SEATTLE -- A Lake Tapps flight attendant filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Boeing claiming she was disabled because of bad air on a Boeing built plane.

For 17 years, Terry Williams was a flight attendant for American Airlines. Her career effectively ended in April 2007 when she saw a strange mist in the cabin.

"A haze of smoke coming out of the sidewall ventilation," Williams described.

It didn’t last long, but Williams said that so-called fume event changed her life.

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She said she suffers daily with chronic pain and migraines.

"I feel I can’t play with my children because the pain is so bad I'm often left in tears, unable to play with them or read a book to them because I can’t see,” Williams said.

She said fume events like the one she experienced aren’t rare, though she was more affected than most.

Her attorneys said they are the inevitable result of the way air is supplied to a plane's passenger cabin. It is pulled into the jet's engines, then cooled and pumped into the cabin.

According to the lawsuit, the problem is the air can be contaminated with toxic metals and compounds from the engine and in fume events, passengers and crew end up breathing that bad air.

"Terry's doctors are all agreed that her serious, debilitating illnesses are caused by her exposure onboard her flight," said Williams’ attorney, Michael Withey.

The solution, according to the lawsuit, is that Boeing could filter the cabin air.

“This is the first lawsuit in the United States that claims aircrafts that don’t have sensors and filters are defective,” Withey said.

Williams and her husband said if Boeing installed sensors and filters it might prevent others from experience the daily agony they feel.

"That's the problem, it's so hard. There's nothing that can be done," said Williams’ husband, Gary Williams. “If it can happen to my wife, it can happen to anybody, anytime."

Boeing spokesperson, Bernard Choi, said, "We're aware of the lawsuit. I can't discuss details of it at this time because we have yet to be served with the papers related to this suit. Regarding the issue that the suit appears to raise I can say that we believe that the air in airplane cabins is safe."