Aircraft Fuel exposure risks

[skullster704]

While in the Mother Air Force I never even heard about the F111 Deseal/ Reseal saga, so I'll summarise.

The F111s in the RAAF started to leak huge amounts of fuel from their wing tanks. It was decided that the whole fleet needed people to go into the tanks with various solvents and scrappers, remove all the degrading PRC (goop, as the colonials call it), and then reseal the tanks with a different PRC. This they did with minimal PPE, if any.

Since then many of the poor tank entry guys have suffered debilitating skin complaints, cancers, neurological disorders, and other random maladies. The Oz government has accepted culpability, and the major assumption was that it was the solvents that were the major causative agent. Apparently exposure to jet fuel is possibly causitive enough.

I don't know what the MODs current stance on avtur is, but it was fairly blasé when I was pumping fuel into MR2s, or mopping it off the pan.

So, though this is a journo's interpretation of a scientific study, and probably full of inaccuracies, it's still a bit concerning.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-...osed-to-jet-fuel-suffered-cell-damage/6433360

 

[Rigga]

Hi Scully,

Thank you for posting this article - I found it interesting. When I first saw the symptoms I was immediately reminded of Organo-Phosphates issues from Gulf War 1...

You don't say when (60's, 70's, 80's or 90's?) this F111 story happened and its not in the TV article.

I too spent quite some time in Buccaneer Tanks doing effectively the same job of PRC removal and replacement, in the late 80's. However, we went through a system of cleaning and venting the tanks before we were allowed to work in them - in PPE mainly based on Face Masks and filter changes or forced air breathing systems.
I have not had any issues such as described.
Further, since I left the RAF, civil fuel has had Fuel System Icing inhibitor (FSII) removed from it as a standard mix Although, for some time people, could still purchase FRIST (if remember the name correctly) a highly carcinogenic substance, to add to fuel if ice inhibitors were required. I don't know if Frist is still available.


...and I think this happened in the "Daughter-In-Law" Air Force!