Pilot over drink/drive limit removed from aircraft

[A and C]

This thread is starting to show more about the way this industry sees its self than the truth of the matter.

Some above have a very black and white view to incapacitation, I think that this is because they feel professional embarrassed when a fellow pilot turns up in the press over the drink limit and so rush to jump on the outrage bus.

Drinking and flying is not a serious issue for this industry flying fatigue is ! the very few who do drink and fly are a serious issue.

Part of the problem is the attitude of the press and the wish of so called journalists to make a big splash, getting the under achiving lower middle classes outraged sells a lot of copy's of the Mail and Express, to this end they will bend the truth to breaking point. I was the witness to the tragic fall from long haul pilot to vagrant of a guy with a drink problem. He had called in sick because of his problem and three days later he was caught driving his car over the limit, dispite the fact that he had called in sick three days previous one of the UK's tabloids headlined this as drunk on the way to work as he had been previously rostered to fly that day.
I have no doubt that the cheap and untrue actions of this newspaper had a detrimental effect on a guy who was seeking help for a problem and trying to get it sorted. I personally put 90% of the blame for this guys failure to recover from his achohol problem on the journalist who was more than happy kick this guy when he was down with an untrue story just to sell a few newspapers.

And so we see that a pilot who is incapacitated by drink is an easy target for selling newspapers and some above are just as happy to jump on the outrage bus but the fatigue incapasitation issue is almost imposable to define in the press and it is far too complicated to sell newspapers to the likes of Mrs Miggins.

And just to make it clear to the anti alcohol PC brigade nothing I have said above condones drinking and flying ( or driving ) it is just an observation of the attitudes of some on this forum who for their own reasons get outraged by one problem and try to pretend another even more serious problem even exists.