AircrewHealth.com

Suspected Communicable Disease

General Guidelines for Aircraft Maintenance Crews:

The following are general guidelines for Aircraft Maintenance Crews who have to do maintenance on an arriving aircraft with a suspected case of communicable disease.  During an outbreak of a specific communicable disease, the World Health Organization (WHO) or member states may modify or add further procedures to these general guidelines.  However, these general guidelines would always provide a basic framework of response that would reassure the Maintenance Crew and help them through any unplanned incident.

High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filters

About 50% of the air in most modern aircraft is re-circulated.  However, air is only reused after having gone through HEPA filters.  Microorganisms suspended in air, including bacteria and viruses, are captured by HEPA filters applied to aircraft air circulation systems.  Just like HEPA filters used in containment laboratories, the best HEPA cabin air filters have a microbial removal efficiency of >99.999% with bacteria and viruses.  As used filters are likely to contain microorganisms trapped in their meshes after hours of filtering activity, it is good routine practice to apply reasonable precautions when handling them, e.g., during their exchange.

It is recommended that maintenance staff keep following regular practices when replacing HEPA filters:

1. Wear disposable gloves.
2. When removing the filter, avoid hitting, dropping, or shaking the filter.
3. Do not use compressed air to try and clean a filter.
4. The used HEPA filter should be placed and sealed in a plastic bag.  A specific biohazard bag is not required for disposal of the HEPA filter.  Put the disposable gloves in the same plastic bag.
5. Wash hands with soap and water when the task is finished.

Furthermore, there is no need to change HEPA filters on an arriving aircraft with a suspected case of communicable disease.  HEPA filters should rather be changed at the original intervals recommended by the manufacturers.

Vacuum waste tank

Since the external venting of the vacuum waste tanks is not equipped with filtering devices capable of preventing the spread of viral or bacterial contamination, it is not recommended to vent the vacuum waste inside a hangar.  If venting of the vacuum waste tanks has to be done inside a hangar, it is recommended to use a technique that exhausts the air outside of the hangar.

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