VS A340 pilot breathalysed at LHR: WRONGLY ACCUSED

[moosp]

We may be veering off topic here but I would like to make an observation on the ketones part of this saga.

QDM makes a valid point as to whether a person in a ketonic state should be flying an aeroplane. I don't know, and I have not read literature that defines that it presents a cognitive problem. My local AME whilst seeing the advantages and possible health risks of a low carb diet for weight loss has not proscribed flying on such a diet.

I have flown with several pilots who were, by there own admission in the first few days of an Atkins type diet. Yes, they smelled ketonic.

What I cannot understand is how anyone who has drunk alcohol or who has smelled it in decay on anothers breath can say that they cannot tell the difference between ketone breath and alcohol breath. They are very, very different to my nose, and to the noses of a quick straw poll in the crew room. The fact that they are difficult to distinguish electronically is interesting but irrelevant to this point.

(And I might add, the post in which arcniz described his expertise in this field is yet another example of the massive skill resource that pprune has collated.)

I believe that it was nothing short of malice that drove this report. I see that we are divided as to whether a "security" agent (or pond dweller, depending on your point of view, and you can see where mine lies...) has a right or a duty to report on aspects of aviation outside his expertise.

FL makes the point that it would be very difficult to prosecute this member of the security staff. Would it be illegal to publish his name, so that we might be able to identify him? Then we might be forwarned of his bias and arrange our own strategies to either confront him or avoid him.

[flapassym]

Isn't the claim of drinking/drunk on duty alone within the industry (substantiated or not) enough to cause loss of employment.

Yes, It would appear so, a colleague of mine was recently accused by his first officer an entire week after the supposed event, of drinking a glass of champagne on a split duty.

The result, with no corroborating evidence, no breathaliser, no police, only the say so of this one F/O, I kid ye not, was instant dismissal.

The (very junior-not signed to line) F/O was so concerned about the degradation of the captains performance, that he willingly flew more sectors with the supposedly inebriated captain later that day!

[J.O.]

I will preface my comments by saying that as flight crew, I am frequently furstrated by the security process and how it affects us. I do try my hardest to play along to minimize the pain.

I feel badly for this pilot having been taken off the aircraft in the manner that apparently was used. It would have been better if a little more discretion would have been applied. But, to suggest that security personnel have no business coming forward when they perceive a threat to the public safety, such as a flight crew member who may be under the influence of alcohol or drugs, is bordering on the absurd. It is the duty of all citizens to come forward when we see something which could put our fellow citizens in jeopardy. The appropriate authorities must then act in a responsible manner to deal with the threat effectively.

JMHO.

Jeff

[Queenslander]

What about Passengers......

How many times have you seen a passenger stagger onto an aircraft........

If the rent an idiot aka wannabe police man, is doing his/her job correctly, then why do we have passengers sitting down the back of the aircraft in a very drunken state, how did they get through security?

I was in the UK about 2 years ago and caught a flight from Birmingham to Dublin and was shocked to find the bars open early in the morning with a lot of drunken people staggering all over the place, opened my eyes.

But here we have a security guard that was very quick to report one of us for being drunk, how many passengers did they let through that day……………, I think some, not all, have a problem with pilots.

As for journalists....................................

[Final 3 Greens]

If the rent an idiot aka wannabe police man, is doing his/her job correctly, then why do we have passengers sitting down the back of the aircraft in a very drunken state, how did they get through security?


Because the airport bars are airside, after central security control.

[SOPS]

Just a question. Has any newspaper yet published a "we a very sorry story". Has the security "person" or his/her managers offered any apology???

I am betting the answer from my fellow ppruners is no.

Everyone is quick to hang, draw and quarter the poor person invoved in this, and print headlines that read "PILOT DRUNK COULD HAVE CAUSED INVERTED SPIRAL SPIN CRASH BLOODBATH" but nodody seems to balls to print in the same bold type "WE ARE REALLY REALLY SORRY>>WE ARE FOOLS"

Just my ten cents worth

[d71146]

I am sure that their must be a legal remedy to require the perpetrators of this quite shamefull episode to at least be required to apologise for this matter and the way it was handled.

[MaximumPete]

flapassym,

How did the F/O know it was champagne?
It could have been a well known apple juice of very similar appearance.

Why did the Company take the word of a brand-new unknown against the word of a Training Captain?

You say he hadn't completed his final line check.

Why wait a week before reporting the "occurence"?

Something must have happened. Perhaps our aspiring aviator didn't like the comments made in his training file?

Been there , had that happen, not much fun!!

Will the Training Captain sue the a***e off his late employers?

I HOPE SO

MP

[QDMQDMQDM]

We aren't discussing some anonymous pilot. There is a risk the serious discussion you invite would lead to ill-informed speculation about his fitness to fly. It would be kinder IMHO if it took place after the dust has settled, and preferably as an academic discussion in the Medical forum rather than in a thread about a specific person who has already suffered a great deal.

FL, I take your point, but there is always the risk that one person's good taste and propriety is another person's censorship. I would always err on the side of offensiveness, myself. It's less risky.

QDM

[mustafagander]

Just a little diversion of this thread. About ketosis - my daughter (age 7) is type 1 (insulin dependant) diabetic. She is fitted with an insulin pump, the failure mode of which is to cease supplying insulin - normal delivery is every 6 minutes. We check her Blood Glucose Level every 4 to 6 hours because, should insulin stop being delivered she will, so the endocrine team assure us, be into ketosis within a few hours. A major symptom of ketosis in diabetics is "ketone breath". Our advice is that it takes a "little longer" for a non diabetic on a very low carb diet or suffering from some illnesses to exhibit ketosis. I take this to mean less than a day and, after living with a lady who plunged deeply into the Atkins diet when it was new 25 or so years ago, ketone breath arrives quickly.

Returning to the thread, I am extremely glad that the pilot in question has been exonerated and I, too, am more than a little disturbed by the way a completely unqualified person can cause so much stress and anxiety to a law abiding pilot by making false accusations with, it would seem, little or no accountability.

[VR-HFX]

I was recently through Heathrow and made the point of expressing my disgust at the process that led to this horrific case.

My conclusion is sadly that we are dealing with muppets at that end of the business.

For my younger colleagues who have decades rather than months ahead of them, I profer one piece of advice. If you choose to nurture your young rather than eat them, you will eventually win this dumbing down process that is overtaking our profession.

Failing that...take up yoga and learn to hold your breath from sign in to boarding.

[CR-ASC]

Once again we have somebody else, who is not a pilot not even a flight crew member, taking stupid actions against a flight crew.
This is a theme of RESPECT , nowadays everybody has the chance to stop a pilot to do is duties properly with every excuse, security (he/she might be a terrorist ) safety( he/she is drunk, under drugs etc).
I do not know where in the world would a pilot be flying under the influence,
first: because is a pro, and specially because with him/her is a complete flight crew that would not let this happen.
Now it should be payback time and go to court and sue the delators to the maximum limit, of course sue as well the state, thas allows these situation to develop. Where security personnel is more responsable than a pilot.
By the way there is an Japanese ointment for muscle pain that smells like alcholl and does not have a single drop of it, I use it after playing squash.
Dear fellows once again or we start to have same respect regarding our jobs and responsabilities or one day we will be flying with a security guy on our back with 4 strippes and we with 2 or less asking permission to do the cheklist or start engines, they will be the captainīs of the future and we will be drivers the new category of pilots .

[Dave's brother]

Once again we have somebody else, who is not a pilot not even a flight crew member, taking stupid actions against a flight crew.
This is a theme of RESPECT , nowadays everybody has the chance to stop a pilot to do is duties properly with every excuse, security (he/she might be a terrorist ) safety( he/she is drunk, under drugs etc).
I do not know where in the world would a pilot be flying under the influence,
first: because is a pro, and specially because with him/her is a complete flight crew that would not let this happen.
Now it should be payback time and go to court and sue the delators to the maximum limit, of course sue as well the state, thas allows these situation to develop. Where security personnel is more responsable than a pilot.
By the way there is an Japanese ointment for muscle pain that smells like alcholl and does not have a single drop of it, I use it after playing squash.
Dear fellows once again or we start to have same respect regarding our jobs and responsabilities or one day we will be flying with a security guy on our back with 4 strippes and we with 2 or less asking permission to do the cheklist or start engines, they will be the captainīs of the future and we will be drivers the new category of pilots

Amazing. You might be 35,000 feet above the ground, CR-ASC but you're not above the law. The "Pilots are professionals" line doesn't work. Sorry. Coach drivers sometimes - SOMETIMES - drive drunk, or over-tired. Factory workers sometimes do the same. Policemen sometimes take bribes. Doctors sometimes cut the wrong kidney out. Journalists sometimes get their facts wrong - and some of them stoop so low as to, er, "embellish" their articles. School dinner ladies sometimes burn the soup and hospital workers sometimes don't clean the floors as thorughly as perhaps they know they should. People screw up and so if someone - anyone - has a valid reason to SUSPECT - not know, but suspect - that a pilot or coach driver or brain surgeon or traffic cop is for any reason not fit to fly, drive, or cut, then I can't think of a single good reason why they should not take appropriate action.

There are all sorts of other arguments to be had - eg, shouldn't the whole thing have been cleared up a lot sooner, especially if (if!) the pilot knew his diet gave him a breath problem?

There was also an interesting argument earlier on about whether the pilot should have had his licence taken away forever - ok, not this pilot,but any other pilot who might actually be found guilty of being over the limit.

Then there's the stuff about overwork and tiredness. Fascinating. Hard to test for, though, isn't it? Back on the ground, the Highway Code imposes a simple duty: "Make sure that you are fit to drive." There then follows a list of advice on what to do if you are too tired. And I think there have been plenty of cases of drivers being prosecuted because they caused accidents while suffering from lack of sleep. Problem is, it's a bit tricky to spot "too tired" drivers until they do something regretable as a result. Same for pilots I should imagine.

As for the journalist and The Sun, I refuse to waste any words other than to say that, yes, in response to one forum member, you can potentially sue for libel (slander applies to the spoken word, libel the written word). It isn't even necessary for the pilot (or any other victim) to be actually named - merely identifiable (eg, "a tall, bald, moustachioed Asian, 55-ish Virgin Atlantic captain with an earring"). Moreover, if the hack had written something like "Virgin Atlantic captains are always p***ed" then there is case law to say that all Virgin Atlantic captains could sue!

The suggestion, however, that no one ought ever to question the 100.0% integrity of an airline pilot would be laughable if it weren't so tediously arrogant.

Rant over.

[DingerX]

Aye Dave's bro, but consider this, purely hypothetical scenario, thrown out merely to provoke comment on why it is wrong:

Airport security screeners have for years been performing a useful service: making sure nutjobs don't blow up or hijack airplanes. All of a sudden, thanks to a series of geopolitical events brought about by what has unfairly been construed as a failure on the part of airport security (blades that length were allowable on board), security finds its mandate, and its ranks, expanded. So, in one blow, you increase the security responsibilities and you decrease the entry requirements. Worse, a previously "neutral" civil-service-style job, has become a politically "charged" one, where the employees are rewarded for their achievements. Ideally, it's someone with plastique in a toothpaste tube, but since that hasn't happened, the next best thing will work. For the paid informants, that's a matter of trapping someone into saying something that might be compromising (but inevitably gets thrown out of court); for the security screeners, it's grandmas with knitting needles and pilots who might smell of aldehydes. Oh yeah, I'm sure a case in the US with genuine hero security screeners spotting a couple of pickled pilots didn't help.

There's the problem: security screeners who are told that "since 9/11, everything depends on you", and encouraged to do things beyond their training. So we get the UK, which now has two highly-publicized incidents of "Pilot Intoxication", one of which results in a not guilty verdict; the other doesn't even make charges. Sorry guys, it's clear: Either the security examiners are explicitly trained to judge pilot fitness, and this job is publicly made known, or they're made known that, if they are going to accuse, they're doing so in the capacity of any other private individual at the airport, only they're putting their job at risk.

Hey, choices of conscience are hard, in part because the penalties are severe. But -- and this is where I bring my hypothetical BS in -- if the system gives individuals benefit from detecting the immeasurably rare, then the system will artificially generate what it claims to measure. And that increases misery and decreases judicial efficiency.

[waveydavey]

DingerX - I cannot see how the security staff can be remotely criticised for reporting their concerns re the pilot being intoxicated.

The Pilot was well over the limit - and almost four times over the drink drive limit! Yes, he was found not guilty due to the fact he was not going to perform his duties but instead to report himself unfit, however the security staff could not have been aware of that fact and took reasonable action when faced with the situation. They reported their suspicions and police acted on their suspicions. It could not and should not have been done any other way.

I certainly hope the staff don't feel they made a mistake, if any of my family are flying and a similar situation occurs I hope the security would do exactly the same.

[Heliport]

There was also an interesting argument earlier on about whether the pilot should have had his licence taken away forever - ok, not this pilot, but any other pilot who might actually be found guilty of being over the limit.

"ok, not this pilot"
That's very generous of Dave's brother.

"Rant over."
When people rant, it's often interesting to look at their previous posts to see where the rant is coming from.

[Beausoleil]

Suppose a security screener was staggering around reeking of alcohol. Should a pilot report him/her if he/she notices?

Much though I respect pilots, some of you come across as slightly precious sometimes. I voted that pilots should not be automatically breath tested - that would be overkill. But as an ordinary member of the public, if I had a reasonable suspicion that someone planned to fly an aeroplane while drunk I would tell the police. Why should a security screener be different? It's just one link in the chain that keeps us safe.

Do I think a pilot would decide to fly a plane while drunk, or that his/her colleagues would allow it to happen? Of course not. But I'm not going to rule it out at the 10 million to 1 level, which is the level current passenger flight safety is maintained at by constant attention to detail, multiple checks and redundancy in systems.

[flapassym]

Maximum Pete wrote-

Something must have happened. Perhaps our aspiring aviator didn't like the comments made in his training file?

I think there's more truth in that than he'd care to admit to!

Will the Training Captain sue the a***e off his late employers?

I HOPE SO

Yes I think he will!

[yamaha]

I will repeat an earlier statement:

Isn't the claim of drinking/drunk on duty alone within the industry (substantiated or not) enough to cause loss of employment.

One of the reasons why I believe that this current situation is potentially very dangerous is due to the above quote. Therefore even when 100% innocent, unless you can prove that the accuser/employer was not acting in the best interest of safety, you have no case.

Just pause for a moment and think about that quote.

Now this is a situation that in my opinion needs addressing before we have incidents such as that at LHR on a daily basis. There have unfortunately already been a few unjustified cases, they just didn't make the press.

[RogerIrrelevant69]

Well look on the bright side. This industry is not in any way run or regulated by the sad little f**k wits who called for this unfortunates head on a plate. It just exposes a sad truth about the internet that a perfectly good and valuable site can be regularly polluted by any school boy/idiot/reactionary/no aviation knowledge whatsoever numpty who wants to.

There was a debate recently about restricting the access of contributors to those with at least some involvement in the industry. This does back up that argument.