A flight attendant who says repeated exposure to toxic cabin fumes left her with permanent lung damage is now at the center of an Orlando congressman's push to overhaul how airplanes get their air. Cher Taylor, a member of the Association of Flight Attendants, says she was diagnosed with acute asthma and reactive airway disease that she will carry for the rest of her life, the result of what she and others call recurring fume events aboard commercial jets.
Taylor's case is featured in a report from WKMG, drawing on reporting from CBS News, that ties her health problems to a mechanical quirk built into nearly every commercial jetliner flying today. On most of these planes, fresh air for the cabin is drawn in through the engines, and if an engine seal fails, oil and other potentially toxic particles can be released into the air passengers and crew breathe, according to CBS News. Flight attendants have a name for it: a fume event.
Taylor says she has experienced three serious fume events over her career, describing the smell as distinctive, like a dirty sock. Her most severe episode, in 2023, sent her to the emergency room. She reported symptoms including burning eyes and nose, chest pain, dizziness, headache and vomiting, according to the same report.
Frost's Bill Aims at the Air System Itself
Democratic Congressman Maxwell Frost, who represents Orlando, introduced bipartisan legislation that would require filters on bleed-air systems and eventually phase out their use altogether. Mike Lawler and John Garamendi are among the other lawmakers supporting or co-sponsoring the bill. Frost said the legislation will end use of what he calls the antiquated air system. The official description of the bill posted to GovInfo says it would require the FAA administrator to issue regulations phasing out bleed-air systems in certain aircraft, though Florida Phoenix has characterized Frost's proposal as phasing out bleed-air systems in all commercial aircraft entirely and requiring filters on new aircraft, a discrepancy that has not been resolved between the two accounts.
Flight attendants interviewed in the reporting advise passengers to report any suspected fume event immediately to the flight crew. Eric Johnson, a passenger quoted in the coverage, said he sometimes experiences headaches or difficulty breathing on planes and believes continued investigation and airline diligence are important going forward.
How Often Do These Events Happen?
Just how common fume events are depends heavily on who is counting. A CBS News review of FAA incident reports found similar smoke or fume events occurring on airliners more than three times a day, while Rep. Mike Lawler has cited an average of five fume events reported to the FAA every single day, according to Florida Phoenix. A 2016 study of more than 30 aircraft models put the rate even higher, concluding fume events happen on more than one in every 5,000 flights, or roughly nine incidents a day across the country, per the Charlotte Observer.
The FAA, for its part, has said cabin-air-quality events happen on fewer than one in every 30,000 flights, and maintains that cabin air meets strict standards, as good as or better than the air found in offices and homes. The agency said airlines are required to report these incidents to the FAA, which investigates the causes before an aircraft returns to service. The Observer's own review of FAA service-difficulty reports found more than 650 that mentioned fume or fumes in 2024 alone, and more than 3,700 over the preceding decade.
Decades of Uncertainty Over the Numbers
The disagreement over frequency is not new. A 2002 National Research Council report found that the true rate of air-quality incidents involving contaminants such as engine oils and hydraulic fluids was not known, partly because airline data were often treated as proprietary and systematic reporting methods were lacking, according to the National Academies. The report also underscored the uncertainty over how often such incidents occur.
Past incidents illustrate the stakes when things go wrong. In June 2023, four American Airlines crew members were hospitalized for evaluation after fumes sickened them on a plane preparing to depart Cleveland for Charlotte, the Observer reported. In January 2018, an American Airlines flight from Charlotte to the Dominican Republic turned back mid-flight after passengers and crew noticed a strong odor, with a flight attendant later hospitalized. And in January 2017, seven crew members on a flight from Charlotte to Orlando reported headaches and a strange odor and were briefly hospitalized. More recently, six crew members and a gate agent were hospitalized after odors sickened people aboard a plane at Charlotte Douglas International Airport before takeoff, the paper noted.
Delta Points to Fixes
Delta has said it is replacing auxiliary power units on its A320 fleet, work the airline described as about 80 percent complete as of Monday, according to CBS News. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner offers a glimpse of an alternative approach: it was the first major commercial aircraft designed without an engine bleed-air system, using electric compressors driven by generators on the engines to supply cabin pressurization and air conditioning instead, according to Airways.
For now, the competing estimates on how often fume events occur, and the differing descriptions of exactly what Frost's bill would require, remain unresolved. What is clear is that Taylor's experience, and those of other crew members detailed in the reporting, have put renewed pressure on lawmakers and regulators to settle the question of what passengers and flight crews are really breathing at 35,000 feet.
