Narrative:

We reported early morning and received aircraft about twenty five minutes later. When we got on the aircraft the APU was running with the packs on. We noticed an exhaust type smell which is not uncommon on these early morning originators due to smelly heat carts that are used overnight. We also suspected that it was possible that we were sucking in some exhaust from an outside source so I turned off the APU bleed for a while to clear the air. When we got ready to push I turned the APU bleed back on and noticed that the smell had come back. I was concerned so I decided to go outside to see if there were any sources that could be causing the odor. I didn't see anything that was obvious so I decided to call maintenance control to discuss the situation. We came to the conclusion that since we had a slight tailwind; the odor could be caused from the APU exhausts getting blown back toward the intake. We decided to push back to see if the situation changed. We pushed back to deice; and after running all of the appropriate deice checklist we turned on the engine bleeds; and packs at the appropriate times and the smell did not return. We came to the conclusion that our assumption about the tailwind was correct and continued on with the flight. Shortly after takeoff; we started smelling a subtle odor. It was so light that we felt that it was either the system just clearing out some residual odor; or the odor just being stuck in our noses. As we continued on we noticed that the odor; still subtle; was not going away. We started to do some investigating as to what might be causing it. We noticed that the odor would increase as pack 1 would heat and would decrease as it cooled. During this time the flight attendants called to query about the odor. At that time we felt that pack 1 might be the problem so I called maintenance control to see if there were any in-flight troubleshooting procedures we could go through to isolate the pack and possibly continue with the flight. Maintenance control informed me that there was not; and to try to keep the pack from heating. He asked if we had a QRH procedure that would accomplish that and I informed him that there wasn't. At this time the odor was still so subtle that we felt that running the QRH procedure for smoke; fumes; or vapor would be a little much for the situation at that time. All we had was a subtle odor; and nothing that felt harmful at the time. I informed maintenance control that if we were not able to eliminate the odor that we were looking at diverting to have them investigate it. I ended the call at that point and asked dispatch for numbers at FL310 in case we needed to turn off pack 1. I called the flight attendants to see how the odor was in the back; and they informed me that it was still lingering and was worse toward the back of the aircraft. At this point I had made up my mind that we were going to divert. At about this time we received an ACARS message from maintenance control stating that they wanted us to divert too. We immediately joined up on the arrival and headed to divert airport. We informed ATC that we were having some issues but didn't feel that declaring an emergency was necessary because all we had at that point was just a subtle odor. As we continued the descent we noticed that odor was getting worse. Eventually the flight attendants called prior to 10;000 ft stating that it was indeed getting worse in the back; and that the B flight attendant was starting to feel a little ill. We requested and received 22L and landed shortly after the conversation with the flight attendants. We parked at the gate and deplaned the aircraft. No passenger complained about feeling ill at that time. Our two flight attendants said that they felt ill; and I myself was starting to feel ill. I handed the aircraft over to maintenance to troubleshoot the problem. I went up to eat; and breathe some fresh air and started to feel better. I went down to talk to maintenance and ended up hanging to help them try to find the problem. After dispatch decided to cancel the flight; I left feeling ill again. I told the two maintenance guys to take a break that neither one of them looked very well. They both had extremely bloodshot eyes; and one of them said that he was not feeling well. When I got to the crew room I was not feeling well. I felt nauseous and kind of dazed. We got our assignment to deadhead. As we were headed to our deadhead the flight attendants were complaining about not feeling well. They informed me that I didn't look well; and I said that I didn't feel well. The first officer said he felt fine; but I decided that since 3 of the 4 of us felt ill that it was probably a good idea to get checked out. At this point we contacted our supervisors and scheduling and proceeded with the process of get checked out. One thing I think would help is to have in-flight troubleshooting procedures. Other airlines have this. If we had been able to do this we would have known sooner that we were having a problem that was not going to go away. A decision to divert sooner might have been made; however as [I] look back on it; I still feel that our divert airport was the best option all around given the circumstances.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An ERJ-170 diverted because of a very strong chemical odor in the cabin which was first detected during preflight but became very strong in flight. Three of the four crew members became ill.

Narrative: We reported early morning and received aircraft about twenty five minutes later. When we got on the aircraft the APU was running with the packs ON. We noticed an exhaust type smell which is not uncommon on these early morning originators due to smelly heat carts that are used overnight. We also suspected that it was possible that we were sucking in some exhaust from an outside source so I turned OFF the APU bleed for a while to clear the air. When we got ready to push I turned the APU bleed back ON and noticed that the smell had come back. I was concerned so I decided to go outside to see if there were any sources that could be causing the odor. I didn't see anything that was obvious so I decided to call Maintenance Control to discuss the situation. We came to the conclusion that since we had a slight tailwind; the odor could be caused from the APU exhausts getting blown back toward the intake. We decided to push back to see if the situation changed. We pushed back to deice; and after running all of the appropriate deice checklist we turned on the engine bleeds; and packs at the appropriate times and the smell did not return. We came to the conclusion that our assumption about the tailwind was correct and continued on with the flight. Shortly after takeoff; we started smelling a subtle odor. It was so light that we felt that it was either the system just clearing out some residual odor; or the odor just being stuck in our noses. As we continued on we noticed that the odor; still subtle; was not going away. We started to do some investigating as to what might be causing it. We noticed that the odor would increase as pack 1 would heat and would decrease as it cooled. During this time the flight attendants called to query about the odor. At that time we felt that Pack 1 might be the problem so I called Maintenance Control to see if there were any in-flight troubleshooting procedures we could go through to isolate the pack and possibly continue with the flight. Maintenance Control informed me that there was not; and to try to keep the pack from heating. He asked if we had a QRH procedure that would accomplish that and I informed him that there wasn't. At this time the odor was still so subtle that we felt that running the QRH procedure for smoke; fumes; or vapor would be a little much for the situation at that time. All we had was a subtle odor; and nothing that felt harmful at the time. I informed Maintenance Control that if we were not able to eliminate the odor that we were looking at diverting to have them investigate it. I ended the call at that point and asked Dispatch for numbers at FL310 in case we needed to turn off Pack 1. I called the flight attendants to see how the odor was in the back; and they informed me that it was still lingering and was worse toward the back of the aircraft. At this point I had made up my mind that we were going to divert. At about this time we received an ACARS message from Maintenance Control stating that they wanted us to divert too. We immediately joined up on the arrival and headed to divert airport. We informed ATC that we were having some issues but didn't feel that declaring an emergency was necessary because all we had at that point was just a subtle odor. As we continued the descent we noticed that odor was getting worse. Eventually the flight attendants called prior to 10;000 FT stating that it was indeed getting worse in the back; and that the B Flight Attendant was starting to feel a little ill. We requested and received 22L and landed shortly after the conversation with the flight attendants. We parked at the gate and deplaned the aircraft. No passenger complained about feeling ill at that time. Our two flight attendants said that they felt ill; and I myself was starting to feel ill. I handed the aircraft over to Maintenance to troubleshoot the problem. I went up to eat; and breathe some fresh air and started to feel better. I went down to talk to Maintenance and ended up hanging to help them try to find the problem. After Dispatch decided to cancel the flight; I left feeling ill again. I told the two maintenance guys to take a break that neither one of them looked very well. They both had extremely bloodshot eyes; and one of them said that he was not feeling well. When I got to the crew room I was not feeling well. I felt nauseous and kind of dazed. We got our assignment to deadhead. As we were headed to our deadhead the flight attendants were complaining about not feeling well. They informed me that I didn't look well; and I said that I didn't feel well. The First Officer said he felt fine; but I decided that since 3 of the 4 of us felt ill that it was probably a good idea to get checked out. At this point we contacted our supervisors and Scheduling and proceeded with the process of get checked out. One thing I think would help is to have in-flight troubleshooting procedures. Other airlines have this. If we had been able to do this we would have known sooner that we were having a problem that was not going to go away. A decision to divert sooner might have been made; however as [I] look back on it; I still feel that our divert airport was the best option all around given the circumstances.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.