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Airtran Pilot/FFDO Arrested: Blows .05 in MSP

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Sobriety is highly overrated . . . . . So is intoxication.

I prefer a state of light-to-moderate exuberance.
 
+1. Especially on overnights. Bagging a pilot over the legal limit is the equivalent of a wet dream for the TSA. Why give them a reason? And to think this was before he got the 1/2/3 SWA hotel booze bonus.....
 
jonjuan said:
But remember, "Alcohol has never been a factor in an airline accident. ". Quit demonizing alcohol and drugs.
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Speak on it brother- I responded to you, can you refute anything I said?

Start w/ the air France example. Then maybe TRY to explain why every driver can hop in a car after a few, be twice as drunk as an airline pilot, do something exponentially more dangerous w/ just a little and very dated training and zero vetting process. You guys act like planes were falling out of the sky bc of alcohol before they enacted these rules. it's just not true.
Sorry dude, but pilots are 99.9% incredibly responsible- Rest rules and crappy airport food (which is often more taxing on the liver than alcohol) are far more threatening to me than .05-

A question for those of you who are so dramatically up in arms over this...:
How many times in the last year have you flown on 5 hrs of sleep or less? And be honest. You were just as impaired and did as much damage to your body, if not more.
Alcohol has issues- big ones in large part due to the "demonization" of it- but current policy is irrational at best.
Says the pilot who is into fitness and can't remember the last time I had more than 2 in a night.

Deal with the actual REAL problem- not the made up crap
 
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Well, it was a wicked early show at the gate...0500 at the latest I suspect. So that means prly an 0400 wake-up if you're on your game. Just needed 90 more minutes in the sack to metabolize the rest. Uhhhg....just cut it too close! Bummer.
 
waveflyer said:
Deal with the actual REAL problem- not the made up crap
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How would you feel about your surgeon performing surgery on a family member after a night of "just a few drinks?" The data is there to show "a significant deterioration in their coordination and in the number of technical errors that they made."
http://open.salon.com/blog/doctorwa...n_performance_impaired_after_drinking_alcohol
SURGEON PERFORMANCE IMPAIRED AFTER DRINKING ALCOHOL THE DAY BEFORE SURGERY

Surgeons, like pilots, are held to a very high standard of conduct when it comes to alcohol and drug use. Unlike pilots, however, there are no rules barring surgeons from having a few beers, or other alcoholic drinks, on the day or evening before they enter the operating room to perform surgery.

While most surgeons drink alcohol responsibly, some surgeons (like people in any other profession) may occasionally have a few more drinks the day or evening before they report for duty than might be considered prudent. When a surgeon has a few more alcoholic drinks than they might have planned on the day before they are scheduled to perform surgery, most will undoubtedly assume that “sleeping it off” overnight will leave them fresh and in tip-top shape to wield the scalpel in the operating room on the next morning. However, a newly published clinical research study suggests otherwise….

A newly published prospective, randomized clinical study, which appears in the latest issue of the Archives of Surgery, included two groups of study volunteers. A total of 8 expert laparoscopic surgeons were included in one group, while the other group consisted of 16 university science students. All 24 participants were trained to use a computer-based laparoscopic surgery training device that is routinely utilized to train new surgeons in laparoscopic surgery skills. The science students were then divided into two groups. The “control” group abstained from alcohol for the 24-hour period prior to being tested on their laparoscopic skills, while the other half of the students (the “experimental group”) were allowed to drink alcohol freely until they felt themselves to be “intoxicated.” The 8 expert laparoscopic surgeons were all permitted to drink alcoholic beverages “until intoxicated.” The following day, all 24 study volunteers were tested on the laparoscopic training device at 9:00 AM, 1:00 PM, and 4:00 PM. All study participants also underwent breathalyzer testing to measure their blood alcohol level, and only one of the volunteers had a blood alcohol level above the legal limit (for driving) of 0.1 percent at 9:00 on the morning after their drinking binge.

Among the science students, performance deteriorated in all of the tested laparoscopic surgery skills among those who had consumed alcohol on the day prior to testing (when compared to the “control group” of students). The outcome was not any better for the expert laparoscopic surgeons, either. These experienced surgeons, all of whom consumed multiple alcoholic drinks on the day before testing, showed significant deterioration in the time that it took them to perform specific laparoscopic surgery skills, as well as a significant deterioration in their coordination and in the number of technical errors that they made. Moreover, this significant deterioration in surgical performance was still detectable at 4:00 PM on the day after these study volunteers had consumed multiple alcoholic beverages, and despite blood alcohol levels well below the legal limit for driving.

As previous research with airline pilots has shown, alcohol consumption within 24 hours of performing critical tasks can cause significant cognitive and physical impairment, even when blood alcohol levels are zero, or near zero. The findings of this clinical study of surgeons came to similar conclusions, and these findings suggest that surgeons should avoid the consumption of multiple alcoholic drinks within 24 hours of entering the operating room.
 
waveflyer said:
How many times in the last year have you flown on 5 hrs of sleep or less? And be honest. You were just as impaired and did as much damage to your body, if not more.
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The problem is that in most cases, the guys who show up blowing heat (America West), more than likely are also running on 4-5 hours of sleep. What if you saw these guys out the night prior and smelled the booze as you and your family walked on the plane? Would you think "Well, at least what they are about to do is safer than driving a car."??
 
Tweaker said:
Bring up teh bird, you have maintained a consistent trajectory of both useless and ignorant statements. Welcome to yet another ignore list.
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Who are you again? Keep drinkin', but please don't go on about how pilots deserve their wages because of the responsibility they have. Enjoy the highest wages you'll ever see and live within your ever-shrinking means (i.e drink the cheap stuff).

Just gel up the 'doo, put in the iPod and march your little backpack-totin butt on down to your RJ. If you're gonna drag yourself into a dead-end career by doing everything you can to undermine the professionalism of the job, you might as well do it with a buzz on!
 
Everyone is different I guess. But, I never drink on any over nights....ever. Be careful folks.
 
If the company is paying you a perdiem and paying for your room, drinking on an overnight isn't a great leap from drinking on company property.
 
Bringupthebird said:
If the company is paying you a perdiem and paying for your room, drinking on an overnight isn't a great leap from drinking on company property.
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Ummmm, except on company property I'm WORKING, and at the hotel I'm not?

Just a thought...

I did enjoy my 2 beers with sushi on Manhattan Beach the afternoon after we got in from flying to LAX last week. About 16 hours from bottle to throttle after 2 beers. I don't feel my professionalism was in jeopardy. YMMV. ;)
 
Bringupthebird said:
If the company is paying you a perdiem and paying for your room, drinking on an overnight isn't a great leap from drinking on company property.
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This makes no sense, it's like saying the company pays me money, I pay for my house, therefore when I'm in my house I'm on company property.

Oh, by the way, they serve alcohol on the jet which is "company property"...
 
Lear70 said:
Ummmm, except on company property I'm WORKING, and at the hotel I'm not?

Just a thought...

I did enjoy my 2 beers with sushi on Manhattan Beach the afternoon after we got in from flying to LAX last week. About 16 hours from bottle to throttle after 2 beers. I don't feel my professionalism was in jeopardy. YMMV. ;)
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Well you're in for a RUDE awakening! We've had pilot suspended for overnight activities.

Gup
 
I'd say it's time for the trannies to grow the h*** up if they want to finally fly in the majors.
 
GuppyWN said:
Well you're in for a RUDE awakening! We've had pilot suspended for overnight activities.

Gup
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So have we, that's not the point. Having a drink OUTSIDE of our 12 hour FOM requirement is not going to get anyone in any hot water whatsoever.

Now if you cause some other type of problem because you get trashed and do something stupid (or illegal), then that's another story entirely...

Not sure where you're going with your comment above with the statement I made...?
 
scoreboardII said:
This makes no sense, it's like saying the company pays me money, I pay for my house, therefore when I'm in my house I'm on company property.

Oh, by the way, they serve alcohol on the jet which is "company property"...
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How in the world did you stretch it to that? Absurd!

Overnights only remove you from the present responsibility for flight, otherwise you are still accruing time away from base and (aside from the FAR sense) you are "on-duty" to the extent that you are on an overnight for the sole and express purpose of continuing your trip the next day.

When you're home, who cares what you do. When you're on a trip for your employer and representing the company, I'll bet they do!
 
CorpCaptain said:
+1. Especially on overnights. Bagging a pilot over the legal limit is the equivalent of a wet dream for the TSA. Why give them a reason? And to think this was before he got the 1/2/3 SWA hotel booze bonus.....
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I suspect this is the reason why the 1/2/3 is history.
 
Bringupthebird said:
How in the world did you stretch it to that? Absurd!

Overnights only remove you from the present responsibility for flight, otherwise you are still accruing time away from base and (aside from the FAR sense) you are "on-duty" to the extent that you are on an overnight for the sole and express purpose of continuing your trip the next day.

When you're home, who cares what you do. When you're on a trip for your employer and representing the company, I'll bet they do!
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That's just crazy. How long have you been flying, BringUp?
http://cf.alpa.org/internet/projects/ftdt/faacorr/reserve_rest_qa.html
"3. How does the FAA define rest?

The FAA has consistently interpreted "rest" to mean a continuous period of time during which the flight crewmember is free from all restraint by a certificate holder. This includes freedom from work and freedom from responsibility for work should the occasion arise. Thus, a crewmember who was required to be near a phone, carry a beeper, or maintain contact by computer so that he would be available should the carrier need to notify him/her of a reassignment would not be on rest."

http://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/cabin_safety/regs/legal/media/onephcallFAfinal.DOC
"Rest must satisfy three conditions in order to qualify as a rest period: It must be 1) a continuous period of time, 2) determined prospectively, and 3) during which the crewmember is free from all restraint by the certificate holder,
including freedom from present responsibility from work should the occasion arise."
 
waveflyer said:
http://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/cabin_safety/regs/legal/media/onephcallFAfinal.DOC
"Rest must satisfy three conditions in order to qualify as a rest period: It must be 1) a continuous period of time, 2) determined prospectively, and 3) during which the crewmember is free from all restraint by the certificate holder,
including freedom from present responsibility from work should the occasion arise."
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I've worked with enough FAA CHDOs to tell you what that means.

It means that working in the office is not considered rest and that if the FAA were to come in and audit your Flight and Rest records and found someone (usually a management pilot) had been performing office duties and flying, they could end up with insufficient documented rest.

It does not greenlight Mardi Gras on an overnight, sorry. Try Again.

But I would be interested in being pursuaded how turning a 4-day trip into a jet-powered trans-continental pub crawl enhances the professionalism of pilots, and how that bad old TSA shouldn't harsh our mellow. And if you've got time, maybe go over how the behavior of Wall Street types has any bearing on how professional aviators should behave, because that one sounds kinda 3rd grade to my old ears.
 
Lear70 said:
So have we, that's not the point. Having a drink OUTSIDE of our 12 hour FOM requirement is not going to get anyone in any hot water whatsoever.
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What 12 hour requirement? Do you mean 8 hours, or was there a memo I missed? :eek:
 

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