Airline pilots and flight attendants are among American workers most exposed to radiation, according to a government-backed report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
The study, ordered by Congress, found naturally occurring cosmic radiation should be considered an occupational hazard in aviation, especially for flights at higher altitudes, at far north latitudes and flying during solar storms.
“A career can be a long one, exposures accumulate,” said Jonathan Samet, the chairman of the committee that wrote the National Academies report. He is also a professor of epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health.
"Based on knowledge of radiation exposure, we have concern that these exposures could be associated with increased risk for cancer or perhaps other problems,” Samet said.
A joint investigation by Scripps News and the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at Arizona State University in January found the U.S. government failing to address the effect of inflight radiation despite first recognizing it as a threat in 1990.
A 2021 FAA report estimated that working a flight between Athens and New York for 25 years could cause 1 out of every 190 crew members on this route to die from cancer due to work-related radiation exposure.
The U.S. is an outlier: as our earlier reporting documented, many European countries and South Korea already require airlines to monitor and limit crew dose.
"It feels as though we're not just a line item on someone's cost sheet, but that we're actually disposable,” Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO, said in the original Scripps News-Howard Center report.
The new National Academies report singles out pregnant flight crew members as facing some of the greatest risk, noting that pregnant crew “may exceed the more protective pregnant worker dose limits recommended by the FAA.”
"The more often cells divide, the more sensitive to radiation they are,” said Eric Benton, a physics professor specializing in radiation at Oklahoma State University. “A fetus ... can be thought of as a mass of very fast dividing cells. So, they're probably very, very radiation sensitive.”
The report issues an “immediate” recommendation that urges the FAA to develop a “user-friendly, web-based application to increase accessibility to dose estimation for flight crew.”
In January, the Howard Center and Scripps News revealed the FAA had a similar public-facing calculator offline for seven months. Five months later, as of early July, the calculator remains offline and the National Academies report urges immediate attention.
The Scripps News-Howard Center created its own calculator for anyone to easily track radiation during upcoming or previous flights.
Asked about the calculator, an FAA spokesman said, "The tool remains offline as we work on a technology solution to bring it back.” The agency did not provide an updated timeline for its return.
"There should be a radiation safety program,” Samet said. "The exposures should be tracked so that people know what exposures they've received.”
Recommendations from his committee also say the FAA should build a national dose tracking system, require airlines to implement their own radiation safety programs and provide protections for high-risk groups such as pregnant women.
Capt. Jason Ambrosi, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, said in an email that ALPA “welcomes the National Academies' report confirming what pilots have been highlighting for years: flight crews lack a system to track occupational exposure to cosmic radiation.”
The FAA, he said, “should exercise its existing authority to formally regulate cosmic radiation as an occupational safety issue and implement a comprehensive framework for monitoring, tracking, and mitigating risk. Pilots accept real sacrifices as part of this profession, but flightcrews should not be the only radiation-exposed workforce in America without the basic protections other groups have."
The FAA spokesman said the agency is reviewing the report and considering its recommendations.
“The safety and health of flight crews is an important focus for us,” the spokesman said in a statement.
Airlines for America, the trade group representing major U.S. carriers, said by email that “Airlines are committed to the health and safety of their crewmembers and support continued
FAA review of the National Academies’ recommendations.”
Ionizing radiation is a known cause of cancer, but the National Academies report says more research is necessary to determine the exact risk to flight crews from cosmic radiation exposure on the job.
When asked about the report's recommendations, retired airline captain Joyce May said in a text message: “There is already adequate evidence to show that the health threats from in-flight radiation exposure are real. Calling for more studies is the same stalling tactic that has been being used for decades.”
