Do Smoke Hoods Improve Safety?

Advocates say smoke hoods should be standard equipment on airlines and cruise ships and at hotels and high-rise office buildings. But the questions are: Can smoke hoods buy time for travelers, allowing their escape from fire- and smoke-filled planes, cruise ships and hotels? Or do they slow down an evacuation?

While designs vary, many respiratory protective escape devices (or smoke hoods) are constructed of heat-resistant material with a clear visor around the eyes. Depending on the model, the hoods filter carbon monoxide, smoke particles, acid gases such as hydrogen cyanide and other toxins. Costs range from about $50 to $200.

“Buy one. Use one,” advised Geraldine Frankoski, director of the Aviation Consumer Action Project, a Washington-based organization founded by Ralph Nader. “It takes 15 seconds to put on.” Costs, she said, are minimal. Several years ago, Frankoski’s group asked the Federal Aviation Administration to make smoke hood use mandatory on commercial airlines, but the request was denied.

“The only position the FAA has is that it will not require them at this time,” said G. A. McLean, supervisor of the cabin safety research section of the FAA’s Civil Aeromedical Institute in Oklahoma City.

Although experts do not generally argue against the hood’s ability to reduce intake of smoke with highly toxic gases that can prove fatal, other potential problems are cited.

“Donning them may cut into the escape time. And there is a training issue,” said McLean, who sometimes packs a smoke hood when he travels and said it takes practice to learn how to don them quickly. Even the experts are divided on the wisdom of mass use of smoke hoods, McLean said.

Another issue is lack of uniform standards for their manufacture. “There are no North American standards,” said Steven Luthultz, a member of the Assn. for Respiratory Protective Escape Devices, a trade group and a spokesman for Essex PB&R; Corp., which makes the Plus 10 Filter Breathing Unit. There are, however, standards in Europe, Australia and Japan, and Luthultz’s association, as well as other groups, have pressed for such standards.

Their persistence has paid off. Last month, the National Fire Protection Assn. voted to begin writing those standards, said Casey Grant, a spokesman for the Quincy, Mass., nonprofit group. The project will take at least two years, he said.

Until then, there’s a wide disparity among the devices. In a review of seven smoke hoods, published last year in “Cabin Crew Safety,” a publication of the Flight Safety Foundation, an independent group that promotes safe flight, only three filter carbon monoxide, a function deemed critical by McLean and other experts.

The carbon monoxide-filtering models were: the EVAC-U8 Emergency Escape Smoke Hood, by Brookdale International Systems Inc.; the Parat C Smoke Escape Mask by Drager and Essex’s Plus 10 Filter Breathing Unit.

Other experts contend that filtering particulates and acid gases is adequate if a quick escape is possible. Yet the consensus seems to be that carbon monoxide filtering is also important, Luthultz said.

Despite the lack of standards, manufacturers say sales are increasing. The devices are most often sold through travel catalogues, by telephone order and through distributors. Some manufacturers are expanding ad campaigns to include consumer magazines.

Sales tend to peak after commercial airplane crashes, said Sharon Greene of Magellan’s, a Santa Barbara-based travel catalogue firm that now offers three types of the hoods. Typically, buyers are frequent business travelers.

For consumers interested in buying a smoke hood, experts offered this advice:

* Ask if the device filters carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide, McLean said. “Price is not the issue.” A manufacturer should be able to pinpoint, on the basis of laboratory performance testing, the filtering capability, expressed in parts per million over a specific time period.

* Become familiar with how to use the device before traveling.

* Keep it handy during the flight, not stored six rows back in the overhead bin.

* Be sure the hood is large enough, if necessary, to accommodate long hair or eyeglasses.

The Healthy Traveler appears the second and fourth week of every month.