`Your mind is trying to fight it, but your body won't move'

By TANIA EWING
AVIATION EDITOR

The five-day trek across the Top End in spring is one of the more pleasant runs for commercial aircraft crews. The weather is good, there is time to swim and lie by the pool in Alice Springs or Cairns, and most passengers are in a holiday mood, just happy to be travelling north.

On 6 November 1997, Judy Cullinane, an Ansett flight attendant, boarded a BAe 146 plane in Perth. It was bound for Darwin, then on to Cairns the next day.

``As soon as we were in the air I started to feel nauseous,'' Ms Cullinane recalled. ``Waves of extreme fatigue just washed over me." The flight's two other attendants also felt unwell.

The next day, once airborne, the attendants again reported nausea, fatigue and headaches. The crew had a day off in Cairns. It was meant to be a rest day, but Ms Cullinane went straight to bed when she arrived at her hotel and didn't get up for 24 hours.

The flight attendants were starting to dread getting back on the plane, Ms Cullinane said. Leaving Cairns en route to Alice Springs, the now familiar symptoms returned.

``Just after take-off we all felt the same - (it was) what seemed like a heatwave (moving) from the head down,'' she said. ``Then waves of nausea and a terrible tiredness which lasted for about 20 seconds.''

The attack returned five minutes later, and again on landing in Alice Spring, she said. Flight AN 407 continued on to Ayers Rock. In the air, Ms Cullinane experienced the same waves of nausea and fatigue, but this time she had difficulty breathing.

``I went to push the crew call-button and couldn't move my arms or legs,'' she said. ``It was as I imagine a stroke victim feels - your mind is trying to fight it, but your body won't move.''

On the ground, Ms Cullinane said she was slurring her words and stumbling ``like I was drunk''.

It was a symptom that is becoming familiar to crew and pilots who believe they have been affected by oil fumes in the cabin.

Last year, a former Ansett captain reported that while piloting a BAe 146 into Brisbane airport, she ``felt as drunk as a skunk'', symptoms she believed were fume-related, according to an article that appeared in The Independent.

As a member of Ansett's odor inquiry committee, set up by the airline to investigate reports of cabin smells and fumes linked to illnesses, Ms Cullinane suspected the flight attendants were being made ill through exposure to contaminated air.It was on the last leg of the flight, back to Perth, that passengers also began complaining of nausea, headaches and discomfort. The flight attendants asked those feeling ill to write down their symptoms.

Clare O'Brien, a lawyer with Western Australia's Department of Public Prosecutions, was on the flight, travelling in seat 2A. She felt nauseous and a nearby passenger was very ill. ``I travel by air frequently and I have not experienced the above (nausea and discomfort) in recent memory,'' Ms O'Brien wrote.

The flight to Perth remains a blur to Ms Cullinane, she said.

``I kept thinking, `What if there is an emergency?' I would be unable to evacuate the aircraft.'' The flight landed in Perth at 10.30pm and the three flight attendants went to a Perth hospital where, after midnight, blood samples were taken. The next day, Ms Cullinane rang the doctor who examined her at the hospital. ``I couldn't talk properly, I couldn't concentrate, I couldn't even remember my own telephone number.'' The blood tests were normal.

But an engineer's report on Flight AN 407 revealed extensive leaks and cracks in the hoses surrounding the air-conditioning unit. ``No smell or fumes noted on last three sectors, however all three flight attendants report feeling weak and nauseous whenever there is a change in air flow or pressurisation," it said.

For the past 14 months, Judy Cullinane has felt nauseous, weak, suffered severe headaches and forgetfulness. Last January, in an attempt to resume work, she did a test-flight as a passenger on an Ansett Boeing 737. She needed oxygen during the flight and left the plane in a wheelchair. It was the last time she flew.