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had filed AIRS notifications for breathing toxic fumes, the engines were checked and run at 90 per cent of power. The mechanics could not smell any fumes. Five days later, on 21 January, the smell was recorded again and the engineers finally found that oil was leaking in the middle of engine number one. The jet was cleared to fly from Brisbane to Melbourne, where the leaking engine was taken off and replaced on 23 January. Qantas had let the jet fly with oil being superheated into toxic gas and pumped into the cabin for over two months. In that time five Qantas crew members had been affected by the fumes badly enough to file incident notifications. Qantas only conceded: ‘Our records show that fewer than five claims were submitted by employees in the period July 2007 to July 2008 related to cabin-air quality issues. These generally involved small claims for costs associated with doctors’ visits and days off work.’8 While only fewer than five were sick enough to go to the doctors, the afore-mentioned 31 were affected badly enough to register the event on the AIRS Injury to Personnel Report. Qantas added: ‘Protocols are in place to ensure appropriate support is provided to flight or cabin crew members in the event of an incident, including assistance with medical checks where necessary.’9 But, and this is the most telling point of all, none of the passengers on any of the flights had been told of any problem.

The ATSB appeared to be investigating just one of the incidents – VH-EBY on 25 February. Clearly the Qantas captains had not ticked the little box, even though CASA indicated fumes events were a major defect. No wonder efforts to find out how many fumes events really happened were met with calming platitudes. CASA spokesman Peter Gibson said there had been six cases of toxic fumes events in Australia the year before. Six? And he was not particularly worried about them either. ‘No health and safety authority anywhere in the world has anything to prove there is any danger,’ he said.10 Now we know why – they don’t know about most of them. In response to concern over the issue, CASA has now set up an Expert Panel on Aircraft Air Quality, which is expected to report back on the issue by the first quarter of 2010.

University of New South Wales toxicologist Chris Winder said: ‘The industry has been running silent on this issue. They need to acknowledge it is a problem. Oils in jet engines are toxic. It’s OK if they stay in engines, but if it comes out of the engine and gets into the bleed air system crew, pilots and passengers can get sick.’11

Australia led the world with an investigation into the effect of toxic fumes suffered by Ansett and Australian Airlines crew flying on the notorious BAe 146 jet in the early 1990s. That plane pumped noxious fumes into the cabin so frequently that the crew only noticed when it didn’t smell. A survey by the University of New South Wales of 242 BAe 146 pilots found that eight out of ten breathed toxicants during flight and six out of ten of those suffered short-term consequences such as memory loss. A quarter of them suffered such bad long-term effects that they can no longer work. The fact that today there is little faith in CASA to control this issue is based on past experience. The Senate inquiry into the BAe 146 criticised the authority for dismissing fears about the safety of the toxic aircraft that had been raised by its own staff. Committee chairman John Woodley told the Melbourne Age that CASA and British Aerospace’s evidence that the aircraft was safe was ‘unconvincing’. ‘The problem is described by some specialists as aerotoxic syndrome and warrants further extensive clinical and technical investigation,’ Mr Woodley said.12 His concerns were justified.

The claims of the flight crew were stymied when the two airlines dropped their complaints against the manufacturer of the BAe 146 and instead pursued the American manufacturers of the faulty components. Documents tabled before the Senate in 2007 showed that Ansett and East West were paid more than $2 million in hush money by British