Germanwings A319 between Stuttgart and Hamburg on May 11th 2016, two cabin crew poisoned by carbon monoxide

Last Update: June 7, 2016 / 01:13:42 GMT/Zulu time

Bookmark this article

Photo of Germanwings D-AGWZ, Airbus A319 — Germanwings D-AGWZ, Airbus A319 (Photo credit: TAP Tosta Aviation Pictures / Flickr / License: CC by-nd)

Incident Facts

Date of incident
May 11, 2016

Classification
Accident

Airline
Germanwings

Flight number
4U-7048

Departure
Hamburg, Germany

Destination
Stuttgart, Germany

Aircraft Registration
D-AGWZ

Aircraft Type
Airbus A319

ICAO Type Designator
A319

A Germanwings Airbus A319-100, registration D-AGWZ performing flight 4U-7048 from Hamburg to Stuttgart (Germany), was on approach to Stuttgart when the flight crew declared medical emergency reporting two cabin crew had become ill and were incapacitated. The aircraft continued for a safe landing on Stuttgart's runway 07. The two flight attendants were treated by paramedics and an emergency doctor until being stable enough for a transport to a hospital.

The occurrence aircraft remained on the ground in Stuttgart for 10 hours, then resumed service the following morning.

The aircraft had already performed flights 4U-7042 from Hamburg to Stuttgart and 4U-7043 from Stuttgart back to Hamburg with the same flight and cabin crew. Two cabin crew members, working mainly in the aft cabin/galley, felt increasingly unwell with headache and lack of energy, a third cabin crew temporarily felt unwell after walking to the back of the cabin, too. The crew decided to open the doors and ventilate the aircraft while on the ground in Hamburg after the first two legs prior to flight 4U-7048. The conditions of all cabin crew improved, everybody felt capable of performing the flight. During the flight the conditions of the two cabin crew substantially worsened again to a point where passengers began to notice unclear and slow speech, erroneous wording, wobbly walking, several times items dropped out of hand for no reason. Just prior to commencing the descent into Stuttgart both cabin crew collapsed and became unconscious for a moment, after regaining consciousness they suffered from increasing tickle in arms and legs. After landing, while attempting to walk to the front of the aircraft, both were unable to get there. Emergency services, paramedics, arrived and took measurements for carbon monoxide, one of the flight attendants showed a value of 9 (normal values 0-3) prompting the paramedics to immediately call an emergency doctor, who confirmed carbon monoxide poisoning, a second ambulance was called, one paramedics team per flight attendant, with the emergency doctor coordinating efforts to stabilize the patients, carbon monoxide levels in the blood still rising until reaching a value of 13. After the emergency doctor had succeeded to stabilize the patients, they were taken to a hospital, however, the carbon monoxide values were already on the decrease and soon reached non-alarming levels.

In the meantime emergency services took measurements in the cabin quite some time after the doors had opened, however, no carbon monoxide was found.

Further medical assessment by the University of Göttingen suggests, that both patients will be able to recover in full. However, recovery will take several weeks to months. Both cabin crew are still on sick leave.

On Jun 6th 2016 Germany's BFU told The Aviation Herald, that they have been informed about the occurrence and are collecting data to determine the classification of the occurrence, that currently is being rated an incident, a final determination of serious incident or accident has not yet been done.