How was man with TB permitted to board plane here?
Questions remain about how a man with tuberculosis, who had been placed on a "Do Not Board " list by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, managed to board a US Airways flight in Philadelphia and fly to San Francisco on Saturday.
Questions remain about how a man with tuberculosis, who had been placed on a "Do Not Board " list by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, managed to board a US Airways flight in Philadelphia and fly to San Francisco on Saturday.
The federal Transportation Security Administration issued a statement yesterday saying that the CDC gave the agency the "Do Not Board" information about the ill man and that the TSA "made this information available to airlines."
"We are working closely with both the CDC and the TSA to determine what transpired prior to the uneventful operation of Flight 401 . . . ," US Airways spokesman Morgan Durrant said late yesterday. The airline would not comment further.
CDC spokeswoman Christine Pearson said that the risk to other passengers on Saturday's flight "is extremely low."
"TB is spread through the air with relatively prolonged contact," she said. "The risk of transmission on a plane in general is small but in past cases where possible transmission has occurred, it has been on flights greater than eight hours." This flight was about six hours, Durrant said.
The "Do Not Board" list involves health issues and is separate from the TSA's "No Fly" list, which seeks to prevent those suspected of links to terrorism from boarding planes.
TSA provides the list of potentially contagious passengers to the airlines to deny a boarding pass until the individual is medically cleared to fly, a TSA statement said.