Following press reports yesterday of bribery and corruption charges against BAE Systems in relation to arms deals, the Aerotoxic Association has issued a press release calling for investigations to go deeper, as in 1993 these documents reveal that the company paid off two airlines in return for silence over health issues surrounding its aircraft.

Aerotoxic Association Press Release

Immediate release

2^nd October 2009

BAE Systems – Dollars for Arms contracts

AND

Dollars for Health

The Aerotoxic Association fully supports the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation into the activities of BAE systems and its subsidiaries.

The enquiries and investigations should focus not solely on the issue of cash for arms contacts but also on cash for health and cash for silence.

It was brought to the UK Government’s attention that Australia's Senator O’Brien released hidden documents from the Australian Parliament in 2007 showing that in the 1993 BAE Systems, then known as British Aerospace, paid money for silence in relation to BAe 146 aircraft and the ongoing issue of the adverse health effects of toxic oil fumes leaking into its aircraft passenger cabins.

BAE’s failure to adequately protect crews and passengers who have worked and flown in the BAe 146 has been allowed to continue for over 25 years whilst the UK Government has done everything it can to protect the interests of BAE Systems. The Aerotoxic Association featured in a recent BBC report that new research links toxins found in the air systems of commercial aircraft to serious neurological damage. The Royal Family has travelled extensively on the BAe 146.

It is time that the UK Government put the Public's health first, instead of its close relationship which protects BAE systems.

The Aerotoxic Association is aware of many innocent people who have lost their health and careers and died as a direct consequence of the Government’s failure to act.

END

Contact

Captain John Hoyte – 07773 77 1867 (+447773771867)

Aerotoxic Association Chairman

Notes to Editors:

1. The Aerotoxic Association, founded in 2007 and run by prematurely medically-retired aircrew is dedicated to helping innocent crews and passengers exposed to contaminated bleed air from jet powered airliners.

2. All commercial jet aircraft supply breathing air for passengers and crews taken directly from the engines and supplied unfiltered to the passenger cabin. This air, known as ‘bleed air’ is known to become contaminated with hazardous chemicals present in synthetic jet engine oils and hydraulic fluids. These chemicals include the organophosphates 'tricresyl phosphate' and 'tributyl phosphate'.

3. The history of the hazards associated with synthetic jet engine oils and hydraulic fluids leaking into aircraft cabin air supplies has been a concern since the 1950s. Appropriate research called for in 1977 following the documented incapacitation of a crew member, has never been undertaken.

4. US Navy studies from 1961 identified serious toxicity hazards associated with breathing engine oil substances and similar studies in 1989 called for research into the ‘overall toxicity of the combined combustion by products’ of the oils rather than the toxicity of the individual substances. This still has not been done.

5. Additional published papers / information available at:

http://www.aopis.org/25July2006.html Hansard related to payments

http://www.aopis.org/hansard_2269.pdf Hansard related to payments

http://www.aopis.org/governmenthansards.htm Other Hansards related to payments

http://www.aopis.org/Tabled_documents_13August.pdf Payments agreement by BAE Systems

http://www.aopis.org/governmenthansards.htm For other Hansards related to payments

http://www.gcaqe.org/presentations.html GCAQE Presentations And Reports

http://www.welcomeaboardtoxicairlines.com Fact Not Fiction Films brings you the airline industry's biggest cover-up

http://www.susanmichaelis.com/ Aviation Contaminated Air Reference Manual