British Airways flightdeck mortality study, 1950-1992

Objective: To study the mortality and life expectancy of male British Airwa ys flightdeck crew and to establish whether proportionate mortality excesse s shown earlier for brain/CNS cancer, colon cancer and melanoma remained ev ident. Methods: A Standardized Mortality Ratio study (SMR) using England an d Wales as the comparison population was carried out for 6209 male pilots a nd 1153 male flight engineers employed for at least 1 yr between January 1, 1950 and December 31, 1992. Internal relative risk comparisons were made b etween shorthaul and longhaul operations defined broadly as flights within Europe and beyond Europe, respectively. Results: The all-causes SMR for pil ots of 61 (592 deaths) and 56 for flight engineers (127 deaths) confirmed t he expected Healthy Worker Effect. In pilots apart from the known excess of deaths from aircraft accidents (SMR 14694), most of the comparisons showed significant deficits in mortality. The SMR's for brain/CNS cancer (143) an d colon cancer(111)were no longer statistically significant. The SMR of 333 for melanoma was significantly raised in pilots but was not evident in fli ght engineers. Life expectancy for longhaul pilots and flight engineers was 4-5 yr better than England and Wales for ages 55-65 while the advantage fo r shorthaul pilots was reduced to between 2-3 yr. Cases of leukemia and ale ukaemia in pilots were less than expected and less than the positive excess predicted from modeling based on radiation dose. Conclusion: The study con firms that flightdeck crew live longer than the England and Wales populatio n and do not exhibit patterns of death that could be directly attributable to occupation. Keywords: pilot, flight deck, mortality, life expectancy.