pilots are still human beings
Gentlemen
while you are all so busy shooting the messenger you seem to have forgotten the message - unpalatable as it may be to you.
The message from this recent incident, and the arrests last year of two crews in the USA, and the 'Dispatches' documentary and suspension/dismissal of several BA pilots in 2000 is that pilots have flown and continue to attempt to fly commercial aircraft when their capacity to do so has been significantly diminished by having ingested moderate to substantial quantities of alcohol within the 12 hours prior to flight. You all seem to be evading the issue - which is that the safety of commercial air transport has been and is being compromised by an admittedly small number of pilots who cannot or will not control their drinking habits.
The objective of the CAA and the airlines should be to ensure that no pilot ever reaches the flight deck with any alcohol in his/her system. Since Pilots are only human beings they will want to drink from time to time, just like most other normal mortals. However they have to be able to exercise a greater degree of self-discipline than many other professionals, to avoid their private drinking habits affecting their professional roles as pilots. Sadly it seems that a small minority are unable to do this. Why will BALPA not accept random testing and why will the CAA not mandate such testing now? Mark my words - it will happen one day in the UK - but sadly only after a major fatal accident enquiry has identified alcohol in the pilot's blood stream as a causal factor.
Those responsible pilots who know how to drink sensibly and who allow at least 12 hours bottle to throttle, will have nothing to fear. Those who cannot or will not heed the message need the added incentive of random testing to force them to comply, or to identify them early before they are involved in an incident, so they can be given the help they need to control their problem.
It has always seemed anomalous to me that train drivers and lorry drivers are subject to random drug and alcohol testing but pilots and captains of ships are not. They are all humain beings, are all fallible and can all cause death and destruction if not fully awake, fully alert and fully sober when performing their duties.
I expect I will get a sh*t load of abuse after this post but hope that instead I get some sensible and rational discussion of the issue of drugs and alcohol in relation to flight safety.
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Pobody's nerfect