B767-200
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Physiological - Other; Workload
Flight Deck / Cabin / Aircraft Event Illness / Injury; Inflight Event / Encounter Other / Unknown
Flight Crew Diverted; Flight Crew Landed in Emergency Condition; General Declared Emergency; General Flight Cancelled / Delayed; General Physical Injury / Incapacitation; General Maintenance Action
Aircraft; Human Factors
We were level at FL360/M.80. Captain was pilot flying and First Officer was pilot not flying. Relief Pilot was on break in cabin. We received a call from the A Flight Attendant; I as pilot not flying took the call. I was informed that she felt sick; lightheaded and felt like she was going to pass out. I inquired if anyone else was also feeling these symptoms. She called the other flight attendants and told me that the others were experiencing the same things. I then handed the interphone to the Captain and told him the flight attendants were all experiencing these symptoms. He again asked her about her condition and that of the rest of the crew. She told him again that all were sick and feeling lightheaded. The Captain made the decision that with all of our flight attendants being sick we needed to land ASAP. He then contacted Air Traffic Control and advised them that we had a medical emergency and that we needed to divert. The Captain called back to the cabin again to have the Relief Pilot return to the cockpit while I sent an ACARS message to Dispatch about what was going on and what we were doing. The three of us in the cockpit felt totally fine and smelled no odors at all. We asked the Relief Pilot if he smelled anything funny or if he felt lightheaded while in the cabin. He said no. We discussed doing the Smoke/Fumes Checklist but since we didn't have any smoke or fumes decided that wasn't appropriate. We did however run the Overweight Landing Checklist in the QRH in prepping for our approach. We notified ATC of our situation and requested that paramedics meet the plane. The Captain and I pulled out the charts for foreign airport and began reviewing them and then requested the longest runway and were told we would land on 26R. The approach was uneventful and the landing touchdown was made at 120 FPM (an excellent job by the Captain). We taxied to a gate and were met by an abundance of EMR crews!! We then had a Doctor from the French EMS come onboard and talk with the flight attendants. That's the time we found out that it was actually 4 of our 6 Flight Attendants that were sick. The doctor removed them from the airplane to take them to the ER. The remaining flight attendant's said they felt fine and at that point no PAX seemed to have any symptoms. The A Flight Attendant was the worst off of the 4 and was attended to by an American doctor that was a passenger while we were in flight. She used the EMK and gave O2 to our lead Flight Attendant. She said that the symptoms that she saw looked a lot like CO2 exposure. Later one of the other flight attendants said that she noticed an abnormal amount of the passengers; approximately 80%; were sleeping on a mid morning flight. She and I had the opportunity to talk to one male passenger that said he had a good nights sleep the night before but when we took off said he became VERY sleepy and was one of the ones sound asleep. The flight was finally canceled and the passengers were removed from the plane. We only wrote up the EMK and the overweight landing in the logbook. Maintenance came out and did the required inspections; including an ETOPS check; and signed the aircraft off. The Captain made numerous calls to the company. We were finally told that we would ferry the plane back with ourselves and the two well flight attendants. About 3 to 5 minutes later we received another ACARS message stating that the other flight attendants were now feeling OK and that we would bring the entire crew home. We were then re-released by our Dispatcher; did our paper work and flew back to our domicile without any further problems. Looking back at what the MD that was a passenger said about CO2; it could very well have been the case. CO2 poisoning is odorless and causes the headaches; lightheaded feelings and you just go to sleep and don't wake up. If this was indeed a CO2 event I would think that this airline could afford some CO2 detectors to put on our planes. Heck I had one in my J-3 CUB!!!! It was there for a reason. They are inexpensive.
A B767 Flight Attendant called the flight station to report four of the six flight attendants were ill and lightheaded; so the Captain diverted and the aircraft was met by parametics. The flight was canceled and the crew flew the aircraft home empty.