{"id":19929,"date":"2026-08-21T06:46:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T06:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/21\/study-finds-hidden-radiation-linked-cancer-risk-among-pilots-and-flight-attendants-greek-city-times\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T06:46:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T06:46:16","slug":"study-finds-hidden-radiation-linked-cancer-risk-among-pilots-and-flight-attendants-greek-city-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/21\/study-finds-hidden-radiation-linked-cancer-risk-among-pilots-and-flight-attendants-greek-city-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Study Finds Hidden Radiation-Linked Cancer Risk Among Pilots and Flight Attendants \u2013 Greek City Times"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The Hidden Radiation Exposure Risk That Comes With Flying at 35,000 Feet Revealed<\/h3>\n

Pilots and flight attendants have recorded the highest proportions of deaths from cancers associated with radiation exposure among more than 500 occupations examined in a major new US study<\/a>, raising fresh questions about a largely invisible hazard of working at cruising altitude.<\/p>\n

The finding sounds alarming, particularly to anyone accustomed to spending hours in an aircraft. But the distinction matters. The research concerns years of repeated occupational exposure among people who work in the air, not the occasional passenger taking a holiday or business flight.<\/p>\n

Published in JAMA Internal Medicine<\/a> on 17 August, the Harvard-led study analysed nearly 13 million US death records from 2020 to 2024 across 503 occupations, including approximately 14,000 pilots and 7,000 flight attendants. It found that 6.9 per cent of deaths among flight attendants and 6.7 per cent among pilots were from cancers associated with ionising radiation, compared with about 5 per cent across the general working population.<\/p>\n

In other words, the figures do not mean that 6.9 per cent of flight attendants develop or die from these cancers. They describe the proportion of deaths within the study population attributed to this group of cancers.<\/p>\n

After accounting for factors including age, sex, race, ethnicity, education and marital status, the researchers calculated that flight attendants had about 50 per cent higher odds of dying from a radiation-related cancer than the general working population, while pilots had about 36 per cent higher odds.<\/p>\n

Even more striking was where aircrew appeared in the occupational rankings. Flight attendants ranked first and pilots second. Nuclear technologists, who routinely work around radioactive materials, ranked 12th.<\/p>\n

The cancers examined included breast and prostate cancers, melanoma and other skin cancers, thyroid and central nervous system cancers, lymphoma, multiple myeloma and most forms of leukaemia. Lung cancer was excluded to reduce the possibility that smoking would distort the results. Pilots and flight attendants showed statistically higher rates of death from breast, central nervous system and prostate cancers and melanoma, while pilots also had elevated leukaemia mortality.<\/p>\n

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The source of concern is not airport scanners, aircraft electronics or anything passengers can see. It comes from space.<\/p>\n

Earth is continuously bombarded by high-energy cosmic radiation. At ground level, the atmosphere acts as a thick protective barrier. An aircraft travelling at roughly 35,000 feet sits above much of that shielding, which means the people inside are exposed to higher levels of ionising radiation than those below.<\/p>\n

Exposure increases with altitude and also varies according to latitude, flight path and solar conditions. Routes closer to the poles generally involve greater exposure than those nearer the equator.<\/p>\n

For a passenger who flies several times a year, the additional dose remains small. For a pilot or flight attendant accumulating hundreds of hours at altitude every year, however, the calculation is different.<\/p>\n

Harvard Medical School<\/a> says aircrew typically accumulate an estimated 3 to 6 millisieverts of cosmic radiation annually, depending on their routes. By comparison, it cites an estimated 0.4 millisieverts for an average traveller taking ten return cross-country flights a year. Aircrew receive the highest mean annual effective dose of ionising radiation of any occupational group in the United States.<\/p>\n

It is an unusual workplace hazard because there is no wall to shield, machine to switch off or piece of protective clothing capable of solving it. The practical variables are largely time, altitude and route.<\/p>\n

That has made the regulatory question increasingly difficult to ignore.<\/p>\n

In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration recognises that pilots and flight attendants are occupationally exposed to ionising radiation, yet there are no federal requirements to monitor individual doses or enforce dose limits for airline crews.<\/p>\n

Study author Dr Vishal Patel put the problem succinctly: \u201cYou can\u2019t manage an exposure you\u2019ve decided not to measure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Europe takes a more interventionist approach. European Union rules require airlines to assess exposure when crew are likely to receive more than 1 millisievert a year, take that exposure into account when organising work schedules and inform affected employees about the health risks. Additional occupational radiation requirements apply where exposure is liable to exceed 6 millisieverts annually.<\/p>\n

Australia also treats aircrew exposure separately from ordinary passenger exposure. The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency recommends a reference level of 6 millisieverts a year for aircrew and says exposure assessment is warranted for domestic and long-haul crews. At the same time, it says cosmic radiation doses received by occasional flyers are sufficiently low that additional protective measures are not required.<\/p>\n

That distinction is crucial because the new research does not establish that cosmic radiation directly caused each cancer death it identified.<\/p>\n

It is an observational study based on death certificates rather than individual lifetime radiation measurements. The researchers did not know precisely how many hours each pilot or flight attendant had flown, which routes they worked, their accumulated radiation dose or whether occupational classifications on every death certificate were correct.<\/p>\n

There are also other unusual features of aviation work that may affect cancer risk.<\/p>\n

Pilots can be exposed to ultraviolet-A radiation through cockpit windows, while both pilots and cabin crew frequently work overnight, cross multiple time zones and experience long-term disruption to circadian rhythms. An accompanying JAMA Internal Medicine commentary by Australian researchers Catherine Olsen and Ken Karipidis described aircrew as being exposed to a \u201cconstellation\u201d of known and probable carcinogenic factors.<\/p>\n

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Previous research has not always produced consistent conclusions about whether cosmic radiation itself is responsible for higher cancer rates among flight crews. An Australian review of the scientific literature found evidence of occupational health concerns but noted the difficulty of separating radiation exposure from disrupted sleep, ultraviolet exposure and other aspects of aviation work.<\/p>\n

The new study strengthens the case without settling it.<\/p>\n

One finding in particular interested the researchers: pilots and flight attendants did not have similarly elevated mortality from cancers that are not associated with radiation. That pattern makes a purely lifestyle or socioeconomic explanation less convincing, although it still cannot prove cause and effect.<\/p>\n

For ordinary passengers, there is little reason to reconsider flying on the basis of this study alone. The exposures being examined accumulate across working lives spent repeatedly at altitude. Australian radiation authorities estimate, for example, that a Melbourne-to-London flight produces a cosmic radiation dose of about 0.065 millisieverts, while the number varies substantially by route.<\/p>\n

For the people serving drinks in the cabin or sitting behind the cockpit door, the conversation is different.<\/p>\n

Their workplace happens to move through an environment where the atmosphere provides less protection from radiation, day after day, year after year. What the latest research has done is turn that invisible exposure into something more difficult to dismiss as theoretical.<\/p>\n

The question now is not whether cosmic radiation exists at cruising altitude. That has been understood for decades. It is how seriously the cumulative exposure of the people who spend their careers there should be treated.<\/p>\n

Read also Greek MEPs Ask EU to Protect St Catherine\u2019s Monastery at Sinai<\/p>\n