A subject close to my heart.
Over half a lifetime ago I repeatedly reported a captain for alcohol issues and generally bizarre behaviour. Promises were made by the senior training staff in the independent airline I worked for but nothing was done. People listened, and then did nothing.
What was all the more bewildering was that I was some sort of training FO, one of only two that was allowed to fly with new captains after their line checks.
This very sick man would consume a double-double of whisky while taxiing in, wobbling near to the edge of the concrete and refusing to let me take over. He bullied his way through his days with a bluster that was, I thought, only seen in films.
When I finally said enough was enough, I was shouted at and told to get a QC to represent me in high court if I insisted upon repeating anything like that. I walked out of the best job I'd ever had using my leave as notice period.
By the strangest of chances, many years later I was introduced to the sick captain's old boss in what was to become BA, in a garden party in my home town in Essex. When I asked if he knew the person involved he looked taken-aback and asked how I knew him. When I told him, he said, 'you cannot tell me that man flew again!!!' The conversation went into some detail. It seems some sort of agreement was reached and the 'sick' aircrew left to work for his son, outside of aviation. At some point he decided to fly again, on a licence he still held.
Nice as his old boss had seemed, I sit here thinking just how different my life would have been if that sick soul's licence had been revoked. I also wonder why I'd buckled under the strain. It was not in my nature, but it had been months and months of insanity and the same time of promises that things would be put right.
The greatest regret of my life is buckling at that moment with my boss.
No one cared the subject reeked of alcohol after a flight. Okay it seems because it was after and not before. No one knew enough perhaps about brain damage and alcohol-induced psychosis - and the word psychosis was used in that later conversation. They know now, but this was then.
Now, I'd have called the CAA, or the police, or both, but things were so different then - it's hard to imagine just how different - and somehow I'd just lost the steam I needed to do battle. Perhaps it was months of things like starting the engines with the passengers on the ventral stairs - inches from the engines - and no brakes on, and no start-up clearance. Or taking off with . . . I'll leave that for now. Just a last few straws of many, many dozens of smaller items I'd filed. Many of the 'smaller' incidents would be international news now.
Things are better now. Hugely so, but alcohol is still addictive, and is still a relaxant after a trying duty period. All too nice to feel that chemistry flow in.
It's vital flights are not operated with intoxicated crew. Of course it is, but there are other dangers, dangers more subtle and far-reaching. Richard Feynman gave up drinking 'Because I wanted to think.' He wasn't mistaken - even back then it was known what alcohol could do to the brain.
Under the glass of a coffee table in the waiting area of the Prade St CAA medical centre were some photos of pilot's brain slices. Old fashioned X rays, but very, very clear in their message. The shrunken black edges to the contours of the cortex were horrific, so much so, that anyone seeing them should have been profoundly affected. Yet, as we all know, the message is there, yet we mostly don't choose to see it.
Last edited by Loose rivets; 20th Jan 2018 at 23:03.