A Royal Air Force Chinook carrying an underslung load makes an approach towards a landing site in the desert, near El Centro in the US, 10 September 2024. Credit: Crown copyright/UK Ministry of Defence.

In a prepared statement to the House of Commons on 6 January 2025, a senior UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) official, Al Carns, confirmed the government will begin tests to determine the impact of exhaust emissions from in-service helicopters on personnel this month.

An investigation opened after a string of common law claims from service people alleging adverse impact from fuel and fumes going back to 2019.

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Despite making five compensation payments worth more than £3.5bn ($4.4m) since 23 April 2023, another MoD official specified that there is currently no admission of liability on the government’s part in a parliamentary written response on 26 November 2024.

The Times reported that as many as 100 current and former service people or their families were in the process of suing the government.  

During the latest parliamentary session, the Labour MP Jayne Kirkham noted cases of “blood cancers and sarcomas in veterans and current service personnel.”

Carns agreed to meet with Kirkham to discuss the current figures of those affected. The Minister reassured that “this month the MoD is intiating the testing of exhaust emissions of in-service helicopters to ensure we’re meeting our duty of care.”

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The British military operate a range of helicopters for different operations including the new AH-64E Apache attack helicopter (Army); the multi-role Wildcat (Army, Navy); CH-47F Chinook (Air); and Merlin (Navy) among several others, including some approaching obsolescence such as the Puma (Navy).

According to the UK government, there are 294 rotary-wing aircraft across the armed forces as of April last year.

It is worth noting that the MoD does not publish any data on specific military missions for reasons of national security. “Nor as far as we can gather does it submit to third-party verification of any efforts to reduce these [environmental] impacts,” according to a report from Scientists for Global Responsibility.