here's another example BBC NEWS | England | West Midlands | Pilot banned for excess alcohol

What is it about pilots and drink that fires up the more rabid element of this place?

I'm not for one moment condoning any unsafe practice but there's certainly an air of the lynching mob whenever the subject comes up. I wonder, do the non-professionals here register on trucker sites and berate them whenever a lorry driver is convicted of drink driving, being under the influence of drugs or raping a prostitute*?



* Dr J Clarkson 2008

What the hell has "raping a prostitute" got to do with BREAKING THE LAW whilst allegedly doing your job.
Get real!

:rolleyes:

See that up there? That's the joke going over your head.

had there been a :rolleyes:in your original post I might just have seen it!

t'was a clue.

OK - OK - I blame the Merlot and rest my case :)

In years gone by in the Air force it was not unknown for a pilot to have a pint of beer as a "sharpener" before flight. So maybe if you have just above the legal min blood alcohol you may have reaction times that are better than if you were below the limit.;)

Anyway in what other walk of life do you get sent to prison and loose your right to work for 10+ years for one mister-meaner. Surely mandatory treatment and blood testing that the treatment has worked would be more humane.

But I guess reading some poster's comments they do not have any humanity. Just a hate for the profession for some reason.:(

Nice save..."ALPO"...

Irony
 

So, it's illegal for us pilots to fly with levels of alcohol in our system as low as .02% in the US. Most states, the drink driving limit is ......08%...

Now, I have no problems with that...As an airline pilot for 20 plus years and a professional, I will abide by those regulations.

Now, let's look at airline scheduling.Backside of the clock, disregard for WOCL cycles and fatigue induced scheduling that studies have shown, using scientifically developed data on sleep cycles, regualry produce levels of fatigue in pilots EQUAL to a blood alcohol level of .24%!

But, the regulators or SLF don't care bout that do they?

Well, maybe after all factors in the recent Fed Ex accident at RJAA are brought to the table, they might....

Regards,

Slats Extend..

IcePack, with all due respect, there is no hatred for the profession, I think some people are just a little frustrated and tired to see so-called professionals essentially defending their right to have a drink before flying a commercial jet. Of course treatment and rehabilitation have their place, but the law is the law and a responsible job brings a higher standard of care. Is that so difficult? It's "misdemeanour" by the way!

Too much is always too much
 

I am sure we all know that the aviation laws regarding alcohol were not just dreamed up on a rainy afternoon by some civil servant following a long liquid lunch. In fact extensive research with both students and real airline/military pilots acting as test subjects went into measuring what a safe limit should be. Every factor that could have a bearing on the subject including fatigue levels, stress as well as quantity, metabolic rates, etc were trialed and tested. Whilst most of the research work was done in simulators there were a number of test carried out in light aircraft as far back as the 1960's. So there is not much point in arguing about the quantities of alcohol consumed or the timing of the last drink taken.

I believe that part of todays problem of public perception with drinking and flying stems (in the UK atleast) from the more relaxed atmosphere prevailing in the military environment in years gone by. From my own experiences in the 1950/60's I can remember many occasions when putting the glass down to pushing the starter on jet fighters could be measured in minutes. It was seen as being as some sort of macho thing to fly with a skin full or atleast suffering an appalling hangover from the night before. These self same pilots of course a few years later were driving our civil aircraft. Did there views on alcohol change much? I don't think so although I am sure they modified their behaviour somewhat in order to stay employed.

Now most of these old farts have gone and hopefully younger a wiser men have taken their place. So if flying it simply is best to not drink.

Cheers!!

For those of you who fly to Australia the same rules and limit are going to be applied as of next month. Yep, in four days. Be careful when you have a beer or two or other party concoctions Down Under.


Read all about it here;

CASA A&OD Testing

Regards,
BH.

Are you sure you are not messing up with the measurement units?
In UK is 20 mg of alcohol for 100 ml of blood. Not 0.02%.

A blood level of 0.24% compares to 20 mg of alcohol for 100 ml of blood.

Try again, that is 20%

well in my day it was always no smoking within 12 hours and no drinking within 50 feet. Always stuck to that rule and not scratched an aircraft in 47 years:rolleyes:
As dodgyoldfart says, in the military of the 60s it was not uncommon for a pilot to have a little sharpener prior to a trip. As for a night deck landing, several swift ones post flight regardless of what time the morning push was scheduled was de rigueur! From HM's service to civvy street was a natural progression and does a leopard change it's spots? Hardly! So the nearest watering hole for a debrief post flight just comes naturally. There but for the grace...etc. Glass houses and stones comes to mind!

I think I have corrected it....you know my school days are long gone...but my point is that fatigue cannot be 10 times the max level of alcohol...just want to make sure that is that slats_extended meant.

I just spent 30 minutes researching gram vs litre. To save another US metric dummy like me, 1 gram = 1mm. 1,000 grams = 1 litre for water in standard conditions. So limit in US would be .02% ba.

Well... the former Air Force Major was deemed to be above the legal limit according the ME. Perhaps he quit the boozing at the time prescribed by the UAL FCOM/GOM/FOM. But was not legal flight due to the concentration of alcohol in his blood. Was this first time he rolled the dice?

Perhaps the Major will overcome his personal problems with the support of his family, and friends and sound therapy and rise to a better level.

I hope the lad has a job to come back to after all the dust settles.

Yup...I think we have the same figures.
Now how can you explain that fatigue can be comparable to 0.24%? (ten times more than the legal limit)...if so you could not even stand!
FSLF

Listen your a dippy bird arent you really Lizzy, you get a ticket in a car and jail for being over the limit on a plane, did it ever occur to you that you dont carry 400+ passengers at 37,000ft in a pressurised tin can when your in a car?, where lets face it if something goes wrong you chances of survival are slim, but should something go wrong I would want to make sure the pilot knew what he was doing and NOT over the limit, you should not drink and drive a car full stop and you should not drink and fly a plane end of! its dangerous and stupid, that pilot should have been sentenced to LIFE for en-dangering the lives of all those passengers and crew, were not talking a 4 seater family estate car are we! Think before you open your mouth.

As for get real england, lol well at least our nation is clever enough to realise drinking and flying is not a good mix!!! same with drinking and driving!

"Now, let's look at airline scheduling.Backside of the clock, disregard for WOCL cycles and fatigue induced scheduling that studies have shown, using scientifically developed data on sleep cycles, regualry produce levels of fatigue in pilots EQUAL to a blood alcohol level of .24%!"

SLF only commenting but fairly well-informed about the behavioural aspects of alcohol consumption.

Interesting post about the performance-depleting impact of some (legal) duty-cycles. If these have such a negative effect on performance, what happens when you add ANY alcohol to the bloodstream an individual thereby affected?

To me this is an observation that reinforces the need for aircrew to treat alcohol with even more caution than the legal minima.

BAC measurement units
 

Dear Frequent SLF.

I am not using the percentage wrong, I am using the units that are used in the US and am sorry I did not include those in my original post...
1 percent BAC by volume 1/100 (%) g/mL = 1 cg/mL 9.43 mg/g, 217.4 mmol/L United States

This differs from the limits that are used in the UK..
1 basis point BAC by volume 1/10,000 (‱) g/mL = 100 μg/mL 94.3 ppm, 2.17 mmol/L Britain

And yes, I have flown approaches in the past so fatigued that I when I got off the jet, I bet I couldn't walk a straight line...So, the study I cited in my original post were algorithms cited via a multi year US Air Force study that studied pilots under various levels of fatigue and colated those by testing their actions on a set of variables while simutaneosly testing individuals with various levels of alcoholic intoxication and codifying the data...That is my simple minds explanation of the study :) And yes, most can stand and walk in the US with a .24 BAC level...Folks have been drink driving at .38!

But, let's not take that high of a level. My point (obviously lost) is that we are prohibited from flying with a BAC of .02% here in the US. But, there are most certain accepted scheduling practices that routinely raise levels of fatigue in aircrew to an equivalency greater that .02BAC... Yet, no one cares about that, yet...


Regards,

Slats.

@Old Lizzy! - I'm sorry but he's very near the driving limit...so that would be to say he's probably just stopped drinking...Being on a UK stopover from the USA induces alot of Jet Lag...I would only just be able to fly back...let alone have a booze party...then fly a plane

Folks,
Take very great care if you are operating to and from or within Australia after April 1/09.

That's when the new Drug and Alcohol rules start, and the alcohol limit is 0.02 (compared to 0.05 for driving) and it applies to anyone airside or anyone with a "safety related" job landside.

The list of drugs tested for can be seen on the CASA web site, many cold medicines are going to be a problem, as will analgesics that contain any codein, which can linger for many days in the system, after the last dose.

There will be random breathalyser/drug teams around the country from now on, I would expect the major airports to be the first targeted.

See also the requirement for operators to have a company program, and the screening requirements.

Tootle pip!!

Old Lizzy, you started this debate.

Do you have any evidence to support your assertion of "idiotically low UK alcohol law"?

20mg in 100ml is the same as the .02% THE US has. In the US it means you can't complete your flight and have to deal with the company because FAA has a .04% limit which is their standard for alcohol abuse. .04% is the legal limit.
\
All pilots have to very careful in the following months because what was ok for the last decade or more isn't ok now. We all loved those hot tub parties with the FA's so hope this doesn't diminish this wonderful career one step lower.

I loved those parties. What is flying going to be without them. Borrrrring.

Unfortunately in the UK and Australia now at .02% you have violated the law and could go to jail. You could drink for another hour and still drive though. That will probably change soon too.

And the envelope please....
 

"Unfortunately in the UK and Australia now at .02% you have violated the law and could go to jail. You could drink for another hour and still drive though."

QED!! :D:D:D

Well, the mods removed my last post, so this one will probably have a small audience too.
At the end of the day, having lived through the "era" ( I digress, but show up for my DC9 course, meet TC in departures "you have bought your allowance haven't you ?" get on aircraft to fly to AMS - plastic bags stuffed full of booze. "OK Chaps, briefing in my room, bring your bags". Bags now less full. . . phew :zzz: "OK, see you in the lobby in 4hrs"
First Sim session a dream, how easy. . . next one. . . . jeez I am much too sober. ) I think that, and several hundred subsequent "night-stops" ,give me some qualification to speak.
First and foremost, one's judgement is undoubtedly impaired by alcohol.
However, and it is a BIG however, fatigue, being stupid, having an argument with your wife/girlfriend/boyfriend (or any number between 1 & 3 of the preceding) getting old, having a headcold & working for a company with a draconian attitude to "sick -days", working for a company that fails to respect the principle of /or just generally suffering from, industrial/disciplinary problems etc etc etc.
At the end of the day, there are a thousand reasons for exercising "less than optimum" judgement. . . . it's just that this one is easier than all the others for the jerks that regulate our lives to deal with. (or rather to deal with us because of :hmm: )

Strikes me that "idiotically low UK alcohol law" is now being adopted by other nations too; so it cannot be idiotically low!

It probably doesn't matter what level they use, .02, .04 or .08% because airline accidents almost never are affected by these B/A standards. It might look good in the newspaper that countries are improving air safety but statistics show that drugs and alcohol are not the problem. Elizabeth Dole started this whole thing when she was in charge but after millions of dollars worth of testing and some cancelled flights because nobody could find a medical facility open on a Sunday to do the random test, nothing was accomplished.

Of all the aircraft accidents, in all the world, can anyone tell me of an accident of a public transport aircraft which involved drunken pilots?

The most recent one was an Itek Air 737 which crashed on August 24, 2008.

It does happen.

I looked at the NTSB report on that crash along with 4 pages of discussion here and it just looks like CFIT. What makes you think it was alcohol related? They had a pressurization problem at 10,000 feet so returned, went around in VMC conditions then crashed on the second attempt at night 3 miles short.

I attended a lecture a couple of weeks ago by the man that actually did the work on the drink-fly limit (Professor Charles Billings). He said that at the limit for drink-driving in the UK, pilots flying real planes made mistakes that, unsupervised, would likely have led to catastrophic failures and probable crashes. That work was done in the 1960s, and the limits still stand today for very good reason.

For MagnusP - just for information, alcohol has no affinity for binding to haemoglobin, so isn't a competitor for oxygen even at altitude.

Sparelung: Odd that; it was in a study by a Dr Peter Foster of Liverpool university on Working at Altitude, commissioned when the UK was setting up the UK Infrared Telescope in Hawaii, and where I worked many times over my years with the research council.

Thanks for the correction; I must go do some reading. :ok:

Old Lizzy, who are you to spare Mr Jefferson Inman's blushes?

Oh dear, I blurted the name which is in every tabloid newspaper (with a fine close-up photograph in the Mail) and is clearly known to the police, the airline, BAA, his employer, and probably his wife.
Are you seeing no evil today?

Sorry, mixed up two crashes there...

It was an Aeroflot Nord 737 in September 2008. Captain was confirmed intoxicated.

On the other hand, is it really that much of a scarifice to avoid having any alcohol to drink 8 hours before a flight? 8 hours bottle to throttle is a fair rule of thumb, if your going to have anything more that a galss of wine or two then leave it longer.

Truthfully, if you can't have a night or two without needing a drink you probably have a problem that needs dealing with - I know this might sound extreme but, if your job depends on it why would you risk getting caught?

Poor guy, but you have to ask - was this a one off? If so, why did he chance it? And, if not then perhaps it was the right result.

I know this sounds pretty unsympathetic but the rules were brought in for a reason.

Absolutely right Munnyspinner!

This thread has built up momentum on the premise that the poor little UA pilot had made an unfortunate and unintended mistake. Really?

I doubt that, as anyone involved in aviation and the sporadic hours we work is very conscious (or should be) of when rest is vital for example and when alcohol must cease.

I admire the moves that UA management made to 'rescue' their pilot and hope they are successful in drying him out, but until that is confirmed I will always suspect that someone who plays with the regulations in this way is a liability to aviation.