About McDonnell Douglas

The St. Louis aerospace complex that became McDonnell Douglas — and merged into Boeing in 1997 — is one of the largest defense and commercial aviation manufacturing sites in American history. The campus spans areas adjacent to Lambert Field (now Spirit of St. Louis Airport), including the Hazelwood and Berkeley campuses, with millions of square feet of manufacturing space, engineering offices, test facilities, and support infrastructure.

Key Historical Milestones:

  • 1939: James S. McDonnell founded McDonnell Aircraft Corporation adjacent to Lambert Field; original production and engineering buildings constructed
  • 1940s–1950s: Wartime and Cold War defense contracts drove rapid expansion; the facility produced the F2H Banshee and other military aircraft; multiple new construction phases followed
  • 1967: Merger with Douglas Aircraft Company created McDonnell Douglas Corporation, one of the largest aerospace employers in the United States
  • 1970s–1980s: Production of the F-15 Eagle, F/A-18 Hornet, and commercial aircraft variants; heavy maintenance, overhaul, and new construction continued across the complex
  • 1997: Boeing merged with McDonnell Douglas; St. Louis production continued under Boeing ownership
  • Ongoing: The facility remains active under Boeing, with substantially reduced employment compared to peak years

At peak employment, the St. Louis complex employed tens of thousands of workers across a wide range of trades and specialties: Engineers and design personnel, Machinists and production workers, Pipefitters and steamfitters (UA Local 562), Heat and frost insulators (Local 1 and Local 27), Boilermakers (Local 27), Electricians, Sheet metal workers, Painters, Welders, Maintenance and repair personnel, Custodial and janitorial workers, and Quality control and inspection personnel.

Asbestos-containing materials were specified throughout the facility because it delivered properties that alternatives could not match at the time: Heat resistance required in jet engine test cells, metalworking, welding, and foundry operations; Electrical insulation valued in aircraft wiring systems and facility power distribution; Fire resistance mandated by federal building codes and military specifications for facilities housing jet fuel and hydraulic fluids; Tensile strength necessary in gaskets, packing materials, and friction components under sustained mechanical stress; and Cost and availability made asbestos-containing products inexpensive and widely available from domestic suppliers through the mid-1970s.

Buildings constructed at Lambert Field during the 1939–1945 period reportedly followed construction standards then universal in American industry with pipe covering and block insulation on steam and hot water systems, spray fireproofing applied to structural steel, and asbestos-containing floor tile and ceiling materials. Post-war defense contracts produced additional manufacturing hangars, engineering buildings, and support facilities with asbestos-containing roofing materials, insulating cements applied at pipe joints and equipment fittings, and thermal pipe covering on HVAC and process piping systems. The 1960–1975 period saw the highest production activity and coincided with the broadest use of asbestos-containing materials in American industrial construction, with jet engine test cells, paint shops, welding areas, and production floor expansions reportedly constructed or renovated with asbestos-containing fireproofing, refractory materials, and thermal insulation. After OSHA’s initial standards and progressively tighter exposure limits through the 1980s, new installation of asbestos-containing materials reportedly declined, though the existing inventory of legacy asbestos-containing materials throughout the facility allegedly continued to generate exposure during maintenance and repair operations, renovation activities, and routine facility upkeep. Asbestos abatement work was reportedly undertaken at portions of the facility during the 1990–1997 period, consistent with applicable regulatory requirements.

General Equipment at McDonnell Douglas

The equipment below represents the systems and infrastructure documented or typically present at this facility during the era when asbestos-containing materials were specified in industrial construction. This is general facility-equipment reference — not a legal attribution of any specific product, manufacturer, or exposure event to this facility. Material-category and manufacturer information is addressed in the AsbestosIndex Product Crosswalk linked under the records table below.

Industrial Boilers View crosswalk › Process Piping View crosswalk › Pipe Insulation View crosswalk › Block Insulation View crosswalk › Valves View crosswalk › Gaskets View crosswalk › Pumps View crosswalk › Heat Exchangers View crosswalk › Cooling Equipment View crosswalk ›

Documented Asbestos Evidence

The records below are verified, state-documented asbestos removals at this facility. Each entry represents a regulated abatement project where the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (Missouri DNR) was notified under federal NESHAP rules, the work was logged, and the asbestos-containing material was confirmed and removed under regulated conditions. These are not allegations or estimates — they are paper records tying documented asbestos-containing material to this specific site.

No Missouri DNR NESHAP abatement notifications have been identified for this facility in current public records. Per the framing above, absence of state-agency documentation should not be read as absence of asbestos — only as absence of a formal, regulated abatement event meeting reporting thresholds. Workers who recall encountering pipe insulation, block insulation, gaskets, or other asbestos-era construction materials at this facility may still have viable claims regardless of whether a state record exists.

Material Categories in Documented Records

The materials documented above (and similar asbestos-containing materials commonly encountered in records of this type) appear in the AsbestosIndex catalog with historical manufacturer and trust-fund information. Click a category to view manufacturers historically associated with that material:

Thermal System Insulation View crosswalk › Asbestos-Cement Board View crosswalk › Pipe Insulation View crosswalk › Roofing & Flashing View crosswalk › Spray Fireproofing View crosswalk › Floor Tile & Mastic View crosswalk › Ceiling Tile View crosswalk › Gaskets & Packing View crosswalk ›

Who May Have Been Exposed at McDonnell Douglas

Workers across many trades at the St. Louis McDonnell Douglas facility may have been exposed to asbestos-containing materials. Direct handling was not required for exposure. Many trades experienced bystander exposure — working in the same spaces where asbestos-containing materials were being cut, installed, or removed, without adequate respiratory protection.

Heat and Frost Insulators (Heat and Frost Insulators Local 1 and Local 27) were among the most directly exposed trade workers at the facility. They reportedly installed, maintained, and removed pipe covering on steam, hot water, and process piping systems; cut, fit, and finished asbestos-containing insulation materials; routinely worked with block insulation and insulating cement; and performed tasks documented in occupational health literature to generate the highest airborne fiber concentrations of any trade.

Pipefitters and steamfitters (UA Local 562) reportedly worked alongside insulators at the facility’s extensive pipe systems, cut through asbestos-containing pipe covering when making repairs or modifications, handled asbestos-containing gaskets and packing materials when servicing valves and flanges, and worked in confined spaces where fiber concentrations may have been significantly elevated.

Boilermakers (Boilermakers Local 27) working on boilers, pressure vessels, and associated equipment reportedly encountered asbestos-containing refractory materials during repairs and overhauls, worked with insulating cement and rope gasket materials at high-temperature connections, and performed sustained high-temperature work requiring substantial asbestos-containing insulation.

Electricians across the facility may have been exposed during installation, maintenance, and replacement of wiring and conduit systems, work on equipment with asbestos-containing components, and bystander exposure while insulators, pipefitters, and boilermakers disturbed asbestos-containing materials in adjacent work areas.

Sheet metal workers fabricating and installing ductwork, air handling components, and enclosures may have been exposed through duct lining materials, joint compounds, and fire-rated enclosures that allegedly contained asbestos-containing materials.

Machinists and production workers on the manufacturing floor may have been exposed through asbestos-containing friction materials and brake linings in aircraft components, gaskets and sealing products used in component assembly and testing, and bystander exposure when maintenance trades disturbed asbestos-containing materials on the production floor.

Painters worked throughout the facility and may have been exposed during surface preparation on substrates that reportedly contained asbestos-containing materials and from proximity to other trades disturbing asbestos-containing materials nearby.

Welders working on aircraft components and facility equipment may have been exposed through asbestos-containing fireproofing in test cells and fabrication areas, and from bystander exposure when insulators and other trades performed work on nearby piping and equipment.

Maintenance and repair personnel may have encountered asbestos-containing materials routinely throughout their careers while repairing building systems, replacing floor tile, servicing HVAC systems, and disturbing or removing legacy asbestos-containing materials during general facility upkeep — frequently without adequate respiratory protection.

Custodial and janitorial workers may have been exposed on a daily basis through sweeping and mopping production floors and utility areas where asbestos-containing dust had settled, using cleaning equipment with inadequate filtration, and working in environments that preceded wet-mopping or HEPA protocols.

Engineering and quality control personnel who worked regularly on the production floor and in utility areas faced the same bystander exposure risk as production trades.

⚠️ Critical Filing Deadline

Missouri law gives mesothelioma and asbestos-disease victims 5 years from the date of medical diagnosis to file a personal injury lawsuit (Mo. Rev. Stat. § 516.120). For wrongful death claims after an asbestos-related death, the filing window is 3 years from the date of death (Mo. Rev. Stat. § 537.100). Miss either deadline by a single day and the right to file is permanently gone. No exceptions, no extensions.

About the two deadlines: Missouri keeps the personal-injury clock (Mo. Rev. Stat. § 516.120) and the wrongful-death clock (Mo. Rev. Stat. § 537.100) on separate tracks. The 5 years personal-injury deadline runs from the date of diagnosis and applies to the diagnosed person's own claim while they are alive. The 3 years wrongful-death deadline runs from the date of death and applies to surviving family members. The two are independent — preserving one does not extend the other, and an asbestos attorney with experience in Missouri can keep both options open as the situation evolves.

The personal-injury clock runs from the date of medical diagnosis — not from the date of asbestos exposure. Mesothelioma can take 20 to 50 years to develop after exposure. Many workers are only now receiving diagnoses from exposures that occurred decades ago.

Treat the 5 years deadline as a hard outer limit, not a planning horizon.

⚠️ Why You Must Act Now

Missouri's filing window may sound like ample time. It is not. Every month that passes after a mesothelioma diagnosis is a month in which your case gets harder to build and your options narrow.

Witnesses Become Harder to Reach

The tradespeople who worked alongside mesothelioma victims at facilities of this era are now in their 70s and 80s. Witnesses from many years ago are harder and harder to contact by the day — coworkers who can testify about which asbestos-containing materials were used, who supplied them, and how the work was done are increasingly difficult to locate. Once first-hand testimony becomes unavailable, that record is gone.

Records Disappear

Employment records, union records, purchasing records, and product invoices that document exactly which asbestos-containing materials were used at this facility are being lost every year. Plants close. Corporate owners change. Storage facilities are cleared. Records that existed five years ago may not exist today.

Mesothelioma Cases Are Complex to Build

Identifying every responsible manufacturer and every jobsite across a tradesperson's career requires intensive investigation by experienced toxic-tort counsel. A case against the manufacturers who supplied asbestos-containing materials to this facility may involve dozens of defendants. That investigation takes time that waiting families do not have.

Asbestos Trust Fund Claims Run on a Separate Track

More than 60 asbestos bankruptcy trusts exist to compensate victims whose exposures came from manufacturers that have since gone bankrupt — including the Manville Personal Injury Settlement Trust, established after the 1982 Johns-Manville bankruptcy. Each trust has its own claim forms, exposure criteria, documentation requirements, and processing timelines. Pursuing trust-fund compensation in parallel with a lawsuit takes months. The trust-fund process should start now, not after you decide whether to file suit.

What To Do Next

If you or a family member has been diagnosed with mesothelioma, asbestosis, or another asbestos-related disease — and you worked at this facility, lived with someone who did, or worked at neighboring industrial sites in the corridor — the practical next steps are:

  1. Speak with an asbestos attorney with experience in Missouri. The first conversation is free, confidential, and creates no obligation. An experienced attorney will help you understand which trust-fund claims may apply, which civil claims are viable, and what documentation you should start gathering.
  2. Gather what you can about your work history. Pay stubs, W-2s, union cards, photographs, names of coworkers, and dates of employment all become important evidence. The WorkChain widget on this page can help you organize and email yourself a copy of your facility list.
  3. Preserve your medical records. Pathology reports, biopsy results, imaging, and pulmonary-function tests all become part of the legal record. Ask your treating physicians for full copies of everything in your chart.
  4. Identify household members who may also have been exposed. Spouses who laundered work clothing and children who hugged a parent returning from the plant are eligible for secondary-exposure claims when they have been diagnosed with an asbestos-related disease.
  5. Act before the filing deadline runs. Missouri's statute of limitations is a hard outer limit. Even if you are still in the middle of treatment decisions, beginning the legal process early preserves your options.

Get a free case evaluation from an asbestos attorney with experience in Missouri →

Asbestos-Related Diseases

Asbestos fiber exposure can cause several specific diseases that typically appear decades after the original exposure. The latency period — the gap between exposure and diagnosis — usually runs 20 to 50 years. That's why workers exposed in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s are receiving diagnoses today.

Mesothelioma

A rare, aggressive cancer that affects the lining of the lungs (pleural mesothelioma), abdomen (peritoneal), or heart (pericardial). Mesothelioma is almost exclusively caused by asbestos exposure, which is why a mesothelioma diagnosis often points directly to historical workplace exposure. Average latency from first exposure to diagnosis is 30-50 years.

Asbestosis

A chronic, non-cancerous scarring of lung tissue caused by inhaled asbestos fibers. Asbestosis causes progressive shortness of breath, persistent cough, and reduced lung function. It does not improve with treatment, and it is a recognized basis for compensation under most trust schedules and civil claims.

Lung Cancer

Asbestos exposure significantly increases the risk of lung cancer, particularly when combined with a history of smoking. Asbestos-related lung cancer is compensable under the same trust schedules and civil claim avenues as mesothelioma.

Other Recognized Diseases

Pleural plaques, pleural thickening, laryngeal cancer, ovarian cancer, and certain gastrointestinal cancers are also recognized as asbestos-related under various trust schedules and case-law authorities, though eligibility and proof requirements vary by claim type.

If you have any of these diagnoses and you worked at this facility, lived with someone who did, or were exposed in any documented capacity, you may have a claim worth pursuing. Speak with an attorney before assuming you don't qualify.

Data Sources

Information about facility equipment, industrial materials, and occupational records referenced on this page is drawn from publicly available sources where applicable, including:

If specific equipment or product claims in this article are sourced from a non-public database, the source is identified parenthetically within the text above.