The Countess of Mar asked Her Majesty's Government: What measures are in place for the reporting and investigating of incidents of exposure to contaminated air in United Kingdom aircraft; how many reports have been received for each year since 1995; how many of these reports were investigated; and what conclusions were drawn. [HL1637]

Lord Davies of Oldham: The Civil Aviation Authority's Mandatory Occurrence Reporting scheme requires reports of contaminated air events where they are considered by the reporter to represent potential airworthiness concerns. To identify the serious events from these, CAA review all smoke and fume events that may be related to engine oil and categorise them by the severity of the reported symptoms, as experienced by the pilots. The severity ranges from a brief smell of smoke or oil, to some form of impairment.

The numbers of reports made to CAA since 1995 are as follows and in parentheses are the number of those events that involved pilot impairment.

1995 3 (0) 1999 25 (3) 2003 29 (0)

1996 7 (0) 2000 35 (3) 2004 36 (1)

1997 14 (2) 2001 52 (1) 2005 35 (0)

1998 17 (0) 2002 27 (0)

As a result of these reports, all of which were investigated, specific continued airworthiness actions have been taken in respect of BAe146 and Boeing 757 aircraft to mitigate any effects and to reduce the frequency of occurrence.

The CAA believes that the increase in reports received in recent years is due to better reporting. However, the number of events where impairment has been reported has remained low.

1 November 2005

AOPIS COMMENT: THE REPORTED NUMBERS IS SERIOUS PIECE OF MISINFORMATION.