Safety
FAA Studying Cabin Air
The FAA is establishing a new “Center of Excellence” headed by Auburn University to examine cabin air quality and study chemical and biological threats in

The FAA is establishing a new “Center of Excellence” headed by Auburn University to examine cabin air quality and study chemical and biological threats in airliners. Other universities taking part in the effort include Purdue University, Harvard University, Boise State University, Kansas State University, the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

Legislation passed in 1990 allows the FAA to partner with universities and industry to conduct research and development toward improving aviation safety, environmental effects and efficiency and airport and airspace planning and design. The agency has established eight other Centers of Excellence, dealing with general aviation, computational modeling of aircraft structures, airport pavement technology, operations research, airworthiness assurance, aircraft noise, aviation emissions mitigation and advanced materials.