BA F/O faces Jail for reporting to work drunk
He got 8 months...
BBC report
BBC report
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So the Pilot flew into LHR from Cape Town at 0630 (based on assumption the times have not changed to those today) and was due to depart from LGW at 2020 (assume 1 hour report 1920) so to be safe leave LHR at 1720?
If I was BA i'd be wondering should we allow this practice and be going through tickets and rosters for commuters.
#can of worms
If I was BA i'd be wondering should we allow this practice and be going through tickets and rosters for commuters.
#can of worms
So the Pilot flew into LHR from Cape Town at 0630 (based on assumption the times have not changed to those today) and was due to depart from LGW at 2020 (assume 1 hour report 1920) so to be safe leave LHR at 1720?
If I was BA i'd be wondering should we allow this practice and be going through tickets and rosters for commuters.
#can of worms
If I was BA i'd be wondering should we allow this practice and be going through tickets and rosters for commuters.
#can of worms
If you are genuinely concerned about the travelling, rest and fatigue culture at BA then I’ll point out that this summer BA are scheduling ( iaw the EASA rule set) a two pilot night flight out to the Gulf/16 hour daytime layover/two pilot night flight back to LHR. I’d suggest the fact BA are quite willing to produce rosters like that means they are perhaps not in a strong position to take the moral high ground about someone travelling to work as a passenger, sleeping quite possibly in a “comfy” seat, then having daytime rest in a hotel bed and then reporting for a duty as part of an augmented crew.
Last edited by wiggy; 12th Jun 2018 at 17:31.
Totally agree with you TowerDog.
I think there is a hugely greater percentage of pilots flying fatigued than flying under the influence of Alcohol.
Most Airlines now roster max FDP followed by Min Rest ad infinitum.
As far as comparisons with medicine go I suspect there are many Doctors and Nurses working when fatigued (I don't mean tired). Who knows what mistakes are made in these circumstances?
Don't forget there is a comparison chart of Hours Awake/ Alcohol Equivalent.
I think there is a hugely greater percentage of pilots flying fatigued than flying under the influence of Alcohol.
Most Airlines now roster max FDP followed by Min Rest ad infinitum.
As far as comparisons with medicine go I suspect there are many Doctors and Nurses working when fatigued (I don't mean tired). Who knows what mistakes are made in these circumstances?
Don't forget there is a comparison chart of Hours Awake/ Alcohol Equivalent.
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Personal tragedy for this man - the 8 month prison sentence feels to me like kicking a man when he is down. I'm not a pilot, but I am only a few years younger than this man. To lose not only my job now, but also the opportunity to work again in the only career I know would be devastating for both me and my family. There would be no need to add a prison sentence on top of that (or at least they could have suspended it if they wanted to send a 'message').
If I'm reading it correctly he was at the UK drink drive limit, and not due to actually fly the plane for another few hours (I get what people are saying about he might have had to fly if someone else took ill etc). I think the loss of his career and a suspended sentence would have been punishment enough. I don't see why he is in prison when people who set out to hurt people are free on suspended sentences?
If I'm reading it correctly he was at the UK drink drive limit, and not due to actually fly the plane for another few hours (I get what people are saying about he might have had to fly if someone else took ill etc). I think the loss of his career and a suspended sentence would have been punishment enough. I don't see why he is in prison when people who set out to hurt people are free on suspended sentences?
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I think there is a hugely greater percentage of pilots flying fatigued than flying under the influence of Alcohol.
Most Airlines now roster max FDP followed by Min Rest ad infinitum.
Don't forget there is a comparison chart of Hours Awake/ Alcohol Equivalent.
Filed under, as has been for years, 'an inconvenient truth.' As a result nothing will change. If there is not a solution acceptable to share holders then the problem will stay 'undiscovered'. This is not the only such issue in commercial aviation. Standards and quality are under threat the whole time and dribbling downwards. If they can get away with it, they will. Until there is a problem, there is no problem. Yet we are in an industry that supposedly prides itself on anticipation of problems and being proactive. IMHO that has disappeared long ago and we've been lucky so far; or perhaps not considering the number of serviceable a/c that have come to grief for bizarre human factor reasons.
Most Airlines now roster max FDP followed by Min Rest ad infinitum.
Don't forget there is a comparison chart of Hours Awake/ Alcohol Equivalent.
Filed under, as has been for years, 'an inconvenient truth.' As a result nothing will change. If there is not a solution acceptable to share holders then the problem will stay 'undiscovered'. This is not the only such issue in commercial aviation. Standards and quality are under threat the whole time and dribbling downwards. If they can get away with it, they will. Until there is a problem, there is no problem. Yet we are in an industry that supposedly prides itself on anticipation of problems and being proactive. IMHO that has disappeared long ago and we've been lucky so far; or perhaps not considering the number of serviceable a/c that have come to grief for bizarre human factor reasons.
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Mistrust in Management
As Patrick said
The punishment in this case does not seem to fit the crime, particularly when compared to other more serious crimes.
I think the loss of his career and a suspended sentence would have been punishment enough.
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Tired?? varies from one person to another, and even day to day...............
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Everything has been said but I just wanted to add that there is something seriously wrong with publishing his pictures in handcuffs. Public media lynching in its finest form. I wish the man and his family all the best.
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HH, fatigue may not have an easy blow-in-bag detector but the circumstances which produce it are entirely predictable and avoidable. If the travelling public are taking an interest in this case fatigue is a far wider and more dangerous issue
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Headline of the article in the online UK Daily Mail
Drunk BA pilot had empty litre bottles of vodka in his lodgings.
Colleagues covered up for pilot etc. etc.
Plus lots of photos.
Drunk BA pilot had empty litre bottles of vodka in his lodgings.
Colleagues covered up for pilot etc. etc.
Plus lots of photos.
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IMHO the DM as usual uses interesting/perjorative language. It is just possible this “dosshouse”, as the DM describes it, is a basic but clean B&B, one of several in the area that caters for the needs of crew who don’t live near the airport. There might just perhaps be several rooms, and just one occupant to a room..so perhaps it’s not a “dosshouse” in the sense of a dormitory set up with several people sleeping in bunks in a room and being in each other’s pockets socially.
I guess it is also just possible that this individual kept himself to himself and chose to drink alone in his room. In that case it is perhaps a bit unfair to speculate that his colleagues were going to know what he was up to and just perhaps a bit unfair to assume that they were knowingly engaging in a cover up.........
I guess it is also just possible that this individual kept himself to himself and chose to drink alone in his room. In that case it is perhaps a bit unfair to speculate that his colleagues were going to know what he was up to and just perhaps a bit unfair to assume that they were knowingly engaging in a cover up.........
However, colleagues claimed he had a longstanding drinking problem that saw him down one-litre entire bottles of vodka a night.
This behaviour is completely unacceptable and not what we expect from our highly professional fleet of pilots.
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It is beyond me personally how some people just cannot stay away from booze for a limited time like if they were addicts, especially in the face of risking the career or worse. He made it into BA, into a 777 flight deck, and then this.
However, media treatment of the case with picturing the poor chap in handcuffs is just appalling.
However, media treatment of the case with picturing the poor chap in handcuffs is just appalling.
The big problem with all of these cases is where do you draw the line-not in terms of alcohol units or hours of rest but as regards the job itself
In my business career I often spent months and even years trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube where lawyers had 'worked all night' to finalise an agreement which turned out to be materially different from the technical and commercial aspects it was intended for. Should corporate lawyers be drug and alcohol tested. How about criminal lawyers are they tested before going to court to radically impact an individuals life-how about judges
The story was covered in the Daily Mail, not a paper lauded for accuracy and objectivity and an industry where drinking is not an unknown past time. Should journos and editors be tested.
Politicians, isn't drinking actually subsidised for MPs ?
City traders, well how many times have city bankers f--ked up the world for the rest of us, does no one threre drink or use recreational drugs before signing up to sub prime mortgage hedges and the like..
To me it seems huge degree of hypocrisy over the likes of say pilots and train drivers being prosecuted or fired . Admittedly none of the people i listed can kill a couple of hundred people in a burning wreck but we have all read about over tired doctors making catastrophic mistakes, peoples lives wrecked by incorrect media reports, Who is to say someone hadn't had a few too many when signing of the spec on W London Tower block a few years ago. for example. Its hard to draw a line but I have felt that as a start any industry where some staff members are tested then everyone else has to be upto and including the CEO and in an era where people work very long hours more thought needs to be given to academic studies that show that most if not all human judgement and mental capacity is drastically reduced after 9-10 hours.
So while clearly it is wrong to fly airliners and drive trains after excessive drink or drug use there are usually personal reasons behind these cases where the person concerned is demonised and criminalised in the name of sensationalism but people who have far from clean hands themselves.
In my business career I often spent months and even years trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube where lawyers had 'worked all night' to finalise an agreement which turned out to be materially different from the technical and commercial aspects it was intended for. Should corporate lawyers be drug and alcohol tested. How about criminal lawyers are they tested before going to court to radically impact an individuals life-how about judges
The story was covered in the Daily Mail, not a paper lauded for accuracy and objectivity and an industry where drinking is not an unknown past time. Should journos and editors be tested.
Politicians, isn't drinking actually subsidised for MPs ?
City traders, well how many times have city bankers f--ked up the world for the rest of us, does no one threre drink or use recreational drugs before signing up to sub prime mortgage hedges and the like..
To me it seems huge degree of hypocrisy over the likes of say pilots and train drivers being prosecuted or fired . Admittedly none of the people i listed can kill a couple of hundred people in a burning wreck but we have all read about over tired doctors making catastrophic mistakes, peoples lives wrecked by incorrect media reports, Who is to say someone hadn't had a few too many when signing of the spec on W London Tower block a few years ago. for example. Its hard to draw a line but I have felt that as a start any industry where some staff members are tested then everyone else has to be upto and including the CEO and in an era where people work very long hours more thought needs to be given to academic studies that show that most if not all human judgement and mental capacity is drastically reduced after 9-10 hours.
So while clearly it is wrong to fly airliners and drive trains after excessive drink or drug use there are usually personal reasons behind these cases where the person concerned is demonised and criminalised in the name of sensationalism but people who have far from clean hands themselves.
Radgirl....
As you have detected BA’s disciplinary code with regard to alcohol doesn’t leave much of any wriggle room (rightly or wrongly)....yet funnily enough just a month ago BA were running an internal campaign labelled as a “Mental Awareness Week” to (rightly) encourage us all to be more understanding of certain health issues that can impact on any of us at anytime...yet even so it looks like some mental health problems are more acceptable than others.
As you have detected BA’s disciplinary code with regard to alcohol doesn’t leave much of any wriggle room (rightly or wrongly)....yet funnily enough just a month ago BA were running an internal campaign labelled as a “Mental Awareness Week” to (rightly) encourage us all to be more understanding of certain health issues that can impact on any of us at anytime...yet even so it looks like some mental health problems are more acceptable than others.
Last edited by wiggy; 13th Jun 2018 at 10:33.