Odour diverts

[Quickstatus]

In the month of July, several onboard odor occurrences (as opposed to smoke) have caused aircraft to divert

Lufthansa (Stinkhansa as an Avherald reader puts it) have had 3. Another 3 German airlines have had it as well
Seems to only affect the crew only. On at least one occasion the Entire crew went to get checked at a hospital

The AA one this month is apparently not due to a passenger "dropping his guts" but something else

 

[Melburnian1]

Is this another way for unions to take industrial action?

Given the close confines of an aircraft cabin. surely it is unlikely that odours would only be noticeable to cabin crews.

 

[Quickstatus]

It's been happening for some time. In 2013 LH diverted due to odour which was later found to be from newly installed carpet

 

[jb747]

I guess the crew would be more likely to know the smells that are normally there. I've seen a couple with burning smells, but no smoke. On one occasion it was an air con problem that was detected by the nose before the system, whilst another was a recirculation fan (part of the cabin air system). Refused to take an aircraft once because of a foul smell (like the king of all farts, but it wasn't going away). Turned out that a drain was blocked solid and the contents were as bad as you might imagine.

 

[Melburnian1]

Many years ago Ansett had repeated alleged problems with the air quality of its BAe 146 aircraft, which resulted in a Senate Committee issuing a report in 2000, but that aircraft is no longer used to carry passengers in Australia by any of the four major domestic airlines. Allegedly those problems went back to 1983.

 

[Quickstatus]

Not wanting to single out one airline for odour diverts. Took me a while to find this one:

https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/...irways-flight-had-to-turn-around-and-land-475

More recently while not a divert another 2 German registered aircraft suffered odours and several German cabin crew member had to be hospitalised. Passengers were oK
BA also suffered a smelly socks issue in the crew rest compartment which required several crew to seek medical attention - reported on 24th July by Simon of AvHerald.