"The captain had a blood alcohol of 0.54 and Monday afternoon fell verdict against him in Upper Romerike District Court."
"Other pilot, who had 1.35 parts per thousand, was sentenced to six months in prison."

There appears to be a little confusion within this thread about blood alcohol concentration figures. In Scandinavia it is normal to quote figures "per mille", not "per cent", eg: in parts per thousand rather than parts per hundred.

There is also a small difference because in most places that use %, such as Australia, we measure blood alcohol by mass of alcohol per volume blood, while in Scandinavia they measure blood alcohol by mass of alcohol per mass of blood.

Since blood has a relative density of about 1.06 (slightly denser than water), this makes an Australian 0.05% m/v driving limit equal to a Swedish 0.47 0/00 m/m.


0.54% blood alcohol is likely though not certain to be fatal.
0.54 per mille is almost 0.06%, and is just sufficienty over the legal limit to drive a car in my part of the world to thoroughly spoil your day, and well under the 0.08% limit to drive a car still in force in many places.

1.35 per mille, 1.35 parts per thousand or about 0.014% is well and truly sozzled, whereas 1.35% would be well and truly dead.

Hahaha Vietnam Airlines? I've heard lots of stories from the local FOs we borrow, and the expat Captains I imbibe with.

I was drinking a few beers with a guy a bar in an SE Asian country, when he left he told me he'd be flying to Oz in a few hours. I did my best to convince him to call in sick. I didn't call the police. Still wondering - maybe naively - what else I could have done, calling the chief pilot, crew scheduling, or dispatch? I don't want to be perceived as a troublemaker, this was a senior, well connected local captain, and I was the junior, contract foreigner. A similar situation in (insert another SE asian country here): Senior, local captain snorting cocaine a few hours before duty. The guy who gets to fly all the VIP's. How do you deal with those?

Thanks for pointing this out. I'd been looking at some numbers much higher than expected, wondering whether typing mistakes were creeping in.

Agree with what you say, except shouldn't that last 0.014% be 0.14%? Just trying to avoid further confusion...

airBaltic have done everything they can to prevent this ever being an issue going forward.

Every crew reporting for every duty at home base, or nightstopping, must now blow before signing on, 100% testing.


Rather sadly,the Capt concerned was not only an excellent and respected trainer in the top few of company seniority, but was widely known to be effectively teetotal.

Colleagues are flabbergasted that someone so diligent, who was always the first to leave the party whilst on wet leases abroad, has ended up in this situation.

I would be interested to join that airline.
 

Yes, as a moderate drinker . I reckon I could do good in there. Please pm me applicatiion procedure.

Accurate ?
 

These tests are not always accurate and may be influenced by jealousy. Watch out!

In Norway these tests are influenced by blood alcohol, and very accurate.

During my last few years in the business, I found that the only way to play safe was to only drink on the first evening of days off, and the subsequent day. Nothing on the day before flying, which meant a good 30 hours bottle-to-throttle, and nothing during the working week. A pain in the a*se, but the alternative was the chance of losing my job. A long way from when I started in the military many years ago, when it was prop up the bar till closing time, breakfast at 7, brief at 8, airborne by 9. Things have changed.

Herod, those days are long since gone! There is no such thing as "subsequent day off" as every trip now is minimum rest. No more 5 days here, then there, then somewhere else as in days that you and I probably recall (me from BCAL). Things have changed a lot. So too has the quality in every respect. Sad but true.

True, but sometimes on Long Haul we get 3-4 days off.

I was talking more about short-haul. Surely there is still a requirement for a two-day break every 14, which must include 2 "local nights". If that's gone as well, I'm even more happy to be retired.