Here's Why Planes Still Fly With Leaded Fuel

As leaded fuel has been banned worldwide for cars, planes still fly with it.

By Mercedes Streeter
Yesterday 9:05AM

The United Nations Environment Program recently announced that the era of dangerous leaded fuel has finally come to an end, but it’s not exactly true. A couple hundred thousand planes are still flying with leaded gasoline. Here’s why.

On August 30, the UNEP announced that fuel stations in Algeria finally stopped dispensing leaded gasoline. The country was the last in the world to hang on to the old fuel and its banishment means that leaded fuel is off of roads worldwide. However, missing in the UNEP’s announcement is that leaded fuel is alive and well up above, powering general aviation aircraft.

Leaded fuel was banned by the Environmental Protection Agency in the U.S. in 1996. Since then, you’ll really only find it in some off-road vehicles, old boats, old farming equipment and yep, in the little Piper buzzing above your house.

There are 230,000 aircraft in the world that still run on leaded fuel, 167,000 of them in the U.S. alone. Everything from trainer Cessnas to small commercial aircraft.

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