Flight crews face elevated cancer risk from cosmic radiation exposure

Flight attendants and pilots face elevated mortality risk from radiation-induced cancers, representing a significant occupational health hazard for hundreds of thousands of workers globally.

For decades, the skies have offered flight crews a livelihood and a vantage point unlike any other — but a new study now quantifies what science has long suspected: that life at cruising altitude carries a silent biological cost. Cosmic radiation, largely filtered by the atmosphere at sea level, reaches pilots and flight attendants at doses that accumulate across careers into burdens comparable to those borne by nuclear industry workers. The research places aviation among the occupations with the highest radiation-linked cancer mortality, pressing regulators, airlines, and governments to recko

Flight crews face elevated cancer risk from cosmic radiation exposure

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