Mystery Illness Shuts Australian Airport Terminal

This could be bad....

Edit I sure hope thats all it is...but a whole terminal?



Mystery Illness Shuts Australian Airport Terminal

1 hour, 32 minutes ago World - Reuters



MELBOURNE (Reuters) - One of Australia's main airport terminals was shut down on Monday after more than 40 people began suffering nausea, vomiting, dizziness and respiratory problems, but officials said they did not know the cause.



Twenty-nine people were taken to hospital and hundreds of travelers left stranded when the Virgin Blue domestic terminal in Melbourne was evacuated.


"Our rescue and fire units evacuated the terminal when several people exhibited similar symptoms," said a spokesman for Airservices Australia. "What is causing it is simply not known."


Ambulance officials said 41 people fell ill at the terminal on Monday morning and 29 were taken to a hospital decontamination unit.


Paramedics dressed in head-to-toe protective clothing were treating people in a field hospital outside the terminal. Most of the sick were airport workers.


Melbourne Airport spokeswoman Brooke Lord said a chemical leak may have caused the illnesses.


"Initially, when we got the first reports there was immediate testing done of the air quality and the air-conditioning systems and nothing was identified through that that could have caused the problem," Lord told reporters.


"But as we got further reports of people feeling unwell, as a precaution, the aviation rescue and firefighting (crews) working on site decided to evacuate the terminal," she said.


All departing Virgin Blue flights had been canceled, while arriving flights were offloaded on the tarmac and passengers taken by bus to another terminal. The nearby Qantas domestic terminal and Melbourne's international terminal were both still operating.

Mystery Illness Shuts Australian Airport Terminal



[edit on 20-2-2005 by edsinger]

[edit on 20-2-2005 by edsinger]

Thanks for that Ed, so far I can't find anything on the TV News here as yet,
looks like it could be a chemical leak.

There was another chemical leak last week, which I can't find any link
on at the moment.
I'll keep trying.

Here's a bit of an update Ed.

Apprently they still don't know what caused it, some say it was
a gas leak, but nothing is confirmed as yet.

Gas leak sounds plausible, if they mean jet fuel. I assume that's what they're talking about. I don't know how much natural gas gets used at the airport, I thought they ran primarily on delivered electricity.

It also could have been a biological attack of some kind. Maybe a diversion? The rest of the airport should be examined to insure no sabotage took place when everyone rushed to that terminal to figure out what was going on. I wouldn't be surprised to see a distraction like this used to cover up evidence or aid in elluding authorities, but the most likely use of the technique would be to draw attention and security away from another target.

I don't suppose there is any new word on this story eh? It's pretty new yet. I looked on the major news carriers sites about ten minutes ago and there was nothing. I imagine Australian local news is all over it though.

Strange that the flight was going to Tasmania, I was just in a discussion the other day about the bombers from the Hariri assasination in Beirut possbily taking a jet to Australia and then Tasmania. Hmm...

There is supposed to be a system in place to detect pathogens entering the airport from foreign arrivals, is that possibly the case in this instance?
www.smh.com.au...

Could toxic cabin fumes be to blame?
www.aopis.org...

A similar incident a little more than a year ago.
www.abc.net.au...

Here's the case of a stewardess who won a settlement against her employer over toxic fumes in the cabin, or rather, FROM the cabin. It seems there may be an unaknowledged risk to those who spend a lot of time on planes.
www.aopis.org...

Here's a good explanation, the fumes are from lubricating oil. Apparently they've known how to fix this problem for about four years.
www.abc.net.au...

Bransons arm of virgin blue is subject to a takeover bid at the moments by Patricks the other major sharejolder in the aussie based airline.

Branson has done some tricky deals to try and stop the takeover including trying to stop it by having a rule enforced by the stock market bosses regarding share prices and offers, which failed on bransons part...

Apparently there is a rule that the share offer buy up price must be equal to or greater than all previous share sales, so after it had been announced but not before it was taken to the shareholders Bransons swiss sub company bought so many shares at a higher price, hoping to push the Patrick share offer price up and making them fail.....

Eye of Ra
Do you think that's relevant? Are you saying this could have been corporate sabotage? I wouldn't put it out of the realm of possibility, but I think that explanation is a little far fetched. Is that what you were trying to say?

Well it maybe just a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge co-incidence that this happened NOW but i must admit it was the first thing that came to mind when it flashed over the news this morning.

Really interesting to see what it does to virgin blue shares anyhows.........

I predict their shares drop on sporadic volume, and it'll probably even open down since the news is out before public trades open. Private firms and interests are already putting in their early pre-market sales of the stock now. It's 7 am Eastern Standard, time for another Black Monday.

Am I right? The insiders always win when the market takes a hit. They ride out on the profits of the little guys, and always have a bank roll for when the market hits bottom. They buy it out again, start the rocket a climbin' again. All the little people start jumping on the rocket again.. History repeats itself.

Are we going to see a little bump on market road today? I think so..

I want everybody to sell everything this morning. That would be fun wouldn't it? It's all rigged anyway, screw it. I'm gonna go eat some cereal.

Enjoy your cereal..I am more of a bacon and eggs washed down with yoghurt and OJ myself.
smh.com.au...
news.airwise.com...

No word yet on a cause of the sickness...It's been about a week I think.

It's so strange when stories like this pop up and submerge again the next day. Is the fast pace, entertainment driven nature of our news keeping us from closure on important stories like this one? I feel like a lot of news is left unfinished, because the producers move on to other topics without concern for telling the whole story. People are so image drunk they don't care what they're watching, they just want to be stimulated.

I wonder if we're moving closer to a music video existence? MTV is certainly not helping.

No word yet on a cause of the sickness...It's been about a week I think.

I don't think they've found the cause as yet, I've been keeping my eye
on the papers over here and nothing so far.

Does seem kind of strange, there has been a couple of chemical leaks
in that part of Melbourne in the last couple of weeks, whether thats
related or not, I really don't know.....it does strike me as a little odd.

It seems the news has become a sort of carnival for the senses. There are bright lights, and loud noises, and scary monsters, but it all goes by so quickly it's hard to keep track of anything. We've gotten no news on this incident, it faded completely out of the news, in just a day or two!

There are examples of a hundred other stories that suffered similar fates. It really, really makes you wonder; what is being concealed by this charade?