British Airways has been accused of downplaying an incident that left 25 cabin crew in hospital after toxic fumes leaked into the cabin of a San Francisco-bound flight. The plane was forced to divert to Calgary after the pilot told air traffic control that “toxic gas-type fumes” had filled the cabin - a recording of the conversation has been released and can be heard below. The union Unite, which represents more than 20,000 cabin crew, said that British Airways called the incident an “odour event”, misrepresenting, it said, the seriousness of the situation.

I have never been a great airplane passenger. I prefer to be on the ground. Now that I have learned about Aerotoxic Syndrome, a heath issue not in the public domain, I have a new concern. In a pattern strongly reminiscent of how “Big Tobacco” and “Big Oil” have used their power and influence to keep a story under the radar, the problems with the air breathed onboard airplanes is still not well-known. This is despite a 2013 broadcast feature on 60 Minutes called, “The Airline Industry’s Darkest Secret.”

American Airlines Flight 109, traveling to Los Angeles from London, was more than two hours into its journey and close to Keflavik, Iceland, when several passengers and crew members suddenly and mysteriously became ill. News reports of the American Airlines flight fit “a classic pattern” suggesting contamination by engine oil, said Susan Michaelis, head of research at the Global Cabin Air Quality Executive, a group representing aviation industry workers. Low-level contamination of cabin air by oil “happens on all flights,” Ms. Michaelis said, but in most cases it is not detected by people on board.

A union representing cabin crew has demanded an immediate public inquiry into the rise in ‘aerotoxic syndrome’ as a result of contaminated air on board planes. The news comes after it was revealed two American Airlines jets were grounded in as many days after passengers and crew passed out on board.

Coroner urges action to prevent deaths after warning toxic fumes in cabin air pose a health risk to frequent fliers and aircrew. Toxic fumes in cabin air pose a health risk to frequent fliers and aircrew, a coroner has said in a landmark report.

Two weeks ago Captain Tristan Loraine, a former British Airways pilot who retired on medical grounds in 2006, sat at his computer to type the email he had been hoping to send for years. He and fellow medically-retired air crew he had spent the past few years trying to expose what they believe is one of the great ­global scandals of our times: that the air on passenger jets is not always safe.

Poisons in the air pumped into plane cabins and cockpits may be linked to brain damage. Scientists say that chemicals in contaminated air are connected to health problems being experienced by pilots. Cabin crew have long blamed exposure to jet engine fumes for memory loss, tremors, lethargy and other symptoms of so-called aerotoxic syndrome.

A former pilot is campaigning to get the airline industry to believe that there is a health risk for passengers and flight crew from fumes when air is pumped into the plane during a high pressure oil leak in the engine.