Aircraft Mechanic: Toxic Exposure and VA Claims

Degreasing metal parts was a core daily task for aircraft mechanics. For decades, military maintenance shops used trichloroethylene (TCE) and similar chlorinated solvents in vapor degreasers and parts washing tanks to strip oil and grease from engine components, bearings, and hardware. The VA lists cleaning, degreasing, and paint stripping among the regular military tasks that exposed service members to industrial solvents such as TCE, tetrachloroethylene (PCE), toluene, and xylenes. Mechanics inhaled solvent vapors in poorly ventilated shops and absorbed solvents through the skin while hand wiping parts, often without gloves or respiratory protection.

Fuel exposure came with the job: defueling aircraft before maintenance, repairing leaks, changing fuel filters, pumps, and lines, and working in or near fuel cells. ATSDR identifies JP-4 as a U.S. Air Force aircraft fuel and JP-5 and JP-8 as military aircraft fuels, and notes that exposure occurs primarily in workers who use them, mainly through skin contact and breathing vapors. The VA recognizes that service members may have been exposed to fuels such as JP-8 and JP-5, with short term effects including skin, eye, and upper respiratory irritation, headaches, dizziness, and fatigue.

Corrosion control is constant work on military aircraft, and for decades the standard primers contained chromate pigments. Mechanics and corrosion control specialists sanded, ground, and stripped old chromate primer and sprayed new coats, generating dust and paint mist. The National Cancer Institute identifies chromate painting among the industries with the largest numbers of workers exposed to high concentrations of airborne hexavalent chromium compounds, and notes that exposure occurs by inhaling dusts, mists, or fumes and through eye and skin contact. Sanding and spraying inside hangars and enclosed aircraft sections concentrated that exposure.

Aircraft flight controls, landing gear, and brakes run on pressurized hydraulic systems, and ATSDR lists airplanes among the main uses of hydraulic fluids. Mechanics changed fluid, replaced pumps, actuators, and lines, and worked around leaks that turned pressurized fluid into fine mist. Some hydraulic fluids are organophosphate ester formulations containing compounds such as tricresyl phosphate, and ATSDR reports that some hydraulic fluids affected the nervous systems of exposed animals, in some cases causing delayed limb weakness or paralysis. ATSDR also notes that little is known about long term human health effects and that these fluids have not been classified for carcinogenicity.

Older military aircraft used asbestos in heat resistant components. The VA specifically lists clutch facings and brake linings, called friction products, along with insulation, among the asbestos containing products tied to military exposure. Mechanics who changed worn brake assemblies on older airframes, or who removed and repaired heat damaged insulation, could release and inhale asbestos fibers. The VA cautions that symptoms of asbestos related diseases often do not appear until 20 to 50 years after exposure, so veterans who did this work decades ago may only now be developing related conditions.