The Airline by J SInk scuba diving

The reports, as CPSC published them

1. Seen by a doctor or nurse

   Made Dec 5, 2025 · , sent to the company Dec 22, 2025 · , published by CPSC Jan 9, 2026

   The product, in the report: Direct-drive surface supplied diving air compressors used for recreational and commercial diving applications, both gas and electric drive.

   Employer is using lead based, nickel plated brass fittings in a breathing air system that supplies air directly to divers with no filtration. The fittings are corroding in the units and diving hoses, creating a green sludge/ dust/solid material that is believed to be either Nickel Salts or Copper Salts, both of which are toxic to humans and known carcinogens related to lung cancer and a myriad of other serious health concerns for the end user and the employees handling products. The fittings were never approved for breathing air by the original manufacturer because they are lead-based brass and the nickel coating is too thin to meet the standard required to prevent poisoning of the end user. The fittings are used in all the breathing air products including hoses supplying air directly to the diver. The plating easily scratches off, visibly and there is alot of residue and dust in the manufacturing area that I have actually tasted the metals in my mouth while working.The fittings are crimped onto the end of the airlines using a pneumatic crimper, which causes the plating to flake as the metal is crimped.The area in which the machines and hoses are built has not been cleaned since the business moved to this current location.The crimping process involves using heated dish detergent to pre heat the fittings for easy insertion into the stiff breathing lines.This water is not changed regularly and contains an alkaline detergent which may be exacerbating the issue by providing a base liquid coating on the fittings which is not rinsed and then crimped into the line with the detergent still present. A customer complained that their entire crew were exhibiting symptoms such as hoarseness, throat irritation, lethargy, nausea, shortness of breath and lack of oxygen symptoms after use of these units commercially. When building new units, the metal coating on the fittings is easily scraped off just by threading them into the breathing air compressor heads. Upon repairing returned units for service, I have witnessed at least 30 units with a noticeable green coating/solid/dust in the compressor heads and cylinder cups where the moist sea air is drawn into the compressor and then pumped to the diver.The material is not easily removed and smells of metal. Sometimes the corrosion is enough that the powder coating INSIDE the breathing air volumes is corroded and has flaked off and disappears.The fittings are always rusted, green and not serviceable.I have been experiencing localized fingertip pain and numbness, lethargy, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea and inflammation consistently since about a month after I started working here.Three other employees are affected by these issues. The other 3 employees are the owner, his son and wife. His son is the hose maker and has the most exposure to the crimping operation and fittings as he hand applies PTFE tape directly to all the fittings we use, with cutoff fingertip gloves, no PPE whatsoever and he has severe gastrointestinal issues, that he cannot leave his house because he is up vomiting and defecating continuously. He has been working in the environment since he was 14 and told me his symptoms started right around the time he started working there (previously located in Ocala) The owners wife is the other employee and the owner claims her bouts with IBS “run in the family”. I suspect there is a combination of lead, copper and nickel toxicity due to the unclean, metal laden environment that we all work in every day.I am concerned customers are being poisoned by the substances present. Also we are selling car air suspension tanks from amazon that likely contain hexavalent chromium byproduct as volume tanks for breathing air, an accessory to the units, rinsed with tap water until “the black stuff stops coming out” with a pressure washer and chlorinated city water, exacerbating the corrosion already present on the inside of the unsanitary tank. The hazard exists in the entire building including the office areas because there is no cleaning or segregation of material. Manufacturing spaces share the same duct work as office spaces and the warehouse has never been cleaned. I reported the customer complaint and that I have been having gastrointestinal issues and localized fingertip pain and numbness as well as that the more I build/repair, the worse it gets to the owner on October 17, 2025 and up until last night. I missed many days of work in my 6 month tenure because of vomiting and diarrhea. When I am out of the environment, the symptoms subside but as soon as I am there for any amount of time greater than 30 minutes, I have abdominal discomfort and eventually diarrhea and vomiting to follow. I researched, composed and provided a mitigation and abatement plan to the owner in writing, he has acknowledged that we have a problem, has promised to fix it and has done nothing to do so. When I last spoke with him about it on 12/3/2025 he told me that he had scheduled his son for blood tests and possibly endoscopy of his intestines to check him for heavy metal poisoning and that was scheduled for December 16, 2025. He said if he comes back with metals then I would be tested. He told me he didnt think what I was experiencing, what his other employees are experiencing and what the customer complained about was even remotely related to what I am reporting to him. He said he agrees its worth looking into changing the fittings to 316 stainless (its the only metal approved for breathing air apparatus used in a marine environment) and because he had a business to run and catch up from the recent holiday he hasn’t looked into it further. He then told me that the fittings that we use on our electric units were also plated with Nickel, but that the coating “might be thick enough” but wasn’t 100 percent sure. I have pictures of the plating coming off in a new unit built by a prior employee that we were going to ship to a customer. He claims the coating is used widely in scuba applications and is accepted. I have contacted the manufacturer and they indicated they haven’ sold the parts since 2019 and would not and could not provide them for breathing air applications because the thickness of the coating will present a hazard when subjected to galvanic corrosion, such as occurs when nickel plating that is too thin has been compromised by mechanical interference of the threads and then subjected to saltwater or any water with chloride in it. When speaking about the cleanliness of the manufacturing areas and the need to segregate repair(dirty) and new unit build areas, he admitted they have never cleaned the area and that the previous two technicians were at fault for not cleaning up. Then when questioned about the air quality tests we advertise on our website, he admitted he had not had the air tested since he acquired the company and that only the prototypes had been tested and the last test date was in 2008 and that he should have had it tested more recently. He then asked me to come back into the contaminated manufacturing space the following day to build 45 more units using the same fittings and hoses because he had a big order to ship to a customer. He said if you want to you can build them in the warehouse. In the course of researching and developing our mitigation and abatement plan, I contacted an industrial hygienist seeking consultation and he advised we should stop work, stop sales and test immediately before we possibly poisoned more customers and employees. I presented this to the owner and he indicated he cannot shut down his business for such a thing. He told me that my symptoms were likely caused by all the stress I have happening at home with my kids and family. He indicated he didn’t even think the customers complaint was legitimate and that it had never been reported before in 26 years and stated he didn’t see the value in performing initial testing only post.

   Model

   R360XL,R260XL, R260-4, E160V2, E260V2, 12V160-3

   Serial number

   ALL

   Bought from

   www.airlinebyjsink.com

   Bought

   Dec 1, 2025, about then

   Where

   Hudson, Florida: Industrial

   Who was involved

   Age 27, Male

   The reporter’s relation to them

   My Client, Patient, Student, Etc. (professional relationship)

   As this report names them

   Brand The Airline by J SInk, made or sold by JL Gory LLC dba The Air Line by J Sink

   How badly, in CPSC’s words

   Injury, Seen by Medical Professional

CPSC’s disclaimer

Sources