2023-10-25 12:35:52
Is airplane air toxic? The French Health Security Agency (ANSES) issued a nuanced opinion on Wednesday, considering that more in-depth research was necessary to establish a possible link with symptoms reported by flight crew.
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The agency was contacted in 2019 by several unions representing pilots and cabin crew, as well as by the Association of Victims of Aerotoxic Syndrome (AVSA).
The latter, who wishes to join as a civil party in a judicial investigation opened in Paris for “unintentional injuries” and “endangering the lives of others”, describes an “acute or chronic contamination of the pressurized air of aircraft by toxic substances.
She assures that “on almost all airliners, the air breathed on board is taken from the reactors. This air is contaminated, among other things, by the oil used for their lubrication,” which contains, once more according to AVSA, “toxic additives,” while some of the contaminants are “nanometric” in size.
Among other symptoms: headaches, dizziness, digestive and respiratory problems…
The judicial investigation, conducted at the Paris public health center, was opened following the filing of a complaint by an easyJet pilot in 2016.
The committee of experts cited in the Anses report agrees that “many gaseous and particulate pollutants (…) are present in aircraft cabins, but judges that “the data are insufficient to conduct a quantitative assessment of the health risks” linked to this situation.
For ANSES, there is “a low level of evidence for the designation of a syndrome specifically linked to exposure to various pollutants or products of engine decomposition or hydraulic fluids”.
“If the symptoms described by the people are not in question, the agency emphasizes that the “aerotoxic syndrome” is not to date a consensual nosological entity” and “encourages studies which will provide knowledge on the causes of cabin air contamination events and their consequences on the health of cabin crew”, several of which are ongoing.
ANSES extended the scope of its report to “health effects linked to the profession of flight crew” and recalled that studies had already concluded that these employees were more often affected than the population average by cancers of the skin and leukemia, possibly linked to solar and cosmic radiation.
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