What complete nonsense you push.... BTW the unvaccinated Inidan pilots died from COVID-19 -- not the vaccine. The deaths of British pilots were not linked in any way with the COVID vaccine.
Unsubstantiated Claims Follow Deaths of British and Indian Airline Pilots
https://www.factcheck.org/2021/07/s...-deaths-of-british-and-indian-airline-pilots/
Following the deaths of four British Airways pilots and five Air India pilots, social media posts claimed without proof that the pilots died as a result of receiving COVID-19 vaccines. Air India said its pilots died from COVID-19. British Airways said “there is no truth whatsoever in the claims on social media speculating that the four deaths are linked.”
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The COVID-19 pandemic severely affected the
aviation industry on a global scale,
as we’ve reported, causing massive layoffs and unexpected deaths among employees. The International Air Transport Association categorized last year as
“the worst year in history” for air travel demand, with global passenger traffic declining 66% compared with 2019.
In April 2020, British Airways announced plans to cut
12,000 jobs due to the pandemic — totaling more than a quarter of the company’s jobs.
In recent months,
British Airways also suffered the deaths of four pilots.
The loss of the British pilots — and pilots’ deaths in other countries — sparked a burst of unsubstantiated claims about the cause of their deaths on social media.
“Four British Airway PILOTS have DIED of the COVID VACCINE in the past 7-days,” read a post on
Facebook. Another Facebook post repeated a similar
false claim about the pilots dying “in the same week, just days after getting [the] second” vaccine dose.
A
post on Instagram read, “4 British Airways pilots DEAD. 1 Delta pilot DEAD. Canadian pilot unconscious on runway. All in ONE WEEK. What do they all have in common? [Needle emoji] Safe Travels!”
But it’s not true that all the British pilots died in the same week, and there is no evidence the pilots died after getting the COVID-19 vaccine.
In response to the claims, British Airways
tweeted on June 17: “Sadly four members of our pilot community passed away recently. Our thoughts are with their family and friends. However, there is no truth whatsoever in the claims on social media speculating that the four deaths are linked.”
Capt. Nicholas Synnott died in early June
following a long battle with COVID-19. Senior First Officer Edward Brice-Bennett was declared dead on June 2, after being found unconscious on a mountain bike trail, according to
news reports.
Snopes confirmed the death of Senior First Officer Grant Mercer, who passed away on
May 4, and a person with knowledge of the circumstances of his death said it had no connection with the COVID-19 vaccination. The fourth pilot was not identified by the airline or in media reports.
A British Airways
spokesperson told Reuters that none of the deaths were linked to vaccines. British Airways hasn’t said if the pilots were vaccinated. We could find no public mention that they received a first or second vaccine dose.
Yet the claim keeps spreading, adding more unfounded details and a baseless claim that five Indian pilots died after receiving COVID-19 vaccines.
“Five vaxxed British Airway pilots just died in a week from heart attacks and internal bleeding. A 6th has severe blood clots that have disqualified him from flying. 5 commercial pilots in India just died after being vaxxed in May,” read an
Instagram post shared on June 22.
As we’ve reported, there is no evidence of an added risk of blood clots for vaccinated air travelers, as suggested in the Instagram post.
There is also no evidence that the Indian pilots had been vaccinated, as the Instagram post claimed. In fact,
Air India has said the five pilots died in May of COVID-19. The deaths occurred between May 9 and May 30,
according to Asian News International.
A second wave of the pandemic — which
started in mid-March and peaked in May — infected millions and killed tens of thousands across India, hitting at a time when the country was experiencing a
vaccine shortage.
As of June 29, India had one of the lowest vaccination rates, with only
19.05% of the population receiving at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Pilots and aircrew were essential in the efforts to contain the outbreak by evacuating some citizens and delivering essential items,
such as oxygen tanks or ventilators.
Unfortunately, frequent traveling puts pilots at an increased risk of contracting COVID-19. The Indian Commercial Pilots Association, a union of Air India pilots, wrote a
letter to the airline management on May 4,
stating, “Many crew have been diagnosed Covid positive and are struggling to get oxygen cylinders. We are left to fend for ourselves for hospitalization.”
Air India, a
public limited company, said later on
May 4 that it would vaccinate all of its employees against COVID-19 by the end of the month.
But on May 10 the carrier
announced it had to cancel the vaccination drive, saying, “The proposed Covid vaccination camp at GSD Complex, Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) on May 11 and May 13 stands cancelled because government authorities have expressed inability to hold these camps due to non-availability of vaccines.”
After
facing pay cuts and being denied a priority for vaccinations, many pilots contracted COVID-19. Since February,
17 pilots have died of COVID-19 from several Indian airlines — including the
five Air India pilots who died in May.
On June 3, Air India officials announced that
pilots Captain Harsh Tiwary, Captain Gurpratap S. Gill, Captain Prasad Karmakar, Captain Sandeep Rana and Captain Amitesh Prasad died due to COVID-19. The airline also said it had started vaccinating its employees on May 15 after a
delay due to the lack of vaccines.
There is no evidence the Air India pilots received vaccines, as suggested by the social media post.