Truth about toxic fumes will come out, vow pilot’s family
Mother compares airlines to cigarette firms over death ‘cover-up’
THE mother of a British Airways pilot who claimed he was poisoned by jet fumes yesterday told of her fury after a coroner said he died from a drugs overdose.
Judy Westgate, 76, accused the aviation industry of having its ‘head in the sand’ and asked why compelling evidence of an illness dubbed aerotoxic syndrome had been ignored.
Her son Richard, 43, believed his crippling headaches, mental confusion and insomnia were triggered by 20 years of exposure to chemicals from hot engines.
Hundreds of pilots and cabin crew claim to have suffered ill health due to ‘fume events’, but the issue has been dismissed by airlines who don’t believe the condition is real. Mr Westgate died in a hotel room in Amsterdam in December 2012 from an accidental overdose of the sedative pentobarbital, an inquest concluded yesterday. The pilot, from Marlborough, Wiltshire, had moved to Holland for treatment after growing frustrated with UK medics.
Dutch specialists confirmed he was suffering aerotoxic poisoning – caused by low-level exposure to noxious compounds called organophosphates over many years – but he died eight weeks into his recovery programme.
The evidence for poisoning by jet fumes was such that in 2015 Sheriff Payne, the Dorset coroner, warned of a risk of further deaths unless airlines addressed the problem. Yet Sheriff Payne was suddenly taken off the case last year, and a new coroner instructed that aerotoxic syndrome would not be discussed as a ‘proper issue’ in the pilot’s inquest.
Yesterday, after a week-long hearing in Salisbury, coroner Simon Fox QC said Mr Westgate died after an accidental overdose of his medication. Afterwards, the pilot’s mother said the family were ‘dismayed’ at the conclusion.
‘The airlines cannot categorically say that air in these aircraft is safe,’ she added. ‘They refuse to monitor and test for toxins, so of course they have no evidence because they will not look for it.
‘The longer they deny there is a problem, the harder and more costly it’s going to be when they are proved wrong.
‘Just like the tobacco industry in the Fifties refusing to admit smoking causes cancer, the airline industry has its head in the sand.’
She has previously accused the industry of a ‘cover-up’. Mr Westgate’s twin Guy, 47, also a BA pilot, told the inquest how his brother had been working with researchers to see if aerotoxic syndrome was a genuine condition.
Attending the hearing with his sister Pam Love and their mother, he wept as he described his brother’s suffering. He said: ‘He would describe the pain as if his brain was being sandpapered.’
Daniel du Plessis, a neuropathologist, told the inquest Mr Westgate might have been suffering from inflammation of the nerve roots, which could have explained many of his symptoms.
He said organophosphate poisoning, the supposed cause of aerotoxic syndrome, could lead to nerve problems but not the inflammation the pilot potentially had.
Mr Westgate had been on medical leave since September 2011.
After the inquest, a BA spokesman said: ‘Our thoughts are with the family at this time.’
‘Industry has its head in the sand’