Aircraft Industry : Composites: Workers See Health Risk
The American aerospace industry built a worldwide reputation for excellence by pushing the frontiers of technology. But its latest technological drive--replacing metal with new plastic and ceramic materials that are stronger, lighter and more effective--threatens to give the industry an image of a far different sort.
The scramble to develop and manufacture these new materials--which make jet fighters less susceptible to radar, civilian aircraft less flammable and both more fuel-efficient--is endangering the health of workers on the assembly line, critics contend.
Workers, union officials and a number of doctors argue that chemicals used to bond, treat and clean the materials, known as composites, are not properly tested, handled or supervised.
Complaints by Employees
Employees complain of skin rashes, memory loss, severe headaches and debilitating fatigue. In the worst cases, workers charge in court filings and interviews, toxic chemicals have caused brain damage to employees at a Boeing plant in Auburn, Wash., and cancer-related deaths at a Lockheed facility in Burbank.
“We’re finding evidence of organic brain poisoning,” said Dr. Gordon Baker, a physician in suburban Seattle who has examined scores of ailing Boeing workers, many with families to support.
U.S. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), reacting to the concerns, announced last month that a Senate panel will investigate the link between chemical exposures and diseases on the aerospace assembly line. “This is a matter of life and death for these people,” Reid said in a recent speech on the Senate floor.
The debate is bound to intensify with the increasing use of composites--which are resins reinforced with fibers of various materials, commonly carbon and glass. Although the aerospace industry is at the leading edge of this technology, composites are often found in automobiles and in sports equipment such as fishing rods and tennis rackets as a replacement for metal and wood.
Evidence Inconclusive
Aerospace companies ardently defend their practices and work safety records, and the medical evidence linking illnesses to the chemicals used in making composites remains incomplete and inconclusive. But assembly line worries are on the increase, and workers are becoming increasingly vocal about their problems:
- Bonnie Faye Schrum, a Boeing worker at the Auburn plant, worked extensively with a flame-retardant material--which contains phenolic resins and formaldehyde--before being forced to take sick leave. “I feel so bad,” Schrum said in a recent interview. “I get so agitated at everything and everybody that I can hardly stand myself.”
- Steven Rascher quit a high-paying position with Lockheed in Burbank, where he worked on the top-secret stealth fighter known as the F-19, being built with composites because of their radar-avoidance properties. Continually ill with flu-like symptoms, Rascher said he eventually left because “I want to live long enough to see my young sons graduate from college.” He now works as a custodian at a high school near Sacramento.
- Coralee Elder said she has not recovered--either mentally or physically--since being overcome by fumes more than three years ago at a B-1 bomber plant in Palmdale operated by Rockwell International. “It has completedly destroyed my dreams,” she said. “I live one day at a time now.”
Complaints total in the hundreds, and some workers maintain that the real number of those affected is far greater. Many employees, they say, will not complain for fear of losing high-paying aerospace industry jobs.
Workers expressed surprise, fear and anger at the turn of events that has shaken their middle-class lives and forced many to take sick leave.
Lists Her Complaints
“I’m still in a state of shock,” said 47-year-old Billie McCormick, a Boeing worker in Auburn now on sick leave, who complains of memory loss, internal bleeding and severe stomach problems. “I’ve never heard of anyone being chemically poisoned before.”
For months, Boeing countered worker complaints with the argument that the Auburn plant was safe. Although it has not changed that position, the firm did agree on Monday to a sharp cutback in the use of the controversial phenolic resins at its Auburn facility.
“We are determined to get at the root of any condition that affects the health and safety of our employees, and we will continue to take a very hard look at every option to determine where improvements can be made,” Deane D. Cruze, Boeing vice president for operations, said in a statement.
At Lockheed, senior executive John Brizendine recently broke a long corporate silence by issuing a statement that strongly defended company working conditions at the Burbank facility.
“I cannot emphasize too strongly that we have seen nothing to date to indicate the materials we work with are fundamentally unsafe or pose a health hazard, providing proper procedures are used,” Brizendine said.
Launch Investigation
Under pressure from Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) and Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), federal health inspectors and the Pentagon launched a dual investigation late last month into Lockheed workers’ health complaints. The probe will take several weeks to complete, according to Frank Strasheim, California regional administrator for the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
One complication is national security. Lockheed’s F-19 project in Burbank is so sensitive and secret that the Pentagon has never officially confirmed that the plane exists--even though the program has been plagued by plane crashes and embarrassing security lapses.
Composites in the F-19 are designed to help the plane avoid radar detection because they create complex surface contours not possible with metal skins. These irregular contours deflect radar pulses at oblique angles instead of echoing directly back to the source. The same materials also absorb the radar energy.
Reid, the senator from Nevada, said he will have the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, of which he is a member, examine the use of hazardous material at aerospace and defense plants. A hearing is set for early next year.
A miner’s son, Reid has an interest in health issues that dates to his boyhood in Nevada when atomic tests were conducted in the desert north of Las Vegas after World War II. Troops and even civilians were exposed to deadly radiation poisoning in those days, largely due to accidents, ignorance and the lack of safety precautions, the senator said.
Shipyard Workers’ Problems
Reid also has cited health problems of shipyard workers exposed to cancer-causing asbestos during World War II.
“In World War II, we glorified Rosie the Riveter,” he said in his Senate speech. “Thirty years later, we buried her, while we shook our heads and said: ‘If only we had known.’ Today, we know. Let’s do something about it.”
In aerospace manufacturing, powerful chemicals range from the little-known toxin methylenedianiline, known as MDA, to formaldehyde, a common but toxic chemical often used as a glue.
MDA has been classified a “probable human carcinogen” by the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health recommended more than two years ago that worker exposure to MDA be kept at the “lowest feasible limit.”
The federal government still has not developed a workplace exposure standard for MDA, though one is expected shortly, according to a spokeswoman for the federal OSHA.
Improper Ventilation
All too often, safety experts say, aerospace workers on these projects toil in improperly ventilated areas without proper protective clothing or legally mandated instructions on how to handle the toxic chemicals. As a result, workers may inhale the toxic fumes or touch the materials with bare skin.
According to Philip Landrigan, worker health expert at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York, workers generally have few protections against the health effects of new chemical mixtures.
“With many of these chemicals,” Landrigan said, “the first species to test them is the human species. . . . There has been a systemic breakdown in the testing and systemic breakdown in enforcement.”
The manufacture of composites, however, will not make employees sick if they are properly trained and work in clean, well-ventilated, temperature-controlled areas, according to composite advocates.
Beech Aircraft in Wichita, Kan., has produced an all-composite plane known as the Beech Starship without adverse health effects, company spokesman Drew Steketee said. The Starship composites are made from carbon fibers mixed with epoxy resins and then heat-cured at temperatures of up 300 degrees.
“We don’t think there’s anything generically wrong with composites or the chemical we use at this company,” said Steketee, adding that the company has experienced no composite-related worker illnesses.
Compensation Claims
It appears to be a different story at Lockheed’s plant in Burbank, where conditions have sparked about 150 worker compensation claims. Some of those complaints come from workers who have toiled in the company’s highly classified “skunk works,” where the F-19 is made.
One retired worker, Clyde E. Glasser, described the skunk works as a claustrophobic building with no windows or ventilation. Large fans on the floor only blew the hot air around, he said, while blowers used to clean the work areas filled the air with dust.
One worker suing Lockheed is 26-year-old William H. Phen Jr., whom doctors have diagnosed as suffering from memory loss and an impaired thought process. Phen was required to work around various toxic substances without the proper training, ventilation and safety gear, and the subsequent exposure caused damage to his “entire body and psyche,” according to charges made in court and worker compensation papers.
Some Lockheed workers have complained that government secrecy prevented them from describing--even to their doctors--the chemicals or the working conditions that have caused their illnesses.
Brizendine, however, said in his statement that there “is no conflict” between health and national security. Workers may discuss suspected job-related illnesses with either a company doctor or, if they choose, their own physicians, he said.
Some ‘Like Zombies’
Some workers on the Boeing assembly line maintain that the health problems are even more widespread than they appear because many employees are sick but afraid to complain for fear of being fired. “Many of the workers are walking around like zombies, but they’re too scared to do anything,” one worker said.
One powerful influence is the fact that aerospace jobs generally pay very well. “Most of (the workers) are thankful just to have a job,” said Robert Buffenbarger, a composites authority for the International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. “That’s the problem. For every one that has a job, 20 are looking.”
Boeing, the nation’s largest commercial aircraft manufacturer, dominates the Seattle metropolitan economy, employing more than 90,000 people there. The Auburn plant is located 25 miles south of the city.
Workers’ complaints surfaced several months ago, after a worker named DeAnna Henry, 31, an 11-year company employee, complained to a Seattle newspaper when she believed that no one else was listening.
“I became ill and decided something had to be done,” Henry said. “Everybody looked at me like I was nuts . . . and I got mad.”
Complaints by Henry and others followed Boeing’s use of the phenolic resin that was intended to meet tougher federal flammability standards for components in the interior of the plane. But dozens of workers said they became ill after handling the phenolic material.
Flu-Like Symptoms
Although the sicknesses vary in severity, most began with flu-like symptoms, followed by apathy and chronic fatigue, doctors say. Other symptoms include decreased sex drive. Short-term memory loss is another, advanced phase that is especially frightening, workers say. “I have no idea what I did last week,” Henry said in a recent interview. In its recent statement, Boeing said a widely used fiberglass resin will be used to replace 60% of the phenolic resins used at the Auburn plant. A spokesman termed the move an “interim step” that will allow Boeing to continue meeting flammability standards as it continues its own internal probe of workers’ complaints.
Rockwell International experienced problems when fumes engulfed dozens of workers on a B-1 bomber electrical assembly line in Palmdale on Feb. 13, 1985.
Thirty-nine workers were taken by ambulance to nearby hospitals after noticing a sweet, paint-like odor reminiscent of methyl ethyl ketone. The substance is highly flammable and an extreme skin irritant.
Workers first noticed the odor about 9:30 a.m., according to a report by state health-safety investigators. By 10:40 a.m., the odor was overpowering, and by 11 a.m. the first workers began to pass out. Of those taken to local hospitals, 10 were admitted and spent at least one night there.
Incident Haunts Her
While most recovered and quickly returned to work, there were more serious casualties, including Coralee Elder, who had started working at the plant only a few weeks before.
In a recent interview, Elder, a 39-year-old divorcee with two teen-age children, said the incident still haunts her. Medical records show that she suffered “toxic exposure syndrome” and she still complains of memory loss.
As Elder related her story in rambling style, her remaining time at Rockwell was marred by transfers and demotions after she voiced repeated complaints about safety and working conditions. She said she was eventually fired for health-related absences, while Rockwell said she “resigned” in October, 1986, after failing to return from medical leave.
Now, Elder said, she cannot even find work as a janitor and has given up hope of getting a college degree at night that would have allowed her to teach. She survives on child-support payments.
Meanwhile, what caused the incident that sent Elder and the others to the hospital has never been explained. “We could never pin it down,” a Rockwell spokesman said.
Times staff writer T. W. McGarry contributed to this story.
