Mr J McAuslan,

General Secretary,

Balpa,

Balpa House,

5Heathrow Boulevard,

278 Bath Road,

West Drayton.

UB70DQ                                                                                                                       

23^rd June 2008.

An open letter

Dear Mr McAuslan,

I read in the June 2008 Balpa Log an article about the serious state of a typical pilot’s mental health but was seriously concerned that no mention was made of a well known and likely cause of their ‘mystery’ sickness.

You will recall that in April 2005 you personally concluded at the Balpa conference that contaminated air was causing widespread serious chronic ill health in aircrew and passengers and called for urgent action.

This presumably would have been further highlighted in 2006, when 20 out of 20 pilots (me included) had highly abnormal blood / fat tests; again carried out by Balpa.

Anybody who has suffered the terrible effects of contaminated air would immediately recognise the most frequently reported symptoms of ‘chronic fatigue and a rapidly failing memory’. These symptoms may even sound familiar to you and other non pilots, but when combined with a suitable blood test leave little doubt as to the underlying unique cause. These symptoms and others were graphically described in the article along with inevitable, personally disastrous ‘knock on’ effects which invariably terminate ones career due to being an ‘unacceptable risk to public flight safety’.

Whilst most groups accept the present (albeit deliberately slow) strategy of identifying each and every chemical that might be the cause of serious ill health found during aircraft fume events. The Aerotoxic Association has chosen to concern itself primarily with the perhaps more urgent matter of assisting the victims.

We have now built up a mass of evidence indicating a clear pattern of illness in aircrew and passengers and offer professional advice by introducing members FREE to specialised doctors, who have studied the subject for many years and can both help individuals understand the cause of their illness and how to recover.

I would hope that this would be a priority for your member’s welfare?

It was also somewhat irritating to find in the same Log issue, a jokey winning answer to the Caption Competition “Organophosphates? WHAT organophosphates?” Whilst we have all learnt to accept the CAA’s almost total lack of interest in this subject and of their understandable lack of control over their AME’s sick sense of humour; Balpa must surely realise that some of their members have lost everything through this illness and found the caption most inappropriate and profoundly unfunny.

As the author of the  Log article is obviously keen to start an open debate on all the possible causes of ‘mental ill health’, presumably including chronic poisoning; could I suggest that I write an article on the work of the Aerotoxic Association (www.aerotoxic.org) for the next Log? I hope you would agree that this may be of enormous value to some of your sick Balpa members, particularly on their first visit to their GP’s by introducing a very likely cause for their condition, which you yourself helped to identify - over three years ago.

Yours sincerely,

John Hoyte

Chairman, Aerotoxic Association.

Former BAe 146 Training Captain.

Balpa member 27430