Zemgus Girgensons was either on a plane last night or seriously, seriously deep in thought. 

Everyone has definitely been thinking twice before travelling on a plane in 2020 due to concerns about COVID-19, though they are equipped with filters to produce clean air. But that’s not exactly what Girgensons seemed too concerned about on Twitter last night. He questioned that if these filters are in place, why is it he still can still smell the gas passed from the person three rows ahead of him?! Very relatable, as we’ve all been that person three rows back… and some of us have also been the person who’s been three rows forward!

 

He must have been on a flight because that is WAY too random to have tweeted out of nowhere. First tweet since August 14th, too… what a comeback! As for the responses? Let’s just say that Sabres colour commentator Rob Ray got roasted pretty good.

 

For those of you wondering… here’s how the filters actually work, according to National Geographic:

Most, but not all, commercial aircraft are equipped with HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Air) filters. That means that, on HEPA-equipped planes, the airflow “mirrors the laminar airflow of an operating room with no or minimal crossover of air streams,” says Dr. Bjoern Becker of the Lufthansa Group of airlines. “Air is pumped from the ceiling into the cabin at a speed of about a yard per second and sucked out again below the window seats.”

About 40 percent of a cabin’s air gets filtered through this HEPA system; the remaining 60 percent is fresh and piped in from outside the plane. “Cabin air is completely changed every three minutes, on average, while the aircraft is cruising,” says Becker. (Lufthansa has a video showing how HEPA filters work.)

Officially, certified HEPA filters “block and capture 99.97 percent of airborne particles over 0.3 micron in size,” says Tony Julian, an air-purifying expert with RGF Environmental Group. The efficiency of these filters, perhaps counterintuitively, increases for even smaller particles. So while the exhaled globs that carry SARS-CoV-2 can be quite small, HEPA filters effectively remove the vast majority from the air.

Hopefully this gave you some clarity… maybe grab a front row seat next time, bud.

(H/T Zemgus Girgensons)