What a waste of a young life
 

And not a good advertisement for PPLs.

Pilot took ecstasy before flight that killed him and teenager | Mail Online

Great shame that this ecstasy taking meathead killed the young lad.
Trust can often be misplaced.
RIP

SB

Is this the muppet who amongst other transgressions, was found to be diluting his fuel with paint stripper. I seem to remember reading about this bloke here quite some time ago.

Yes, he is, although, apparently, the DIY fuel was not a factor in the accident. The AAIB even managed to run a test engine on neat thinner, achieving virtually full power.

Deeday

Hmmm ... there's an idea....

Surely....
 

...he was spiked ? Nobody would knowingly take ecstacy and then go flying. It's pretty obvious that that would be certain death ?

Paint thinner is typically a toluene/xylene mix Toluene is used in both Avgas and regular gasoline as an octane booster so it will certainly combust well enough.

However, adding too much to fuel would seriously reduce lubricity and will **** up many engine parts including valves and fuel pumps pretty quickly. Also, the solvent effects of the xylene may cause problems with the fuel piping.

Finally, only approved additives are allowed to be added to the fuel, and paint thinner is not approved (though toluene and xylene are present in many additives that are approved, albeit in fairly low proportions)

So, if illegal fuel, fecked up engines and fuel systems are not a problem to you, feel free to use it ;)

Wasn't this case already discussed in detail last year?

Morning all,

Here is the AAIB Report from the July 08 Bulletin.

Interesting point about being spiked but for a number of reasons, not least the amount of time it takes to prepare for even a local flight, I believe this is highly unlikely to be the case.

Terrible event - I'd always assumed that in this sort of accident the "pilot" was likely to have "trained" by Twocking Ford Escorts & using MS Flight Sim, not having undertaken all the training, expense & discipline necessary to earn a full PPL.

It certainly brings recreational flying into disrepute and is a reminder of how flying under the influence of drink or drugs can ruin lives.

Regards, enq.

Seen before
 

Sure was...........

Was he "under the influence" or was there just residual traces? Example being if you smoked dope on a weekend in Amsterdam, two weeks later you could still fail a drugs test but not be "under the influence" of it? Just curious.

Interesting thing in New Scientist recently:

If you had a guest come to your house, and you had two bowls, one full of peanuts and one full of E tablets. Which would be the most dangerous to offer your guest........(assuming not operating machinery of course)...

Depends
 

Is there a half tonne gorilla in the room that REALLY doesn't like people eating his food ?

Interesting discussion. I know one or two people who have taken E tablets and have asked them about this situation. They say the effect of the E lasts about an hour bring a great feeling of happiness and well being to the user. Afterwards though, there is no 'hangover' or anything like that, just tiredness because of all the energy used up whilst under the influence.

A few hours later and he would have felt normal enough to drive a car or ride a motor bike, they couldn't comment about flying a plane as they are not pilots so do not know what is involved.

My problem with discussing drugs is that people get so worked up with the word "drug". To answer the peanut question - your chance of killing your guest are far higher if you offered them a peanut that an E tablet, yet the papers focus on the "drugs".

So my question is whether this lad really was "under the influence" of drugs - which is inexcusable when flying, or he had traces in his system - as these are two very different things as BRL points out....

The actual report suggests from blood levels that he might well have been under the influence............

Cusco.

Missed this the first time round.

What a shame: I spent the most of my time learning to fly in GHFCI when it was based at Ipswich (another airfield to succumb to the curse of expanding housing estates) with Horizon Flying Club. Many happy memories.

What an eejit!

The problem with such incidents is that they're investigated by, reported on and subsequently ingested by people who have never experienced any type of "drug" and have no idea as to their effects except for the propoganda they read in filth like the Daily Wail.

Maybe the pill had something to do with it, maybe it didn't. The evidence tends to allude to good old fashioned incompetence. Just a shame he had to take an innocent party with him.

My point being is that the report says it was taken a few hours before the flight. People I have spoken to say the effect lasts no more than an hour so I don't think he was directly under the influence.

More like just a thoroughly irresponsible attitude.

It all seems to be a great report for middle aged 'ol gits' to tut tut over. And before you all get uppity - I'm one!

The thinners - largely irrelevant. The drugs ditto. The erratic performance - well actually that is classic 'ol git' behaviour.

Do we really want pilots grounded because someone in ATC thinks they are 'not up to it'? Do you want to be able to ground someone on the basis of little more than 'hearsay'?

Given the circumstances the AAIB are not going to get much adverse comment from us 'ol gits' - but what would stop all these comments applying to you or me - or Maurice Kirk?

At the end of the day this chap probably made a poor decision during the climbout - he may or may not have tried to recover and failed. Most of the rest off the commentry is pretty much irrelevant. Sad event and maybe he was a marginal pilot - are we all so much better?

I know a variety of pilots - whom I will not fly with. Generally they get by, I just don't want to be involved. This guy was probably not much different to them.

And as for comments like taking Ecstasy and flying is equivalent to 'certain death' look out of the car window - if Plod is to be believed someting like 5% of drivers at critical times are doing the same...........