The Aerotoxic Logbook (ATLB) in English (EN)

Whistleblower protection accepted in the German Bundestag

 A controversial issue so far has been whether whistleblowers and journalists who work with information from whistleblowers should be protected by law if they point out problems, grievances, risks and dangers and - possibly - disclose so-called trade secrets.

 Now the Bundestag agreed on Friday night around 11 pm to a proposal which will guarantee exactly this protection. That was not to foreseeable, but the educational work of many organizations and institutions paid off: Even CDU delegates had voted for it. So far this topic has been a 'non-topic,' i.e., frowned upon, in this party.

The guaranteed protection for whistleblowers and journalists was written into law in connection with the EU's so-called trade secret directive: When companies declare abuses or illegal practices to be "trade secrets," as the directive is supposed to do, they can no longer intimidate potential whistleblowers, whistleblowers or whistleblowers. Some even spoke of a "defining moment' for the parliament."

The AfD and the FDP had voted against protection and freedom of the press.

We are hopeful that information declared as "secret" will now see the light of day more often. For example, it could be done via this BLOG (see safe communication). 

 EASA and Flight Safety Prevention

What is to be thought of the reliability and usefulness of EASA in this respect, EASA boss Patrick KY shared at the Transport Committee of the European Parliament (TRAN) on March 18th: After the fatal crash of a Boeing 737 Max 8 of the Indonesian airline Lion Air in October 2018, EASA knew already a short while afterward about the problems of the not really working MCAS software and the insufficient training of the pilots in handling it. KY now had to admit this in response to questions from MEPs.

No warning followed on the part of EASA. Also, this potential problem was obviously not communicated at all.

Instead, there was now a second crash of such an aircraft of Ethiopian Airlines on March 10th causing 157 deaths. And only now the EASA comes out with such information - after parliamentary inquiries and pressure.

Markus FERBER, the European CSU's Transport Spokesman in the EU Parliament, has a clear opinion on this issue:

"A flight safety authority that only considers a software error a risk only after two aircraft have crashed represents a risk for the citizen himself".

We now want to hear from Markus FERBER whether he also wants to ask EASA about the contaminated cabin air problem. 

After a long silence we are back on the air again: The preparations for the new topic were very elaborate:

Asbestos: A deadly Thriller. Until Today.

The dangers of this mineral are known for over 120 years. According to WHO estimates, around 10 million people have since paid with their lives. In Germany, official statistics show more than 1,600 deaths from asbestos. De facto the numbers might be far higher than 4,000, as extrapolated by the Federal Environment Agency almost 40 years ago.

Moreover, every time someone who has become (occupationally) ill as a result wants to assert their claim, the ‘BG’ ( Berufsgenossenschaft = employer’s liability insurance) calculate the problems as small. The same as with the ‘Aerotoxic Syndrome.’

Difference: everyone knows about asbestos and how dangerous it is. Not so (yet) regarding the contaminated cabin air, this is why we have comprehensively reconstructed the asbestos problem. Now we can draw parallels,  which will be the next step.

The asbestos thriller to this day: can be read at www.ansTageslicht.de/Asbestkrimi (German). And in today's Süddeutsche Zeitung

Now we've reconstructed everything: How a WDR documentary "Nervengift im Flugzeug"(Nerve Toxins in Aircraft)  turned into 2 (different) films – all directed by Tim van BEVEREN. The WDR film disappeared in to their archive. TvB's cinema production is available on DVD or via streaming: unfiltered breathed in.

WDR did not answer our questions, although they had a week to do so. Due to that we can't finally clarify what the public broadcaster’s understanding by "fact check" is - maybe just 'alternative facts'?

The whole story can be found here www.ansTageslicht.de/WDR  (translation in progress)

Once again we received a not very enlightning answer from the BFU. But that is obviously not what this authority is about.

On August 13th of this year, we wanted to find out why the co-pilot of the Germanwings aircraft, which had apparently been involved in a severe fume event on December 19th, 2010 while in the landing phase to Cologne-Bonn Airport (view www.ansTageslicht.de/Germanwings), was not allowed to see a medical report  about his state of health, which was made a whole year later. After this incident, the co-pilot was unfit to fly for over six months,  the captain was able to return to flying just four days later. A typical situation, showing how people’s bodies with their genetic pre-/dispositions metabolize or detox foreign substances differently.

The first answer referred to data protection reason:  because of the need to guarantee the protection of sensitive security information in accordance with Art. 14 of Regulation (EU) 996/2010. Not necessarily comprehensible when someone wants to know the medical results of his own state of health.

Furthermore, we received the answer (which we could not really understand, which is why we repeated the question - in the mean time twice -): That the expert opinion evaluated and compared the facts which are interwoven due to the captain and the co-pilot having experienced the same event. The listing of the clinical data of two people in one medical report does not make sense to us. For data protection reasons, one could black out all the information that the other should not see, which is a common procedure.

For this reason we asked again why this did not happen. And also, if we were to understand the BFU's statement, that the expert opinion considers both the captain and the co-pilot in terms of content at the same time and ‚interwoven’, due to experiencing the same event in such a way,  that the clinical data of both were continuously compared and intertwined? And if that was the case, why was that done? We documented these questions on November 7th.

We have received an answer to that, which we summarize here. We would like to spare our readers’ the trouble of trying to figure out the somewhat cumbersome answers.

The BFU press office answered our question no. 1, whether we were to understand the first answer (that the report considers both pilots together), in such a way that all clinical data are continuously interwoven with each other, with:

Instead of answering yes or no (for clarity), they convolute a series of 143 words and numbers to - 853. „Yes“ would have meant 2, „No“  would have been 4 characters. And the original explanatory phrase also reappears in the bundle, to which we had requested an answer for reasons of clarity (see above).

According to the BFU, our question as to whether this was intentionally done and/or whether it was customary for the BFU to do so, was unnecessary, as it was answered in the set of explanatory 143 words.

However (answer to our questions 5 and 6), in such cases the persons concerned can view a draft of the final report, which they could comment on.

‚Report’ however does not mean that it includes the medical opinion, only the final report of the investigation of the "event" in question. So, that what is not (or should not be) included in the final report must not be revealed to those affected. At any rate, the BFU's wording on this point is crystal clear.