Whopity
Those press reports which mention the blood/alcohol reading quote the prosecutor as saying tests showed the pilot had
"134 micrograms of alcohol in 100 milliliters of blood."
That statement doesn't make sense. As you correctly say, the legal limit is:
- 9 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath
- 20 milligrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood
Either the prosecutor erroneously said micrograms when he meant milligrammes, or the news agency reporter misheard him.
As it was a blood test, the reading must have been 134 milligrammes, not microgrammes.
scooter boy
in most reported instances the individuals concerned were either "shopped" by colleagues or caught after flying erratically
I've followed the reports closely since the law enabling police to breath-test pilots was introduced, and represented the first pilot at Heathrow to be prosecuted and sent to prison. I have seen nothing to suggest your assertion is correct.
I can't think of a case in the UK where the pilot was "shopped by colleagues", nor where a pilot was "caught after flying erratically."
There have been extremely few cases in the UK but, to the extent that it's possible to identify any pattern, pilots have been "shopped" by security guards when going through security to airside.
The nearest I can recall to your second category is that ridiculous nonsense at Manchester where two police constables decided it was appropriate to breath-test both pilots after a passenger told police the pilots must be drunk because the aircraft had to do a go-around.
See:
Pilots breathalysed after go-around
The bottom line here is that alcohol, (even alcohol consumed the night before the morning after) severely affects performance, judgement and mood.
Surely it depends, amongst other things, upon the quantity of alocohol consumed and the elapse of time between when it was consumed and when the pilot performs his aviation function?
FL