Civil Aviation Bill

Debate between Lord Trefgarne and Countess of Mar

Monday 9th July 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, I must confess that when I read this provision originally it seemed to be a rather extraordinary provision to be included in the Bill. I therefore took the occasion to make some inquiries. First, I declare an interest. For a number of years, I held an aviation medical certificate, which has now lapsed owing to my great age. Throughout the 40-odd years that I held a civil aviation licence, I was dealt with with the utmost consideration and skill by the CAA, and previously by the Ministry of Aviation’s medical authorities, including on two occasions having my licence suspended for medical reasons, entirely correctly and properly, by the then authorities.

My concern is confidentiality. I am and always have been very anxious that medical information held by public authorities, whether it is the CAA or anyone else, should remain properly confidential. I accept that there are provisions in these arrangements to keep confidential the information that is to be released to others, but the civil aviation community, the number of those who hold civil licences and air traffic control licences, is comparatively small. There is a risk that, if the information for some unusual medical conditions is published, it will be possible to identify the persons concerned. If the information on, say, half a dozen or so cases of a particularly obscure medical condition is made available to research agencies, it will be obvious who is the holder of that medical information.

I hope that my noble friend can explain in a little more detail than appears in the Explanatory Memorandum why it is necessary to have this new power. Can he give me the necessary assurances with regard to the absolute confidentiality of the information to be provided?

[The Countess of Mar]

My Lords, I am pleased to see this clause in the Bill. Some years ago, research was conducted on airline pilots who had been exposed to organophosphates. I am sorry but I have a problem with my voice. It was impossible for the CAA to give any details whatever to the researchers and it caused huge difficulties. This will relieve that difficulty, so I am very pleased to see it.

Civil Aviation Bill

Debate between Lord Trefgarne and Countess of Mar

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Countess of Mar]

My Lords, I feel I have been here before. During the passage of the previous Civil Aviation Bill in 2006, I recall long discussions on Clause 8, relating to health—the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, may recall our exchanges then. These included my concerns, and those of injured pilots, over the effects of breathing what is known as “bleed air”, which could contain organophosphates, on the health of both airline crew and passengers.

The Civil Aviation Bill before us today includes the requirement under Clause 84, “Environmental information”, that:

“The CAA must publish, or arrange for the publication of, such information and advice as it considers appropriate relating to—

(a) the environmental effects of civil aviation in the United Kingdom,

(b) how human health and safety is, or may be, affected by such effects, and

(c) measures taken, or proposed to be taken, with a view to reducing, controlling or mitigating the adverse environmental effects of civil aviation in the United Kingdom”.

This is to be welcomed, but I would suggest that there is one environment in particular where this duty is avoided: the cabin environment. Despite growing evidence, contaminated cabin air continues to be a very serious threat to the safety and health of air crew and passengers of all ages. This has been known since 1954. Indeed, a year later, an engineer from the company that is now part of Boeing recommended that,

“in light of the risk of exposure to oil fumes in flight, airlines should either operate non-bleed ventilation systems or filter the engine bleed air before supplying it to passengers”.

The Civil Aviation Act 2006 clearly sets out the responsibility of the Secretary of State and the Civil Aviation Authority for,

“organising, carrying out and encouraging measures for safeguarding the health of persons on board aircraft”.

Five years ago, the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, welcomed the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee’s 2007 report on air travel and its call for urgent action on contaminated air, saying that this was a,

“very serious matter of public safety”.

Since that time, some research has been undertaken by the Department for Transport-sponsored Institute of Environment and Health at Cranfield University—more of which later.

I believe that more rigorous action is required and this duty cannot be abdicated in favour of the European Aviation Safety Agency—EASA. In 2007, the House of Commons Transport Committee’s report on the work on the Civil Aviation Authority stated that EASA was,

“not yet ready to do its job and it is vital that the UK transfers no further responsibilities to it. I see no evidence that the position has changed”.

Apart from the new Boeing 787, passenger aircraft use unfiltered, heated air drawn directly from aircraft engines and auxiliary power units for cabin air conditioning. This is termed bleed air, because it is bled from the compressor section of the engine. This system has been used since just after World War II, when engine temperatures and pressures were considerably lower than today. The use of compressed air for ventilation was described in 1946 as “fortuitous”. With rising oil prices, the aviation industry was faced with huge commercial challenges; since the initial introduction of bleed air, both performance and efficiency have become critical. As a result, it is normal for the temperatures to which oils are now exposed within the engine to be far higher. This is a serious toxicity concern because the base stock of the oil is known to thermally degrade when exposed to extreme temperatures. Combine this with the known design fault in engine oil seals and you have the perfect conditions for low-level oil leakage that can expose passengers and crew to toxic fumes through the unfiltered air they are breathing.

As highlighted in the recently published Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority—CASA—report:

“Exposure to … fumes and vapours can result in acute short-term symptoms”.

The report stated that the organophosphate family of TCP includes TOCP, which is a known substance in engine oils and can cause adverse health effects. In some individuals, long-term disability and forced retirement have resulted from long-term exposure. Pilots and air crew are particularly vulnerable.

It was also proven in the 1950s that other parts of the TCP family in the oil were even more toxic than TOCP, and these were later acknowledged to be in the oil at far greater levels than TOCP. Even more concerning is the recent research undertaken by the University of Washington, which has found that the entire family of TCP chemicals is toxic. I am sure that I do not need to remind your Lordships that organophosphates are neurotoxins—also commonly known as nerve agents. A small ongoing study undertaken at the University of Nebraska has recently published an astonishing finding that 50% of airline passengers tested positive to exposure to TOCP. This was one flight only with a wide spectrum of people on board—it could have been you or me, or a member of our families. There have been many reports of contaminated air incidents for many different airlines. I can provide details if any noble Lord is interested.

A report from the German air accident investigation bureau, the BFU, showed a serious incident late in 2011 in which a Boeing 737 co-pilot was partially incapacitated shortly after take-off and again on descent after smelling a pungent smell. Blood tests undertaken at the University of Nebraska found,

“that the blood sample (was) positive for exposure to TOCP”.

Recent PhD findings by Dr Susan Michaelis, specifically investigating this issue, found that 32% of the UK pilots in the survey population experienced medium to long-term ill health, 44% reported short-term effects and 13% experienced such chronic ill health that they were no longer able to fly. What we have here are threats to flight safety combined with a public health issue that can no longer be ignored.

The United States Air Force’s newest fighter aircraft has been having major problems with the oxygen system, with pilots reporting a range of hypoxic-like physiological symptoms. With a growing number of in-flight incidents, the United States Air Force grounded its F22 fleet for several months from May until September 2011. Several investigations failed to find the root cause of the problem and the US Secretary of State for Defence recently limited the aircraft’s operational capabilities and required NASA to resolve the issue. The F22 on-board oxygen-generating system takes some of its supply from the bleed-air system, and contaminated bleed air is one of the two issues considered to be the potential cause of the problem.

While attention is often focused on certain aircraft types, such as the BAe 146 and the Boeing 757, in fact the bleed-air system suffers from a flawed design affecting all aircraft using bleed air to supply cabin air for breathing. These fume events are alarming, both in their severity and their frequency. However, many sources—including Dr Susan Michaelis, the European Aviation Safety Agency and the Federal Aviation Administration in the US—have shown that these dangerous events are actually being underreported. What we have is a failed reporting system.

A survey for BALPA undertaken in 2001 and later published in a leading occupational health journal showed that less than 4% of the contaminated air events experienced by pilots in aircraft were recorded on the CAA mandatory occurrence report database. Pilots and cabin crew are too often unaware of, or complacent about, the health and safety implications and come from a culture that accepts fume smells as normal. Worse still, too many are too frightened to report such incidents for fear of losing their jobs. They are aware of the commercial pressure on airlines as, once a defect such as contaminated air is reported, it must be investigated before the aircraft can fly again. I am aware that DHL instructed its pilots not to report selected fume events, confirmed by the CAA in the House of Commons, because these are “acceptable”. This is in direct contradiction of European regulation 859/2008, which states that incidents that could endanger aircraft safety should be reported to the regulator and recorded in the aircraft technical log. Furthermore, European Directive 2003/42/EC requires all suspected oil fume or contaminated air events to be reported to the national authority. I know that the Minister is aware of this because he has given me that answer in reply to a Written Question.

Pilots can also be reluctant to report any symptoms experienced for fear of exposing themselves to a medical that could, ultimately, lead to their licence to fly being revoked. This is acknowledged by the Department for Transport, which notes in its FAQs on cabin air quality that a UK study is unlikely to be successful as,

“pilots … would be legally obliged to report any health impairments found ... to the CAA, who licenses them”.

A recent example of two British Airways pilots who were cited by the airline to be filing a higher than average number of contaminated air reports illustrates this point: one had his medical certificate withdrawn after TCP was found in his blood, while the second pilot died in his mid-40s of a brain tumour after repeated exposures which were in many cases reported, but clearly ignored. The British Airways head doctor, however, is quoted in the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee’s 1st Report of Session 2007-08, entitled Air Travel and Health: an Update, as saying that he had,

“no evidence to suggest there is a serious medical problem”.

It is against this background of underreporting and an industry eager to avoid the commercial implications that the research by Cranfield was undertaken. In the House of Lords 2007 report, it was noted that as the original proposal was to sample “around 1,000 flights”, the size of sample offered only a,

“remote chance of capturing an event”,

if the incidence of contaminated air events is as low as the Government claim. In fact, the sample used was just 100 flights, yet the presence of TCP was detected in 23% of flights. Additionally, 38 reported fumes of which the majority were described as oil or oily-type smells. A mandatory occurrence report, or defect report, was not triggered on one single flight despite this being a requirement under the European directive and regulation. Clearly, the Government’s accepted estimate of the frequency of fume events is flawed and, despite government denials, this problem is being seriously underreported. Indeed, despite censuring the Government while in opposition for their dithering on air cabin quality, with secret studies behind closed doors, putting air crews and passengers at risk, when in office, the Secretary of State for Transport, Theresa Villiers, appears to have done an about-face. Ms Villiers’ interpretation of the Cranfield report was that,

“there was no evidence of pollutants occurring in cabin air at levels exceeding available health and safety standards and guidelines”.—[Official Report, 10/5/11; col. WS37.]

I was told in 2005 that there are no safe levels set for exposure to the mixture of substances from heated synthetic oils or for the organophosphate TCP. Peer reviewers for the Cranfield study used descriptors such as “very serious deficiency”, “very varying quality”, and “serious weaknesses in sampling”. Interestingly, earlier research by the same establishment on behalf of the Government concluded that because,

“current risk assessment practices are largely based on evaluating the toxicity of single chemicals at high doses”,

and because humans are exposed to a mixture of chemicals on a daily basis,

“there could be many uncertainties in the hazard assessment”,

particularly related to low-level exposures. It would appear that we are making the science fit the policy, not the policy fit the science.

As long ago as 1997 I used the term “intellectual corruption” in a speech in your Lordships’ House on the subject of organophosphates. I was not in the least surprised to learn that the second and final Department for Transport-sponsored air-monitoring swab-sampling study by the Institute of Occupational Medicine, in Edinburgh, recently found TCP in aircraft at low levels, with estimated airborne concentrations of TOCP found to be very low.

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, I apologise for interrupting the noble Countess, but if she could move one pace to her left, we could hear a little better what she is saying.

[The Countess of Mar]

I have a chest problem caused by organophosphates.

The Department for Transport publicly states that,

“it would be proper for DfT to be alerted of any findings out of the ordinary. Should that happen the DfT will consider what action might be appropriate to ensure that people can continue to fly without risk to their health”.

However, I must remind noble Lords that, as with the Cranfield study, no fume events were reported, and yet TCP at higher levels than TCP found elsewhere was detected, indicating that the substance originated from the aircraft. Of great concern is that the levels of the neurotoxic parts of the TCP stated to be in the oil are a direct contradiction of what Mobil advised in 2000. While ExxonMobil, formerly Mobil, the manufacturer of the oil, stated at the Australian Senate inquiry into this issue that the levels of the most toxic part of the TCP were over 600,000 times higher than the TOCP part, this Department for Transport-sponsored study has stated that the difference is only three times higher. One might ask who would know better. Making science fit the policy provides a wonderful excuse for inertia.

TCP has clearly been found in all aircraft surveyed. Controversially, the Institute of Occupational Medicine study states that there are government-set exposure standards available for the neurotoxic parts of TCP, but this is not the case. TCP as a whole and the most toxic parts do not have established exposure standards and, as we know, there are no exposure limits set for the mixture of ingredients in the aircraft environment. How can the researchers compare the enclosed environment of an airline cockpit with a normal office environment?

As well as organophosphates, there is a chemical known to be in the oil as an antioxidant at 1%, N-phenyl-alpha-naphthylamine, which is quite a mouthful, or PAN, which is much easier. It has an acknowledged contaminant as a by-product, beta-naphthylamine, or BNA. This is a prohibited schedule 1 category 1 carcinogen that has long been known to cause human bladder cancer. While oil certification standards used to say that suspected human carcinogens are prohibited in the oil, here we have a known human carcinogen in the oil as a contaminant totally ignored. The levels might be low, but repeatedly exposing people to human carcinogens is not acceptable. The new certification standards have removed this prohibition and simply say that all the regulations must be met. The other phrase that has been removed by the Civil Aviation Authority stated that,

“the lubricating oil shall have no adverse effect on the health of personnel when used for its intended purpose”.