MOCK PA ANNOUNCEMENTS: Passengers are advised that tonight's flight from Sydney to London does pose a health risk. To save fuel, half the air you'll be breathing during your flight will be recirculated and there is a risk that airborne viruses will not be caught by the filters that recycle your air.

Welcome on board ladies and gentlemen. We wish to advise your cabin will have considerably less oxygen than air at sea level, thickening your blood and exposing some of you, some studies say, to an increased risk of blood clots that can cause strokes.
We particularly welcome our frequent fliers and wish to advise any who might be pregnant that on this flight their foetus will be irradiated with the equivalent of three chest X-rays. We hope you enjoy your flight.

ROSS COULTHART, REPORTER: It's wishful thinking of course that any airline would ever be as open as that about the very real hidden hazards of air travel. But as you'll see today, while flying still is an extremely safe way to travel, the public and passengers have every right to demand to know why the airlines aren't being more open about those risks. Most airlines ask intending passengers these days if they're carrying anything hazardous in their luggage. Later in the program one of Australia's top infectious disease experts explains why the airlines are not being as vigilant as they should be about the risks of transmissible disease on aircraft.

DR JONATHAN STREETON, VICTORIAN GOVERNMENT TUBERCULOSIS ADVISOR: I see people the whole time who've come off long-distance flights from wherever and who come down within days with active influenza, and there's no question that they got their infection on a plane.

REPORTER: Yet at the same time, internationally, the aviation industry is pushing to further reduce the amount of fresh air passengers get on jet aircraft. As you'll see, there's a lot the airline industry isn't telling us.

FARROLL KAHN, AVIATION HEALTH INSTITUTE, UK: Here is an industry which sells an unhealthy product and no-one is aware of that.

REPORTER: Here in Australia we have a cabin air scandal all of our own and yet again the travelling public was never and still isn't being warned about the risks. For well over a decade passengers and crew who fly on this popular jet, used by both Ansett and Qantas, have been exposed to a chemical cocktail that some experts believe has caused long-term damage to the health of some who inhaled the fumes.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR CHRIS WINDER, UNSW TOXICOLOGIST: There is a close relationship with toxic exposures: short-term effects and then long-term developing effects.

REPORTER: But you have no way of being able to say definitively, do you, that that effect is caused by that oil?

WINDER: No, I can only talk about an association, but I believe the association is very strong.

REPORTER: Ansett told its own staff back in 1998 that the BAE146 jet's cabin air was contaminated as often as once every 66 flights in the early '90s. Its own panel of experts admit victims can suffer what the panel claims are only short-term symptoms of these fumes including [READ FROM ANSETT DOCUMENT] "irritation of the upper airway mucous membranes, headaches, nausea, lethargy, minor shortness of breath and light-headedness". But passengers still aren't being warned about even this risk by any of the Australian carriers when they fly on the 146.

REPORTER: Why have you never made a point of warning passengers that there is this risk on this aircraft?

CAPTAIN TREVOR JENSEN, ANSETT OPERATIONS: I think that what's most important, this aircraft is the same as all the aircraft. It has the same air quality on board. It is certified the same as all other aircraft in the world and it operates within accordance with the civil aviation regulation. It is no different to any other aeroplane.

REPORTER: How can you say that this isn't a safety issue when on your own admission these planes sometimes can make people throw up?

JENSEN: Well, first of all the aircraft safety has never been jeopardised, that's very important.

REPORTER: Today, for the first time, a former senior airworthiness manager from Australia's aviation watchdog CASA explains why he believes some airlines and even CASA itself have broken the law by failing to act on an obvious safety hazard.

REPORTER: Let's limit ourselves to what the airline itself is admitting. The airline itself is admitting that there is a short-term irritation which can cause headaches and nausea. Short term. But in and of itself, is that a breach of civil aviation regulations to allow that to occur?

DICK BEST, EX-DISTRICT MANAGER AIRWORTHINESS, CASA: I still believe that's a problem. Any person suffering that's on the flight crew, there is a danger to person and property and therefore it's a safety risk.

REPORTER: Should a plane be flying if it's causing aircrew to suffer headaches and nausea?

BEST: I believe not.

REPORTER: Why is this being allowed to happen then?

BEST: I think it's most probably vested interests from the airlines and the capital costs that are associated with it, and I don't think CASA has taken the appropriate action to review the whole situation.

REPORTER: I walk into your terminal, I don't see a sign anywhere saying "Warning: passengers might be susceptible to fumes on this aircraft." There's a one in 200-and-something chance that I'll be breathing something that might make me vomit. Indeed, I'll put this to any airline in Australia that operates the146: why hasn't the public been warned?

TREVOR JENSEN, ANSETT: What's very important is that the air quality on the 146 is the same as all the other aircraft in the world.

CAROL: Looking back, I was always wanting to go out to the airport, dragging my parents out there, watching the aircraft, just a fascination to see them fly, and that followed me right through.

REPORTER: How does it feel now to have all that taken away?

CAROL: Unbearable, unacceptable and horrendous.

REPORTER: Thirty years on, this former pilot's dreams have been realised and then cruelly dashed. We'll call her Carol. These days one whiff of the fumes of landing jet aircraft near Sydney Airport is enough to set off her extreme symptoms. And she believes it's all because of her exposure to fumes while flying the 146 for three years for National Jet, as part of the Qantas fleet.

CAROL: I noticed the fumes very frequently and they gave me headaches, nausea, fatigue and eye, nose and throat irritations. A lot of people had that and that was just constant, that was run-of-the-mill. But it was on several occasions that it became somewhat more extreme.

REPORTER: And when you were flying, did you ever have those extreme symptoms?

CAROL: Yes, I can recall several occasions where the nausea increased to such a degree that I actually had to hand over to the other pilot.

REPORTER: Just this month another former National Jet Systems pilot made a submission to a Senate inquiry that's investigating the 146 fumes saga. He told senators he'd quit because he was unwilling to continue exposing himself to the fumes. Complaining of identical symptoms to Carol, he said [SUBMISSION TO INQUIRY READ] "I have no doubt that my in-flight performance was degraded by exposure to fumes". Most worrying of all, his complaint that [SUBMISSION TO INQUIRY READ] "Reporting of fumes incidents by captains was very infrequent due to the complexity of the mechanisms for doing so and also to a perceived reluctance to 'rock the boat' and the repercussions thereof."

REPORTER: For their part, National Jet and Qantas deny the safety of either flight crew or the public is being compromised, and so does the manufacturer British Aerospace, although, it has to be said, British Aerospace's Bill Black conceded a lot about the harm he fears his jet might have caused.

BILL BLACK, BRITISH AEROSPACE, SPEAKING AT SENATE INQUIRY, NOV 2, 1999: With the weight of human evidence and suffering, which is quite clear, there must be something there. We are comfortable on the one hand that there is no flight safety risk. We are comfortable that our aircraft meet all of the rules. But when you look at the weight of evidence, it is impossible to conclude that there is an issue.

REPORTER: And in the face of its denials that flight safety is being compromised, how then can National Jet Systems explain this leaked smoking gun: an internal memo from one of its most senior managers, acknowledging that the fumes are a safety concern. [READ FROM INTERNAL MEMO] "These effects can be very distracting and in some circumstances cause a flight safety hazard."

REPORTER: It's crucial to the airlines' attempts to minimise public concern about these fumes that pilots like Carol be seen as rare cases of illness. But she and other pilots Sunday has spoken to say that's just not the case at all.

CAROL: I think you'll find that there are an awful lot of people who have been affected.

REPORTER: How many pilots that you know, you've witnessed suffering from these symptoms, are still flying on Australian airlines?

CAROL: Many. There would be many.

REPORTER: So in your opinion is there a public safety issue here?

CAROL: Absolutely.

REPORTER: This contamination problem isn't limited to Australia or the BAE146. Overseas experts have told the Senate Inquiry that MD80s, Boeing 737s and Airbus A-300s are also affected. Most passengers don't realise that all jet planes actually get their fresh air by taking hot air through the engines, cooling it down and mixing it with the stale recirculated air in the cabin. The inquiry's been told the 146 is particularly prone to oil leaks in this air bleed system, oil which inevitably finds its way into the air that passengers and crew are breathing. And University of NSW toxicologist Professor Chris Winder is in no doubt that that oil is hazardous to your health.

WINDER: Well, this is the oil, this is the oil that they use in these engines. If it's handled by the maintenance staff, they take the oil, they pour it into the engines, they're warned about the problems with the chemical. For example, this is the old label, it says "Warning, contains TCP, produces paralysis if taken internally". That's a warning. Now the label was changed in the early '90s to this new label. This new label's got much more information on it. And it says, for example, I won't read all of it, it says "contains TCP. Prolonged or repeated breathing of oil mist or prolonged or repeated skin contact can cause nervous system defects". Now that's a much stronger warning and therefore it would be of concern to a person handling this material that they would use it properly. The problem is that the flight attendants don't get to see this warning because it just comes out in the ventilation system. There's no warning. There's no information. There's just a smelly mist and then headaches and irritation and so on.

REPORTER: Professor Winder also says the problem of affected pilots is far greater than even the airlines probably realise, because so many flight crew don't want to acknowledge health problems that might lose them their jobs.

REPORTER: Are any of the people who you are currently advising as a toxicologist, are any of the people currently flying aircraft?

WINDER: Some are. Some in fact come to me and say, "Don't tell anybody. I am worried, but I don't want to lose my job".

REPORTER: Tell me what you think about the fact that there are people who are affected in the ways that you are seeing flying aircraft over Australia?

WINDER: It worries me greatly. And I always advise them that they really should think very carefully about continued exposures.

REPORTER: We all expect our pilots to stay sober when they fly... The very idea that anyone flying an aircraft might fly while he or she is affected by alcohol is terrifying. But talk to many of the pilots who've suffered what the airlines dismiss as short-term symptoms and they'll tell you that's exactly how they feel after breathing these fumes. Since her illness forced her to stop flying in 1997, former pilot Carol has undergone a battery of tests. They show her illness has had an effect that toxicologists attribute to the fumes on the 146. This test, an evoked response test, is designed to measure Carol's reflexes.

REPORTER: What does that evoked response test elicit?

DR MARK DONOHOE: Well, generally what this does is, you put a tone into the ear, a high frequency tone, you ask them to count, the low frequency tone you say ignore.

REPORTER: Sydney doctor Mark Donohoe is treating many flight crew who report suffering illnesses from the 146 fumes and he says this test shows every single one of them has the same distressing abnormalities.
 
DR DONOHOE: The abnormalities are similar to those that occur with alcohol use. They impair reflexes. They impair the ability to make quick decisions and judgments. In general they're the same things that with alcohol we would say are related to inability to operate machinery.

REPORTER: We've got drunk pilots flying planes?

DR DONOHOE: They're not drunk. I mean, I want to make it clear. These are not pilots that are drinking, but it would be difficult to tell these abnormalities from a pilot that had had two to three drinks before they got on their plane.

REPORTER: This 1997 incident report, made by a female Ansett captain to the then Bureau of Air Safety Investigation, makes for chilling reading. She describes how passengers and crew were complaining bitterly of the smell on a 146 flight into Brisbane. [INCIDENT REPORT READ] "The first officer also complained about the stench ... his eyes were red and weeping due to the irritation in the fumes... I was annoyed and embarrassed that my crew were having to endure such an unacceptable working environment".

REPORTER: Then, at the crucial moment of final approach into Brisbane Airport: [INCIDENT REPORT READ] "I slowly became aware that I was feeling as if I had consumed about six scotches. I was feeling 'drunk as a skunk'. I was having trouble judging distance to touchdown and everything was wonky, including the runway. I was in fact experiencing all the symptoms one experiences when intoxicated."

REPORTER: For the past six months a Federal Senate Inquiry has been probing the 146 fumes concerns, calling the airline industry and manufacturers to account for the claim that any ill-effects are at most "short-term". The committee chairman, Democrat Senator John Woodley, has sat through all the evidence and he for one is personally in no doubt that the fumes are causing long-term health problems.

SENATOR JOHN WOODLEY: We've seen too many people now who obviously exhibit long-term effects. Now I know there's a dispute about whether that can be linked back to the fumes, but in my mind certainly there is a link and it's now up to the people who are denying that to prove that there is no link. I think it's been established fairly clearly.

REPORTER: There's a lot of industry and individual reputations at stake before this inquiry and at times the arguments over the effects of these fumes have been very bitter. It was even suggested by one expert that the symptoms suffered by flight crew could well be all in their mind, a product of hysteria. Needless to say, the flight crew who are now struggling with these symptoms treat such claims with contempt.

REPORTER: How do you know that this isn't something in your mind? How do you know that what you're suffering isn't, for want of a word, a hysterical illness?

JUDY CULLINANE, ANSETT FLIGHT ATTENDANT: Well, I'd been flying on the BAE146 for 11 years out of 13 years on that weekend when it happened. I'd never hyperventilated before in 11 years or had, you know, that sort of incident like I did that weekend.

REPORTER: In 1997, Ansett flight attendant Judy Cullinane was flying on a 146 into Alice Springs when fumes quite literally paralysed her.

CULLINANE: My sense of smell had gone completely. And I sat in my seat for landing and all of a sudden I got this extreme pressure on the top of the head and like a heatwave coming down from the top of the head, following you down, and then it was like somebody was trying to pull the strength out of your shoulders and you were followed by this nausea wave, tiredness and then, all of a sudden, I couldn't move my arms and legs. I just went to push the Call button, couldn't move and we touched down and it started to lift.

REPORTER: You were paralysed?

CULLINANE: I was paralysed for those few seconds. I could not move.

REPORTER: Sceptics charge that if these fumes are such a problem, then why haven't passengers complained? But in fact passengers have complained. On Judy Cullinane's flight, if her illness was a result of hysteria-induced hyperventilation then the whole plane was barking mad. Several passengers, including three who provided statements, testified to the same symptoms of fatigue, nausea and illness as Judy did. No longer able to fly because of the incapacitating fumes, Judy is now suing Ansett for negligence in a test case that is likely to have huge ramifications for the entire industry.

CULLINANE: They owed me a duty of care, because I'd been working for Ansett at that time for 13 years, doing a job I loved. They never at any time told me what I was being exposed to and then when I did become ill they didn't even then tell me what I may have inhaled, what it would do to me, or what I could do to fix it.

REPORTER: And they didn't tell that to the passengers, did they?

CULLINANE: No.

REPORTER: It took until 1998 for Ansett to formally acknowledge to its staff the ill effects of the fumes on the 146. Yet this Service Information Leaflet provided to Ansett by the plane's manufacturer shows Ansett was warned of oil contamination of the air-conditioning system as early as 1984. And even today, after all its modifications to try to fix the problem, Ansett admits it's still getting "odour" events on the 146 every one in 131 flights; many of the cabin crew reports reporting the distinctive oil fumes smell.

JENSEN: We have undertaken, there's a tremendous amount of research in Ansett, more research than any other airline in the world. Now all that research points to one thing, that the air quality on board this aircraft is safe.

REPORTER: But how can you say it's safe when even your own experts admit that it can make people vomit and have headaches?

JENSEN: As I say, they are very, very rare events.

CULLINANE: They're not telling the public. If it happened to me then and it's still happening to pilots and flight attendants, it could be you next time you get on. You don't know if the aircraft you get on will have a seal leak.

REPORTER: Look, I just put it to you that you're in an absolutely untenable situation here. I don't understand why you haven't grounded the aircraft.

JENSEN: Why should we ground the aircraft? There's a number of reasons why we shouldn't. First of all this aircraft is certified by all of the authorities. It meets all the requirements that CASA expects.

REPORTER: In March this year, one of the world's top air quality experts Dr Jean Christophe Balouet left a Senate Inquiry in no doubt that tests done by the airlines on fumes emitted by the BAE146 and other jet aircraft were woefully inadequate.

SENATE INQUIRY, DR JEAN CHRISTOPHE BALOUET SPEAKING: How can the aviation industry insist that they failed to detect phosphated compounds when the sampling and monitoring methods they use are inappropriate or they have not carried out monitoring during an oil leak?

REPORTER: Balouet's evidence has gone unnoticed by the media until now, but he made damning criticisms of the aviation industry's denial of problems with fumes in its aircraft.

SENATE INQUIRY, DR JEAN CHRISTOPHE BALOUET SPEAKING: I find it shocking to possibly attribute a flight problem to human error, the flight problem, when crew clearly are showing neurological signs after exposure to oil, smoke, mists or fumes.

REPORTER: And what about the passengers exposed to these fumes? Only a few weeks before Balouet's Senate savaging of the airlines, a fumes incident occurred that underlines exactly why the public is being let down by the industry's failure to warn of even the acknowledged short-term risks. In late January, crew on a 146 jet had yet again noticed the distinctive smell of oil fumes, this time on the two legs of a flight from Ayers Rock to Cairns via Alice Springs. When the plane returned from Cairns to Alice, Sunday understands two unaccompanied children started vomiting, a fact acknowledged by this leaked Ansett email.

ANSETT EMAIL: Private and confidential. Subject to legal privilege. This is the first time we have had a report where customers are reported to have vomited. This probably requires follow-up action.

REPORTER: But Ansett told Sunday this week that because the cabin manager felt the children were airsick, then no further inquiries were warranted. However, other staff on the flight disagree. Sunday understands the children's parents told cabin crew on the night that neither child had been airsick before. Crew also deny that the flight was especially turbulent and they also felt nauseous. Ansett admits it has still not spoken to the children's parents and it's impossible to say if they were even aware of the 146 fume problems. 

JENSEN: What's very important in Ansett, any passenger who complains, whether it's a fume or anything else, we investigate because customer service is absolutely important to us.

REPORTER: But what if a person hasn't complained? What if that person just thinks they were airsick? You see, you don't tell them that the air is sometimes contaminated.

JENSEN: Well, I think what's very important is we know there are no long-term effects. Now that's the other very important piece of information that our panel of experts has told us. There are some short-term effects; they're not cumulative. Now that's very important.

REPORTER: Well that's a relief. I throw up but I don't need to worry about it, I'll only throw up?

JENSEN: There are no long-term effects.

REPORTER: Clearly, the only way any airline could ever rule out such a link would be if every such incident was in fact fully investigated. 

SENATE INQUIRY, DR JEAN CHRISTOPHE BALOUET SPEAKING: Why doesn't aviation fund medical examinations needed by exposed crew for medium to long-term symptoms or fund an independent epidemiological study of such workers?

REPORTER: Dick Best, a former Civil Aviation Safety Authority airworthiness manager, told Sunday he believes many pilots are failing to report fumes incidents on aircraft to avoid upsetting their bosses.

DICK BEST: I think from day one in training schools there's been a fear that if the pilot puts a defect on the maintenance release that it will ground the aircraft.

REPORTER: They're frightened of losing their jobs?

BEST: Yes.

REPORTER: Dick Best was actually the CASA manager who certified the BAE146-300 series jet as fit for service in Australia in 1989. He told Sunday that if any reports had been made to CASA back then about fumes, he never got to see them.

REPORTER: Would it have affected your certification of the aircraft?

BEST: I think so. I think we would have investigated it further to determine whether it met the certification standards.

REPORTER: The airline argues that this is not a safety issue. They say that this is a mere issue of occupational health. What's your response to that?

BEST: Well, I've talked to a lot of colleagues and industry people and I can't find one that will give me a differentiation between what's occupational health and safety as distinct from a safety issue.

REPORTER: Basically, in your opinion this is an airworthiness issue?

BEST: I believe so.

REPORTER: One thing you're not told when you board an aircraft is that about half the air you'll be breathing is stale, it's recirculated. And you're also getting less oxygen than you do on the ground, about 20 percent less, the rough equivalent of being at about 8000 feet. Up here in the cockpit the pilots are getting about 150 cubic feet a minute of fresh air. But as the concentration of people gets denser, the fresh air for each person reduces. In a fully laden 747, up in first class the passengers get about 50 cubic feet per minute of fresh air. It's less here in business class, but right down the back of the aircraft in cattle class, or should we say economy class, the passengers may get as little as seven cubic feet a minute of fresh air.

REPORTER: Our Sunday colleague Max Cullen learned to his horror how serious the risks of air travel can be when he boarded a flight to Australia three years ago.

MAX CULLEN: There was an announcement when the seat belt is turned off, "feel free to move around the cabin". But they didn't say "get up and walk around the cabin or you'll die".

REPORTER: Sitting in an aircraft seat without stretching for a day gave Max a blood clot in his leg.

CULLEN: When I got to Sydney I could barely straighten my leg.

REPORTER: Were you aware then you had a blood clot?

CULLEN: I thought it could have been anything.

REPORTER: Were you ever warned that there was a risk of developing a blood clot?

CULLEN: No, I'd not heard of that happening on an aeroplane. I was told it happens all the time. People get off a plane and they drop dead on their way to the taxi.

REPORTER: There are risk factors for deep vein thrombosis, as it's known, but one 1998 US study revealed how half of the air passengers who suffered blood clots had travelled recently in the air for four hours or more, and 35 percent of them had no predisposition to the condition.  

CULLEN: It was certainly life threatening. I was on a drip for two weeks. And my doctor was particularly concerned because the clot breaks up and runs irrationally around your body and ends up in your brain.

REPORTER: What would you like to see passengers told before they fly?

CULLEN: I think we should be warned, not just casually when the seat belt sign is turned off, "feel free to move around the cabin", but "we advise you to move around the cabin".

REPORTER: Farrol Kahn heads the Aviation Health Institute in Oxford, England, a group that's pushing for more research and education about the hazards of air travel. It's estimated 30,000 Britons a year suffer flight-induced blood clots and last month Kahn presented his submission on that and other aviation health concerns to a House of Lords inquiry that's investigating concerns about aircraft air.
 
FARROL KAHN, AVIATION HEALTH INSTITUTE: Ten studies directly link air travel with blood clots. The long hours you sit up there, the dryness of the air, which causes your blood to be sticky, the fact that you're not moving your legs means that you get blood pooling, the way the airline seat is constructed because the edge of the seat blocks the venous return... There are many many factors, contributory factors, that link blood clots with air travel.

REPORTER: If a passenger near you on a plane sneezes or coughs, then the experts say you should be worried. One research paper showed that a single cough on an aircraft emits 100,000 particles that can spread over 20 rows. There's been a recorded incidence of an entire planeload of passengers getting the same virus.

DR JOHN STREETON, TB EXPERT: Potentially, it's a very significant risk. Any situation where you have a flight of certainly more than five or six hours duration, and that would apply to virtually all the flights in and out of Australia, whichever direction you want to go except to New Zealand, there is the potential for someone who has active infection, be it tuberculosis or whatever, to pass on that infection to others in that aircraft.

REPORTER: Dr John Streeton is the Victorian government's adviser on tuberculosis. He says air travel makes passengers particularly susceptible to cross infection from their fellow passengers.

STREETON: The atmosphere in the plane is very dry. The humidity's, relative humidity, of say less than 10 percent and they in fact rely on the moisture coming off people's breaths in the plane to actually humidify the air in a plane.

REPORTER: What do you think about that?

STREETON: It's revolting when you think about it, stop and think about it.

REPORTER: It means they're using moisture... surely that carries bacteria doesn't it?

STREETON: It does, it has to. I mean, as we sit here, I'm breathing out and speaking to you, I'm breathing out droplets and these droplets may potentially contain virus particles or TB particles, or whatever, and you can inhale them.

REPORTER: All modern jet aircraft do have air filters. But recent studies have revealed how some airlines are not replacing filters often enough, so they're in fact recirculating bugs and viruses after becoming clogged with mould and fungus. Dr Streeton admitted to Sunday that not only has his team investigated many passengers with infectious TB who flew on long-haul flights into Australia, he has now confirmed cases where unwitting fellow passengers were infected with tuberculosis on that aircraft.

REPORTER: Have you, when you've done those investigations, found other passengers who in your opinion have been infected with tuberculosis?

STREETON: Yes, on occasions.

REPORTER: There's no doubt in your mind?

STREETON: Certainly, as far as the department is concerned, that's been our impression, yes.

REPORTER: Well, should the airlines be recirculating air on aircraft? They didn't use to.

STREETON: Well, that comes back to an engineering matter, but from a purely public health viewpoint I'd say no, because if you weren't recirculating then, and venting the air directly and bringing in fresh air all the time, then hopefully the particles would be got rid of very rapidly.

REPORTER: There's also a lesser but nonetheless significant risk for very frequent fliers from solar radiation, especially if you're pregnant. The earth's magnetic field acts as a natural shield, but the higher you go, especially to around 40,000 feet in a jet aircraft, the more radiation you get. Peggy Shea and Don Smart are two of the world's top experts on solar radiation and, to give us an idea of the risks, Don used a computer program called CARI to calculate a worst-case exposure scenario, a flight from Sydney to LA then across to London.

REPORTER: Let's just say it's a pregnant female.

DON SMART: Okay, so we're going to fly at solar minimum when we have the maximum cosmic ray exposure. And we entered the data from the flight profile into the computer. So now we're going to compute from this CARI software, which is downloadable from the Web, what the radiation exposure is. Here is Sydney to LA. The answer is .0457 milliseverts.

REPORTER: That's about one chest X-ray, isn't it?

DON SMART: That's approximately a chest X-ray, they keep reducing exposure. Okay, now the next flight is LA to London, this is a polar route, this comes up .0894.

REPORTER: So it's double the previous flight, even though it's less travelling time?

SMART: Right, because you're running over the North Atlantic air corridor, minimum geomagnetic shielding.

REPORTER: And that's where the radiation is the strongest?

SMART: Where the radiation's the highest.

REPORTER: So if you add those together, that's three chest X-rays to fly to London, right?

SMART: Right.

REPORTER: So how many flights could our pregnant female make to London without toasting her baby?

SMART: Now the ICRP recommendation for pregnant women is to limit to two milliseverts, so we're going to ask how many times can she do this before she hits that limit.

REPORTER: So if she's doing .1351 milliseverts for that one long-haul flight...

PEGGY SHEA: The total is 14.8 times. So 15 times.

SMART: Don't do it more than 15 times.

SHEA: The first three months are the most vulnerable for the foetus and that's the time, particularly the first six weeks, most women do not know whether they're pregnant or not.

SMART: But they're not going to make 15 flights in the first six weeks.

REPORTER: So they're fairly safe?

SMART: Yes.

REPORTER: But there's probably more than one pregnant mum out there watching this who thinks the idea of even three chest X-rays abhorrent, no matter how safe the exposure. At the very least, she'd probably want to know about it. Which all begs the question, why don't the airlines tell the public who choose to fly with them about this and all the other risks we face when we fly?

ENDS