there. i mean there cant just b fumes coming out.

Answer 4

If by fumes you mean an oil smell, that is no big deal. I'm not saying it is common, but it does happen. I overhaul and build jet engines, and many of them I work on come in because the pilot reported an oil smell in the cabin. What causes this in most cases is a leaking seal in the front bearing compartment. Basically oil is leaking into the air going through the engine. Because this air is being routed straight from the engine to the various pneumatic systems (air conditioner), you will sometimes smell this oil.

It's an annoying problem, but it's not a dangerous one.

Answer 5

How many is "a lot" of incidents?  Smoke or fumes in the cockpit or cabin is a very rare occurrence, and even when it happens, it is only occasionally dangerous.  And pilots have oxygen masks that they can use if they really need to.  If something pollutes the air in the cockpit, the flight can divert if necessary.  From time to time flights divert because of something odd in the air in the cabin or cockpit, and these flights typically end uneventfully.

ETOPS diversion time limits are based on one engine, not two.  Diverting with all engines running is considerably faster.

Answer 6

I believe you have gotten a mistaken impression about this somewhere.  Smoke in the flight deck is a rare occurrence.

I used to fly airliners back and forth across the Pacific carrying passengers from (among other places) Indochina and the Pacific Islands.  Some of these had recently eaten local dishes made of rotten fish guts and chili peppers and similar concoctions.

When you came down from the flight deck at the end of a long trip, you could say there were "fumes" in the passenger cabins.  Whew!

That was an everyday thing.  But smoke in the flight deck is very rare.  It would imply an electrical problem, and in 40 years of professional flying I had that happen exactly once, and we fixed it by turning a switch off, and that was that.

As mentioned, if something happened like that at some distance from an airport, the oxygen system would protect both crew and passengers.

So enjoy your flight.

Answer 7

They'll put their masks and goggles on and go to the smoke/fume checklist, or its equivalent. The checklist will have them do all sorts of stuff, depending on whether it's an electrical or air conditioning source. Generally speaking, they'll eventually end up blowing the fumes out and descending to 10,000'. The increased fuel burn at the lower altitude was considered in the planning stage of the flight, so it should be on board.

There are plenty of alternates when you're headed across the Atlantic. You've got Goose Bay, Gander, Sondre Stromfjord, Reykevik, Prestwick, Shannon, and others. The real trick would be to have this problem at the ETP between the West Coast and Hawaii. San Francisco and Hilo are about 2100nm apart and they are your closest alternates available.