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‘All my flight attendants have headaches’: Pilot’s message as crew mysteriously falls ill
Four out of five flight attendants on a Frontier Airlines flight mysteriously fell sick mid-air on Thursday, leading to the declaration of a medical emergency
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Four out of five flight attendants on a Frontier Airlines flight mysteriously fell sick mid-air on Thursday morning, leading to the declaration of a medical emergency on board. Frontier Flight 1046 was traveling from Cleveland to Fort Lauderdale on August 13 when the flight attendants began to complain of headache and nausea.
According to a PYOK report, the pilots requested emergency medical responders to meet the plane on arrival at Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
What the pilots told air traffic controllers
One of the pilots alerted air traffic controllers to a "developing medical" situation on the flight.
"If you could call the tower and have them meet at our gate for a developing medical," the pilot said in the radio call.
Asked to provide further details, the pilot said that all the flight attendants had taken ill and four were complaining of nausea.
"All my flight attendants have headaches, and now three, now four, are nauseous," the pilot said.
The flight landed in Fort Lauderdale without incident and medical responders met the affected attendants at the gate.
What caused the illness?
The cause of the flight attendants’ illness was not immediately clear. According to the PYOK report, however, such incidents have been described as ‘fume events’ or ‘toxic fume events’ and typically occur when engine oil or another chemical used within the aircraft engine gets vaporized and sucked into the air conditioning system of the airplane.
Comments on Instagram seemed to confirm this theory.
“I am a former flight attendant and this is almost certainly a fume event, I experienced quite a few fume events, none nearly as severe as this. However I suffered from severe nose bleeding as an FA,” wrote one Instagram user.
“A dangerous Fume Event that the aviation industry is trying to keep quiet. Really hope they get the right treatment and recover well,” another said.
