Maybe there is a reason for not flying if you're taking some meds

Yes there are reasons but some people think they are above the rules or that they are tougher than the average man and the drugs.
 
Meh. I expect more out of you Clark.

It'd take a few minutes to find a giant pile of other NTSB reports with similar or worse loss of control events without any drugs discovered.

Sorry - but whether or not that contributed is just a total wild ass guess with no solid foundation. Just because they determined two things (he lost control, he was on a few pills) doesn't mean those events are related.

I've flown with plenty of pilots that would have balled up their airplane in the same scenario with or without that list of meds.

I know I've prevented such accidents with students, private pilots, and above. Sea-level and high elevation. I doubt they were all on that same med list.

Reality is that few private pilots are a tenth as good at stick and rudder as the day they were when their instructor solo'd them.
 
jesse said:
Meh. I expect more out of you Clark.

It'd take a few minutes to find a giant pile of other NTSB reports with similar or worse loss of control events without any drugs discovered.

Sorry - but whether or not that contributed is just a total wild ass guess with no solid foundation. Just because they determined two things (he lost control, he was on a few pills) doesn't mean those events are related.

I've flown with plenty of pilots that would have balled up their airplane in the same scenario with or without that list of meds.
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Okay it was a puff piece. I sorta get concerned once the anti-depressives are on the table. The reaction to the drugs can go so many directions.

And yeah, hell, I can ball up an airplane at any time. So far so good...
 
Because of some of the drugs I am taking right now, I am not supposed to drive. When I think I will be alright, I walk to the garage, about 70 feet away. By the time I get there I can feel why I should not be driving.
 
Zeldman said:
Because of some of the drugs I am taking right now, I am not supposed to drive. When I think I will be alright, I walk to the garage, about 70 feet away. By the time I get there I can feel why I should not be driving.
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Maybe you can move the garage closer?
 
Zeldman said:
Because of some of the drugs I am taking right now, I am not supposed to drive. When I think I will be alright, I walk to the garage, about 70 feet away. By the time I get there I can feel why I should not be driving.
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I remember when I had surgery years ago. I asked the surgeon when I could drive. He replied "when you feel like it. And you're not going to feel like it for at least 8 weeks."

And that was with only ITC ibuprofen as my drug of choice.
 
jesse said:
Sorry - but whether or not that contributed is just a total wild ass guess with no solid foundation. Just because they determined two things (he lost control, he was on a few pills) doesn't mean those events are related.
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Being on antihistamines and antidepressants at the same time likely did contribute to a loss of control accident. I agree with the NTSB. A pilot with 2300+ hours stall/spins a plane on takeoff because of a perceived engine problem that does not really exist... and is recently diagnosed and on meds.

I have a cold, I took benadryl and sudafed last night around 10pm and this morning the drive to work in rush hour was a real *****, I felt like I was in a fog. I can't imagine adding antidepressants to that mix would help.
 
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We all know the FAA is on a warpath with meds use and flying.
I cannot say it is wrong, but I do have questions about what we see in these reports.

A report will say, '2 nanograms of acetominophen was found in eye fluids' but they do not include a pharmacokinetics chart so we can see if that means he took one in the last hour, last week, sometime as a child?
Some of these drug assays are getting very sensitive.

Also, I'd like to see a chart showing how much impairment, even subjectively, that the 2 ng of each drug equates to - some of the reported drugs don't have any impairment effects.

I fear we (and friends/family of the pilot) will read about an irrelevant scintilla in a pilot's test, and come away thinking he crashed on a dope-fueled high.
 
Zeldman said:
Not to worry, the new house has an attached garage....and if I park in the barn, it is down hill so I can roll there if I have to....
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Shortsighted thinking....how are you going to get back....dare I mention a conveyor belt....
 
I've lost friends to the same situation who weren't on a damn thing. Yeah, perhaps the meds contributed. But a flatlander trying to make the impossible turn in high density altitude is a recipe for disaster no matter how you cut it. If our authorities sniff even a hint of a contraband substance it is immediately the substance's fault no matter the circumstance.
 
steingar said:
I've lost friends to the same situation who weren't on a damn thing. Yeah, perhaps the meds contributed. But a flatlander trying to make the impossible turn in high density altitude is a recipe for disaster no matter how you cut it. If our authorities sniff even a hint of a contraband substance it is immediately the substance's fault no matter the circumstance.
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The thing is, they didn't find anything wrong with the airplane, so the pilot mistakenly thought he needed to make the impossible turn.

“No preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures were found that would have precluded normal operation,” the NTSB said in its final report.

Federal investigators found that the crash was likely prompted by the pilot’s misinterpretation of the airplace’s reduced engine power and decreased climb performance at Colorado Springs’ high altitude as being from an engine malfunction."

Was that caused by the drugs or the underlying condition that required an SSRI? Who knows.
 
steingar said:
I've lost friends to the same situation who weren't on a damn thing. Yeah, perhaps the meds contributed. But a flatlander trying to make the impossible turn in high density altitude is a recipe for disaster no matter how you cut it. If our authorities sniff even a hint of a contraband substance it is immediately the substance's fault no matter the circumstance.
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As noted by the poster-who-migrated-to-california, there was nothing wrong with the aircraft. There was no requirement for "the impossible turn."

Of course anyone can have a bad day and kill themselves. Yes it happens. Maybe it happened here. Then again maybe the pilot's perceptions were altered by the zoloft which is a substance which acts on the central nervous system...
 
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