Originally Posted by
Doors to Automatic
There was an original thread on this story which was eventually locked but today a BA 777 First Officer was told he faces jail for reporting for a flight whilst over the legal drink-fly limit. Details are here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-44380667
What surprises me is not the 86mg reading, (which was over the 80mg drink-drive limit never mind the 20mg aviation one) but that the individual concerned claimed he had only had a single vodka and coke 8 hours before.
I cannot for a minute believe this to be true as this would have surely exited the system in entirety around 2 hours later? It is incomprehensible that he would still be so far over the limit 8 hours later. I would be interested in any views on this particular point.
Before I moved into IT I was a biochemist and looked at the rate of alcohol metabolism. The following is from a paper published in 2012.
"Although rates vary widely, the “average” metabolic capacity to remove alcohol is about 170 to 240 g per day for a person with a body weight of 70 kg. This would be equivalent to an average metabolic rate of about 7 g/hr which translates to about one drink per hr.."
It must be said that the same paper goes on to say that there is a 3~4 fold variability in the rate of ethanol elimination but, even then, the sums, in my opinion, don't add up for one drink.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3484320/