Updated Jul 1, 2009 - 3:52 pm
Lawsuit targets air circulation on Boeing jets
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KIRO Radio
A lawsuit filed against Boeing claims that a plane's defective ventilation system lead to the circulation of toxic air and may be the cause of irreversible health problems.
In April of 2007, an American Airlines flight attendant said she saw a cloudy haze in the first class cabin as passengers were getting off a McDonnell Douglas airplane.
Terry Williams, forty-year-old former flight attendant, began suffering almost immediately from daily chronic pain, uncontrollable coughing and migraines, claiming that now she can't work.
"I believed that the airlines would be safe," Williams said. "I believed that the FAA wouldn't allow an aircraft to go out and contaminate people of toxic chemicals."
Attorney Mike Withey said the last thing Williams thought she would be exposed to was a toxic nerve agent.
The legal complaint states that the plane's manufacturers knew or should have known that toxic nerve agents, contaminates and dangerous fumes could bleed into the plane's ventilation system and cause serious or irreversible health effects.
Withey said that Boeing should have known about the defective ventilation system that was posing a health risk to everyone and it needs to be held responsible.
"Their delivery system poses a risk beyond which the average consumer would ever expect and therefore it is defective," Withey said.
Williams said she hopes the problem will be fixed in the near future.
"I want everybody who steps on an airplane to be safe," Williams said.
Boeing's only response has been to say the company believes "the air in airplane cabins is safe."
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