Dangerous Toxin Detected On Passenger Jets

[peter991]

Dangerous toxin detected on passenger jets

Traces of a dangerous neuro-toxin known to cause chronic health problems have been detected on most modern commercial passenger jets from samples collected clandestinely by flight crew.

Passenger jets in Australia and internationally have been the targets of a secret swabbing study by pilots and flight attendants concerned about their exposure to contaminated air on commercial aircraft.

The results — to be detailed on this weekend's SUNDAY program on the Nine Network — have prompted University of NSW toxicologist Professor Chris Winder to call for the aviation industry to fund a proper epidemiological study to see if the levels of so-called tricresyl-phosphate, or TCP, now being found on most modern passenger jets during the survey are toxic.

"The industry is in complete denial that this is an issue or that they need to worry about it,” says Prof Winder. "They will continue to resist that there is a problem for as long as they can so they don't have to worry about fixing it."

The issue of TCP contamination of aircraft air systems first came to light in Australia in 1999. A senate inquiry was held into concerns about a cluster of complaints about exposure to fumes and illness among flight crew on the British Aerospace 146 passenger jet used extensively across the country back then by Ansett and National Jet.

The inquiry heard evidence of a design fault in the BAE146 which allowed oil from the engine to vaporise into the bleed air system. This contaminated cabin and cockpit air with the organophosphate compounds used in the jet oil as an anti-wear additive.

The effects of this mix of pyrolised chemicals are linked, in the short-term, to symptoms such as headaches, nausea, dizziness, loss of concentration, blurred vision and even temporary paralysis. In the long-term, effects reported include chronic fatigue, neurological damage and chemical sensitivity.

At the time, Ansett and Australia's air safety watchdog CASA — the Civil Aviation Safety Authority — gave evidence under oath that TCP had never been found inside an aircraft.

But as this weekend's program reveals, research initiated by British pilot Tristan Loraine has proved the industry wrong.

Loraine got sick from fumes while flying Boeing 757 jets. He realised the commercial aviation industry had failed to do swab testing of aircraft cabins and cockpits as had been recommended by the prestigious US National Research Council, an arm of the US Academy of Sciences.

In the past three years, he has encouraged international flight unions and respected international scientists, including Professor Chris Van Netten of the University of British Columbia in Canada, to get the swab testing done without the knowledge of the major airlines.

Subsequent testing by Professor Van Netten has revealed the presence of TCP in almost every sample across almost every type of modern passenger jet. "We decided we would start doing our own because the airlines weren't doing them,” says Loraine.

"So to date, we have done swab testing on aircraft in the UK, in Australian and in North America and nearly all of them are coming back positive.

"What that means is that the neuro-toxin is on the walls of the passenger cabin and in the flight deck."

SUNDAY interviews flight crew and passengers who have become chronically ill from exposure to fumes on commercial passenger aircraft, including former Ansett flight attendant Judy Cullinane, who won a confidential settlement from the Ansett insurers in 2002. She is critical that passengers flying on commercial jet are rarely told if they have been exposed to the known neuro-toxic fumes.

"They get off the aircraft sometimes feeling tired, sick, ill and they don't know what they’ve been exposed to. It's wrong. They should be told what they were exposed to, and how it can affect them. We all should be."

Professor Winder is critical that neither CASA nor the commercial airline industry has ever done a scientific survey on the air in a plane while a bleed air system is leaking oil into the cabin air. He also says several key recommendations made in the 2000 senate inquiry report to parliament have been ignored.

"All I want the aviation industry to do is to acknowledge that this is a real issue instead of pretending that it isn't, which is what they've been doing," Winder says.

The air safety watchdog, CASA, told SUNDAY that the long-term health effects of very frequent air travel were "not directly related to safety of flight" within the ambit of CASA's statutory responsibilities.

It acknowledged 138 fumes incidents had been reported on Australian aircraft in the past seven-and-a-half years since the senate inquiry hearings — a figure flight unions claim is not reflective of a much higher rate of incidents that go unreported.

Detailed questions on air contamination issues were also put to the peak aviation industry body IATA — the International Air Transport Association. No response had been received at the time of publication.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=269064

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