PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - America West crew arrested @ MIA (Update - Sentences)
Old 8th Jun 2005, 19:00
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Flying Lawyer
 
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No, they would not "definitely have crashed the airplane".

To put things in perspective:
Florida's legal breath alcohol limit is 0.08
Cloyd's breath-test reading was 0.091 and Hughes 0.084.
Only fractionally over the legal limit - and obviously not 'drunk' in the ordinary meaning of the word.

Professional pilots here are far better qualified than me to comment upon whether there's a "reasonable chance of an uneventful flight." FWIW, I think there's an extremely good chance the flight would have been uneventful.

That, of course, isn't the point. Impairment isn't the test in America and, since last year, is no longer the only test in the UK.
I think, without looking it up, that the FAA maximum for pilots is 0.04. The trial proceeded on the state standard, not the FAR standard, because the case was tried in a state, not Federal, court.

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Interesting that this is yet another example of everything stemming from a disagreement with a security man.
On this occasion, it was about whether one of the pilots should be allowed to take his coffee airside. It seems he didn't take well to being prevented from doing so and, although he eventually agreed to discard it, a 'suspected alcohol' report was made to the police. The rest, as they say, is history. The only remaining question is how long the inevitable prison sentences will be.
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