Click here to read the paper

click here to read the blog entry

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Click here to read Dr Sarah Myhill's press release on the incident

Click here to watch the video (in Russian) that went out to 140 million viewers.

Click here to read the article - Scroll down the article for "Aerotoxic Syndrome Update"

Click here for the Boeing 787 promotion slide show. Note the interesting comment about ‘cleaner air……’ ie - it doesn’t poison the customers and crews (may take a few seconds to load)

Read the articles here

Read the press release here

Please click here to read the article (German)

Please click here for the English translation

Click here for the second article.

 Please click here for the English translation

Read the Sunday Express Article on MORs here
Read the Daily Mail version here

***** AEROTOXIC.ORG EXCLUSIVE!! *****

To read the dossier mentioned in the article click here!

Click read more to read about the German Parliament Hearing

Click to link to the article

Read the Av Herald article here

UPDATE

For more on this article, click here

Read the letter here

Dr Sarah Myhill v GMC Press Release

Click here to read the open letter.

UPDATE

Click here to read the reply.

Click here to read the Av Herald article.

AIRSENSE DETECTOR - Click to read about a powerful tool which will definitely reduce the total downtime of your aircraft

AIRSENSE PRESENTATION - Click to read up on a new method for the detection of lubricating oils in the bleed air 

Read the Q&A here

Other Government answers

Click to read the full article

Click here for the full report

Read about the Cranfield University report and Boeing 757 fume event here.

1st Card

2nd Card

Accompanying Letter

June 2011 Skypointer article

above: Dr Ian Perry, an examiner for CAA & FAA pilots 

read the BBC Report 

OPEN LETTER

Aerotoxic Syndrome ICOH paper 2000

Dr Russel Rayman paper 1983

Fume event photo

UPDATE 

Reply page 1

Reply page 2

Read the full article here

 USAPA Toxic Fumes Guidance

This article is an overview and will be subject to additional hyperlinks and references in due course.

Summary of Aerotoxic Safety Risks

BALPA LOG Magazine on Cabin Air Quality June/July 2011 – 8th June 2011

Magazine article text:

CABIN AIR QUALITY

The results of the Cranfield study are still delayed, due to the peer review process. We are informed that they will be presented in May 2011 to the Seattle Aerospace Medical Association.

Aerotoxic Association comment 9th June 2011:

The Cranfield University Study was published on 10th May 2011 and has already drawn strong criticism from many experts of its peer review process with its inability and unwillingness to identify and publicise the identity of the substances in a fume event, which the UK House of Lords Science and Technology Committee specifically recommended should be done urgently in 2007.

Read the letter here

Read the article here

Read the full article here

Click here to go to the full article.

 Read the full article here

Click here to go to article

Read her response here

The Cranfield University report “Aircraft Cabin Air Sampling” has finally been released. It comes as no surprise to us that they have concluded that cabin air contaminated with oil doesn’t pose any health problems. Or rather, that there is no evidence that it does.

Click here for the full Flight Global article.

Read the full article here

This is the document on cabin air quality that is available to BALPA members, written by Dr Sandy Mitchell. We believe it contains a lot of factually-incorrect information and gives the impression that the problem is negligible. Suggesting that affected crews are suffering from hyperventilation and that people who remove themselves from exposure always recover their health is misleading.

In the UK, the Department for Transport has announced that it is closing down the Aviation Health Working Group. After ten years, the department seems happy that the group has run its course and is no longer needed. In those ten years, £400,000 of taxpayers' money has been spent, no meaningful research had been completed and Cranfield University have not published their Cabin Air Quality study. It has hardly been a glowing success and has in no way fulfilled its intended role.

The Aerotoxic Association has five copies of the new film “Broken Wings” to give away on DVD. The film tells the story of the BAe 146 aircraft and how contaminated cabin air has affected those who flew on it. To enter the competition, watch the film trailer and answer this simple question:

As a precautionary safety measure, how many contaminated air detectors are fitted to BAe 146 and Avro RJ aircraft?

< Read the Cabin air Quality article>

Open letter from the Aerotoxic Association to BALPA on cabin air quality, 7 March 2011

BALPA and Cabin Air Quality - Five years on

Angel Without Wings is the in-depth story of one extraordinary pilot who lost her career and health to what many say is aviation's biggest cover up and her amazing 13 year quest for answers and change.

Our charcoal-lined, Flyer's Friend™ face masks are a simple, low cost measure to protect yourself from the potentially damaging effects to health from fume events when flying.

Article from IFALPA safety bulletin: Cabin air quality issues, 21 May 2008

From Dr Sarah Myhill's press release:

In a dramatic turnabout yesterday the GMC lifted Dr Myhill’s suspension and restored her license to practise medicine. Dr Myhill was jubilant.

Her first reaction was to thank her many friends who had stood by her. She said “I am so grateful to those thousands of patients and medical colleagues who knew that I was a good doctor who had done nothing wrong and kept their faith in me. Without their help and support I would have struggled to find the strength to fight.”

 The Aerotoxic Syndrome – a Novel Approach to Liability?

For Her Revealing Report on Aerotoxic Syndrome, CNN BusinessTraveller's Ayesha Durgahee has been named  “Business Travel News Journalist of the Year” Click Here to view video

(11 March 2010, 5 minutes)

Susan Michaelis, Global Cabin Air Quality Executive head researcher and an Aerotoxic Syndrome sufferer has just been awarded a PhD in safety science on the subject “Health and Flight Implications From Exposure to Contaminated Air in Aircraft”. Susan has been working on the 975 page document for over ten years and has been awarded the highest possible grade. For her tireless dedication and for helping to bring the issue out into the open, the Aerotoxic Association says “Congratulations”!

Article: Boeing 767 Flight number XLA 120 Aerotoxic Poisoning

Bernadette Baumann was a flight attendant for Lufthansa for 20 years but had to give up flying in 1997 due to illness caused by exposure to toxins in the aircraft. In October 2010 she was exposed again while travelling as a passenger and has suffered further health problems. This is a translation of her letter of complaint to Lufthansa.

BALPA (The British Airline Pilots Association) say: “Write an amusing caption for this picture and you could win £10”.

Every month the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) collates all the Mandatory Occurrence Reports (MORs) that they have received. These are reports on matters that affect flight safety and are submitted by aircrew of UK-registered airlines to their respective employers, who then forward them to the CAA.

At our request the CAA have been sending us the reports and we now look at a typical month, June 2010. We continue to be very concerned by the number of incidents concerning oil fumes.

Former Flight Attendant Joanne Turner wins second appeal in landmark contaminated cabin air case.

 Airliner cabin air – the surprising truth about how and why it could be very dangerous to your health

The following letter was published in the ‘Farmers Guardian’ on 20th August 2010. The author highlights a document produced in the UK by the Health & Safety Executive which lists “suicidal intent” as one of the chronic symptoms of organophosphate (OP) poisoning. As it has been shown thay OPs in the form of tricresyl phosphate regularly get into airliner cabins, it is no coincidence that some of our members have felt so ill that thoughts of suicide have also entered their minds.

Last Thursday German TV and radio were hot with the revelation of an internal paper leaked to the German media. The document is from the Bundesverband der Deutschen Fluggesellschaften, BDF (Association of German airlines) and reveals their concerns of further media attention on the subject of contaminated cabin air. It urges its members to do their best to keep attention away from passengers who have been affected by contaminated cabin air, to keep quiet about the issue, and if they do have to speak, to make sure they all have their stories straight.

Boeing unveiled their new 787 Dreamliner to the public this week at the Farnborough Airshow. The aircraft promises new levels of passenger well-being, delivering the occupants with fewer headaches, less dizziness and fatigue. In an interview with the BBC, Thomson Airways’ Communications Director Christian Cull explains how this is achieved, including supplying cleaner cabin air.

“BALPA is asking pilots to take this seriously and to report any health-related symptoms during or after a flight.” We thought we would re-visit this article from BALPA’s August-September 2004 edition of ‘The Log’ magazine as a lot of the information contained within it is just as pertinent now as it was then. It also contains an informative section “Organophosphates under the spotlight” and a case study of an affected pilot.

BALPA: The Aircraft Environment

Michael Cramer, MEP for the Greens in the European Parliament wants the European Commission and the EU Member States to take responsibility for crew and passenger health on aircraft, but both sides are doing their best to distance themselves from the issue.

The U.S. Senate has approved an amendment by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) that would require the FAA to conduct a study of air quality in the cabins of U.S. airliners.

Read the whole article at flightglobal.com

Interview with Jörg Handwerg, airline captain and spokesman for the pilot union Cockpit. Translation of an article in the German newspaper sueddeutsche.de

On 18th May 2010, a contaminated cabin air conference was held in Berlin, attended by representatives from major trade unions and other interested parties. The following press release was issued shortly afterwards:

The General Medical Council is again threatening to withdraw Dr Sarah Myhill’s licence, this time after two vague and anonymous accusations were received from two doctors about her work and the information on her website. It seems Dr Myhill is not being allowed to defend her position and that the GMC are simply siding with the complainants even though no complaints have been received from any of her patients.

21 April 2010: Five years to the day after BALPA’s Contaminated Air Conference concluded that “there is a workplace problem resulting in chronic and acute illness amongst flight crew”, what has happened to improve cabin air quality since?

Rev John Woodley was the former Chair on the Senate Committee on Rural, Regional Affairs & Transport in the Australian Parliament. He says if he had all available information at the time of the 1999/2000 inquiry into BAe 146 Cabin Air Quality, he would have recommended grounding the aircraft.

 Letter from Rev Woodley to GCAQE

BAe “money paid for silence” document

Letters from the Aerotoxic Association (AA) requesting information about cabin air quality regulations and associated research, plus replies.

In the UK, the Department for Transport (DfT) has helpfully published an ‘FAQ’ to allay any fears anyone may have regarding airliner cabin air quality. On the whole their answers are far from the truth, and in a bid to set the record straight, the Aerotoxic Association has provided its own, more accurate version.

In a letter to Professor Sir Michael Rawlins, Chairman of NICE, Professor Hooper makes a complaint about proposed “PACE” trials on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome / Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME).

This is a communication from April 2008 between Sandra Webber, chair of the Aviation Health Working Group (AHWG) and Dr Nigel Dowdall from British Airways Health Services (BAHS), who was also sitting on the AHWG committee at the time.

We feel that this article is very unbalanced in favour of the non-believers of contaminated cabin air and its health effects. Aerotoxic Syndrome didn’t get a mention, nor did the victims of this illness or all the evidence showing that contaminated cabin air is extremely hazardous. But please check out all available evidence, for and against, and decide for yourself.

Clearing the Air - Australian Aviation Jan-Feb 2010

Article from the February-March 2010 issue of NEXUS magazine. "The aviation industry must adopt technical solutions to the common problem of toxic oil fumes leaking into aircraft cabins before even more aircrew and passengers become seriously ill." Feel free to pass on the article or you may publish it, provided the article is reproduced in full and credited to Nexus magazine and the author, Capt John Hoyte.

NEXUS: Aerotoxic Syndrome - Aviation's best-kept secret

Deutsche Vesion  Versão Português

Way back in 2004 there were warnings about toxic engine oil fumes entering aircraft cabins. These have still not been heeded by the aviation authorities. Fixes including air filters, fume detectors and less toxic oil are all available today, but are still not required by law and are not implemented by airlines.

Read the article (courtesy of AOPIS)

If sheep farmers using organophosphorous pesticides are given dire warnings about the effects coming into contact with the chemical, why are passengers and aircrew kept in the dark about inhaling organophosphates in aircraft cabins?

DHL Air Ltd, who operate freight-carrying Boeing 757s issued this notice to their crews on the subject of cockpit fumes. What seems alarming is that this instruction on fault-finding gives the pilots no advice about the neurotoxic health effects of the fumes, and in fact describes their regular occurrence as normal, contrary to Boeing who describe these events as “rare”.

 DHL Cockpit fumes - Fault-finding

  Breakspear Medical Bulletin - Issue 22 Autumn/Early winter 2009Dr Peter Julu

This newspaper article was brought to our attention by a post made on the PPRuNe website. The article is a rough Google translation.

Twin sisters Victoria and Valerie Vaughn boarded Southwest Airlines flight 1705 on 27th January 2009 in good health, but ended up in hospital after the cabin filled with fumes and have been suffering health problems ever since. They have filed a court petition to compel Southwest Airlines to reveal more about the incident on the aircraft and as of 28 October are suing the airline.

Lord Tyler initiated a debate in the UK's House of Lords on 27 October 2009, and accused the government of doing nothing about the aircraft contaminated problem for the past ten years. Following the debate Lord Tyler issued this media release:

Given its commercial interests, can the cabin air quality study at Cranfield University sponsored by the Department for Transport really be unbiased?

In light of a recent admission from Professor Helen Muir that research commissioned by the UK government will find organophosphates in aircraft cabins, the Aerotoxic Association has written to various Lords and MPs calling urgently for the government to divulge information on the chemical composition of oil fumes.

  Public justice joins fight to save airline passengers and crew members from toxic ‘bleed air’ exposure

Media release from Lord Tyler - Liberal Democrat peer and air safety campaigner.

The Quest AirManager

 Plaintiff Terry Williams’ complaint, 30 June 2009
 Boeing’s answer, 11 August 2009

Peter Greenburg: Flight Attendant’s Lawsuit Raises Questions About Potentially Toxic Cabin Air

CNN video - Airplane air toxic? Featuring Terry Williams

A look at BALPA's turnabout on the Cabin Air Quality issue since 2005.

Over the past few days, Tristan Loraine, co-chairman of the Global Cabin Air Quality Executive has written to the Queen and the UK Prime Minister in a bid to bring to their attention the ongoing problem of contaminated air in aircraft cabins.

In the UK House of Commons, the issue of cabin air quality got another airing on 1st July 2009 in a one and a half hour debate.

A question to the Secretary of State for Health about Aerotoxic Syndrome research. With AA comment.

The Global Cabin Air Quality Executive is holding a forum in London on 28th and 29th April 2009 to discuss the cabin air quality issue. Many journalists and leading scientific researchers will be attending and speaking. Including agenda, Flightglobal article and photos

Following the recent TV programmes about contaminated cabin air, the eminent toxicologist explains how the authorities conducting research on cabin air quality have been misleading about the toxicity of TCP by concentrating on one of its less toxic isomers, TOCP. Report by Susan Michaelis, GCAQE.

Prof Dietrich Henschler Interview 18/3/09

Tim Van Beveren, maker of the recent programmes about Aerotoxic Syndrome would like to hear from crew or passengers who believe they have been exposed to contaminated cabin air. You can contact him by email at:

•  German and Swiss TV programmes about Aerotoxic Syndrome and Tricresyl phosphate (TCP) in aircraft cabins.
•  Follow-up TV programme also about contaminated cabin air
•  Condor TCP test results
•  Interview with Prof. Dr. Henschler, Toxicologist
•  Accident investigation reports

One of the most common and potentially debilitating symptoms of Aerotoxic Syndrome is Chronic Fatigues Syndrome / Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. This test should help sufferers treat their condition.

Ten years ago the Guardian wrote an article highlighting an incident where smoke entered the cabin of a BAe 146, and the government called for research into the problem. We ask what progress has taken place since then.

The Independent Pilots Association (IPA) sends whistle-blowing DVD about the scandal of contaminated cabin air to its members.

Lord Tyler launches an attack on the UK government's unwillingness to tackle this issue. Video and transcript.

With the help of the Aerotoxic Association, ROSPA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents) has written two articles on the subject of contaminated cabin air. In the first, "Something in the Air", affected aircrew talk about the health effects, and the second, "Air Control", examines whether regulations on Cabin Air Quality are being applied.

ROSPA - part 1 "Something in the Air"

ROSPA - part 2 "Air Control"

In the BBC radio programme, Farming Today, Tim Farron MP talks about how the government failed to act on warnings about organophosphates in sheep dip in a report by Lord Zuckerman. We look at how this relates to government legislation on OPs in aero engines. With links to the radio programme and the Zuckerman reports.

Can the UK Pesticides Campaign's court case victory help change legislation concerning aircraft cabin air quality?

Following the publication of an article in the BALPA magazine "LOG", John has written an open letter to the General Secretary.

Following the screening of the Panorama programme "Something in the Air", The Aerotoxic Association issued a press release calling for urgent action.

The managing director of a travel consumers website has praised Aerotoxic Association's campaign for official recognition of Aerotoxic Syndrome and our call for action to prevent toxic fumes leaking into cabins and cockpits.