FedEx's chief pilot Jack Lewis sent an October 2006 letter to captains with a laundry list of stupid stunts to avoid including this one:
We have another Captain crew member who showed up drunk in the crew lounge recently after deadheading in for a trip. He wasn't checking in for 7 hours and was only transiting the crew lounge, getting his Jepps to prepare to fly later. Security nabbed him and we are all wear the label. Dumb move.
The letter is here:
https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/84113-post1.html
I've sure had the phone call at the hotel to come sign the logbook. In the past it wasn't a big deal and you could even give the mechanic verbal authorization to sign your name where I worked. Or, so they tell me.
However, times change and in recent years I've had colleagues get letters from the FAA for not catching a missing signature a couple of days earlier.
The question of when you report for duty for purposes of drug and alcohol testing has been a moving goalpost. After the Fargo incident in 1990 I believe at Northwest you could say you weren't fit to fly and wanted help up to the point the before start checklist was completed and you would get amnesty from prosecution as long as you went into HIMS. A Virgin pilot at IAD in 2003 got off with a misdemeanor plea deal after he tested drunk after being arrested on the plane while looking over the logbook in uniform prior to pax boarding. It was ruled that there was no clear intent to operate the plane. The drunk America West pilots in MIA in 2002 tried to claim that they weren't operating the plane since the towbar was still connected when they were ordered back to the gate but the judge didn't buy it.
I had a colleague get his positive alcohol test thrown out years ago because he was sleeping it off in a crew lounge and he was tested hours before his report time. Sounds like the FedEx incident above. I sure wouldn't go near company property for any reason with alcohol on my breath these days.
