WASHINGTON, D.C. — The National Transportation Safety Board has issued two safety alerts to increase awareness among aircraft mechanics and pilots of the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Safety Alerts SA-070 and SA-069 warn mechanics and pilots that the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning is generally overlooked and underestimated — a dangerous prospect given that many internal combustion engine airplanes are heated by air warmed by exhaust systems using a heater shroud.
A defect or leak in the exhaust pipes or muffler can introduce the colorless, odorless and tasteless gas into the cockpit, with sometimes fatal results.
A recent post in the NTSB’s blog Safety Compass detailed an investigator’s efforts that led to determining carbon monoxide poisoning’s role in one such fatal crash.
The NTSB encourages aircraft mechanics to inspect exhaust systems, air ducting, firewalls, and door and window seals thoroughly at every 100-hour or annual inspection.
The agency encourages pilots to install a carbon monoxide detector on the instrument panel of their aircraft, noting that detectors with aural alerts and a flash notification are more likely to draw a pilot’s attention to the potentially lethal condition.
The NTSB also produced companion videos for the alerts, available on the NTSB’s YouTube channel:
I work in the oilfield and we wear H2S monitors. In the cockpit of my Cessna T182T I have a CO monitor made by BW Technologies (Honeywell) called GasAlertClip2. It costs $212 (Amazon) and lasts for two years. You can’t do better than this if CO poisoning is a threat you take seriously.