Toxic fumes in plane cabins can be fatal for frequent fliers, aircrew

Toxic fumes in plane cabins poses serious health risks to frequent flyers and aircrew, it has been reported.

Stanhope Payne, the senior coroner for Dorset, has said that people regularly exposed to fumes circulating planes faced "consequential damage to their health," the Independent reported.

Coroner's inquiring into the death of Richard Westgate, a British Airways pilot, called on BA and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to take "urgent action to prevent future deaths".

Payne's report is the first official UK recognition of so-called 'aerotoxic syndrome'. The phenomenon has long been denied by airlines but has been blamed by some for the deaths of at least two pilots and numerous other incidents in which pilots have passed out in flight.