Airlines face toxic battle

BY TANIA EWING
AVIATION EDITOR

For more than a decade, pilots and flight attendants have been experiencing mid-air blackouts, seizures and temporary paralysis - linked to the presence of toxic fumes in the aircraft cabins.

Despite reports of almost identical symptoms by hundreds of crew flying in the US, UK, Canada and Australia, the airline industry has largely dismissed the illnesses as psychosomatic - and ignored warnings from government bodies that the attacks threaten the safety of passengers and crew.

But an investigation by The Sunday Age has revealed that the airline industry was first warned of the problem in 1983. There have been allegations that, faced with the cost of grounding the suspect airlines, some carriers have attempted to discredit staff claiming sickness benefits and threatened medical experts who spoke out about the toxic fumes. These claims have been denied.

Now a landmark decision in a Perth court may open the way for thousands of flight attendants and pilots to sue the airlines they believe are responsible for their illnesses.

On 26 February, Judy Cullinane, a former Ansett flight attendant, was given leave in the Perth District Court to sue the airline for negligence and loss of income.

In April, another Ansett flight attendant, Alyssia Chew, is expected to hear a decision on whether she can claim compensation for chronic illnesses linked to on-board fumes.

Both women flew on the BAe 146, the British Aerospace aircraft also called the Whisper Jet. The BAe 146 and the the McDonnel Douglas MD-80 are the two short-haul aircraft linked to most of the reports of illness worldwide.

In the US, a class action against Alaska Airlines is under way, and six British cabin crew are claiming compensation from airlines. It is believed that two weeks ago the American union for flight attendants, the world's largest, met secretly with its British counterpart to discuss the issue.

In Australia, the pilots' and flight attendants' unions are being more cautious, concerned that any major industrial action could see the grounding of staff flying Ansett's 14 and National Jet System's 18 BAe 146s, which are leased to Qantas but fly with National crews. However, both unions are calling for an independent inquiry into health problems associated with on-board fumes.

In 1997, a pilot landing a BAe 146 into Melbourne Airport experienced vertigo and nausea, forcing him to hand control of the plane to his co-pilot. A report by the the Bureau of Air Safety Investigations blamed the captain's ill-health on the presence of odors and fumes in the cabin.

Ansett was one of the first airlines to fly the BAe 146, which carry about 80 passengers.

An Ansett spokesman told The Sunday Age that initial reports of sickness linked to fumes in the cabin were on East West planes, then owned by Ansett, in 1991. However, documents reveal that concerns were being raised in the aviation industry eight years earlier.

A 1983 report to Mobil Australia from Mobil headquarters in New York says that contamination of cabin air with lubricants and/or their decomposition products would cause some degree of irritation. The problem is traced to ``improper design, improper maintenance or the malfunctioning of aircraft''.

By 1996, Ansett Airlines had received more than 180 reports of mid-air illness or fumes triggering attacks of nausea and discomfort in crew members. The same year, the airline set up a BAe 146 Odor Inquiry Committee to investigate the reports.

After more than a year of hearing evidence from medical and engineering experts, the committee found there was some evidence that fumes in the cabin could cause short-term eye, nose and throat irritation, but that there was no evidence that the fumes were toxic and could cause long-term damage.

Dr Mark Donohoe, a Sydney general practitioner and expert on environmental health, questions the independence of the evidence seen by the committee. ``It can't be called an independent inquiry when it is conducted by the airline that hopes it doesn't have to pull its plane out of the sky,'' he said.

One panel member, Dr Patrick Carroll, a toxicologist at the Redcliff Hospital in Brisbane, has acted on behalf of WorkCover in Queensland in reviewing flight attendants seeking compensation for fume-related illness. To date, no flight attendant has been awarded compensation.

Dr Donohoe appeared as an expert witness in the compensation case in NSW for the former Ansett flight attendant, Alyssia Chew. He told both the court and The Sunday Age that he met Ansett's medical director and head of the Odor Committee, Dr David Lewis, on 26 March 1996 after Dr Donohoe was quoted in a newspaper article on the carcinogenic potential of fumes in aircraft cabins.

In notes taken immediately after the1996 meeting, Dr Donohoe wrote that Dr Lewis threatened him with legal action if he did not withdraw his statements made to the newspaper. ``He (Dr Lewis) asked me whether I understood the commercial implications of what I had said. `This could threaten Ansett's very existence. How would you feel if you were the cause of the failure of Ansett?' he asked me,'' Dr Donohoe said. Dr Lewis was unavailable to talk to The Sunday Age, but a spokesman for Ansett said that a third person present at the meeting, an Ansett employee, did not recall any threats being made.

The Perth case concerning Ms Cullinane will be the first in which an airline is being sued for illnesses caused by on-board fumes. Ms Chew's case, in NSW, is against the compensation board rather than the airline.

Ms Cullinane's will be a landmark case because it will review the merits of the controversial issue of chemical sensitivity causing chronic illness.

Dr Carroll said it would be possible to drink the motor oil without developing an illness, and the Ansett spokesman also said that a Monash University inquiry into the lubrication oil found that it was safe ``and even present in some foodstuffs''. But Professor Wai-on Phoon, head of Occupational Health at Sydney University, said that inhaling a mist of oil fumes through the nose or lungs could be far more toxic.

A statement faxed to The Sunday Age from a spokesman for British Aerospace said that the BAe 146 has been approved for flying by the UK, US and Australian aviation authorities. ``A number of expert analyses into the BAe 146 cabin environment have been conducted. These have confirmed that this environment is safe for passengers and crew alike,'' the statement said.

An Ansett spokesman said the airline had conducted numerous inquiries and requested staff to report all instances of fumes in the cabin. ``We have had expert opinion which has unanimously said that there is no proof of long-term illnesses being caused by the fumes. We have, and continue to, take this issue seriously.''