IAF personnel facing hearing loss at work

New Delhi: Indian Air Force personnel performing ground duties at its airports are becoming victims of hearing impairment due to exposure to high pitched volumes emanating from aircraft engines, a study by air force doctors suggests.
The condition known as Noise Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL) is getting common among personnel, who themselves are not aware that they are slowly inching close to deafness as a result the complaints seldom reach medical attendants, the study found.
The study, conducted by Lt Col Satish and AVM RC Kashyap, has been published in the latest edition of the journal Indian Society of Aerospace medicine.
The findings were based on the study of 229 air force personnel in which scientists recorded sound levels at on-duty and off-duty hours. They found that maximum noise level at the time of taxing and take off of the aircraft was 109.3 decibel.
The noise levels recorded in this study showed an average minimum level of 34 decibel during off-duty hours.
"Modern day aircraft and machinery have much greater noise potential especially with the jet efflux and sonic booms, which results in increase in sound energy at higher frequencies," researchers say.
The doctors concluded that the maximum noise level exceeded the safe limit indicating that the noise environment was hazardous with the potential for adverse effects on the hearing of personnel.
The study team found that 18.8 personnel personnel were showing hearing problems even at speech frequencies. About 57 per cent of the personnel showed hearing problems at higher frequency of six kilohertz which according to the team indicated that these personnel were also inching towards further hearing loss.
Not only the tarmac, the study team found that noise levels at other places of the air force base like the workshop, hangar and the Air Traffic Control were also above the safety limits.
15/01/09 PTI/The Hindu

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Categories: Airports Jan 2009, Indian Aviation- In General Jan 2009