It all seems to be a great report for middle aged 'ol gits' to tut tut over. And before you all get uppity - I'm one!
The thinners - largely irrelevant. The drugs ditto. The erratic performance - well actually that is classic 'ol git' behaviour.
Do we really want pilots grounded because someone in ATC thinks they are 'not up to it'? Do you want to be able to ground someone on the basis of little more than 'hearsay'?
Given the circumstances the AAIB are not going to get much adverse comment from us 'ol gits' - but what would stop all these comments applying to you or me - or Maurice Kirk?
At the end of the day this chap probably made a poor decision during the climbout - he may or may not have tried to recover and failed. Most of the rest off the commentry is pretty much irrelevant. Sad event and maybe he was a marginal pilot - are we all so much better?
I know a variety of pilots - whom I will not fly with. Generally they get by, I just don't want to be involved. This guy was probably not much different to them.
And as for comments like taking Ecstasy and flying is equivalent to 'certain death' look out of the car window - if Plod is to be believed someting like 5% of drivers at critical times are doing the same...........