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3G
Every time we interact with someone else, we endanger others. The question is to what degree.
DaleB
Final Approach
We're not talking about Draconian penalties for one's choice of hair color or something. We're talking about driving and/or flying under the influence of alcohol. It's not an accident, it's not something that "could happen to anyone", and it's not just a little mistake that should be dismissed with a wink and a nod. It's the direct result of making choices and engaging in behavior that every person in this country, and absolutely every single driver and pilot, is perfectly well aware can have a very bad outcome. That bad outcome can be for others (injury, death) as well as for the person doing the drinking or drugs. This stuff has been hammered into people's heads for decades now, it's not like the guy didn't know what he was doing could get him in deep sheep dip. Maybe he's just got really poor judgment, maybe he's an alcoholic. In the end it doesn't matter, neither one should be driving or flying under the influence, and we all damn well know it.
He flew under the influence?
I just have missed that, perhaps it was in the same post where he killed someone
Do you have the same feeling about someone who breaks the speed limit? Kills the same number, probably more, than drinking and driving.
https://www.ntsb.gov/safety/safety-studies/Documents/SS1701.pdf
Tantalum
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San_Diego_Pilot
..man.. I sure do live in a different world than some other people
(a) leaving the milk out of the fridge by accident
(b) copying back a squawk code wrong
(c) typoing the amount when you venmo your friend and send $500 instead of $50
(d) texting the wrong person
(e) reply'ing all to a company email instead of simply replying
(f) forgetting to turn on your out-of-office replies
.. what is NOT a dumb mistake is driving drunk, to work, where people's lives depend on you. That passed several intentional actions from the OP, let's recount them, hypothetically speaking:
(i) should I drink tonight? I am working tomorrow as a pilot. That was the first option to avoid this mess
(ii) it's my buddy's birthday and I've had a long day, I'll just had two drinks since I'm working tomorrow. That was the second option to set a personal limit.
(iii) alright I've had 3 beers and a shot of rum, I'm feeing it, and it's almost 11. Now might be a good time to cut it off and call an Uber home. That was the third chance.
(iii) damn, I am really drunk, I should call out tomorrow. That was the fourth chance.
(iv) man, I woke up and am still feeling it. I should really sleep this off and call out of work. That was the fifth chance.
..the guy got a DUI at 6 in the morning.. that's not 'spitballing' medical diagnosis. It's also not an accident. Pull the license, driving and flying.
..we operate clearly on different realms of what qualifies as a dumb mistake. Here are some examples of what a 'dumb mistake' is, some of these I've been guilty of
(a) leaving the milk out of the fridge by accident
(b) copying back a squawk code wrong
(c) typoing the amount when you venmo your friend and send $500 instead of $50
(d) texting the wrong person
(e) reply'ing all to a company email instead of simply replying
(f) forgetting to turn on your out-of-office replies
.. what is NOT a dumb mistake is driving drunk, to work, where people's lives depend on you. That passed several intentional actions from the OP, let's recount them, hypothetically speaking:
(i) should I drink tonight? I am working tomorrow as a pilot. That was the first option to avoid this mess
(ii) it's my buddy's birthday and I've had a long day, I'll just had two drinks since I'm working tomorrow. That was the second option to set a personal limit.
(iii) alright I've had 3 beers and a shot of rum, I'm feeing it, and it's almost 11. Now might be a good time to cut it off and call an Uber home. That was the third chance.
(iii) damn, I am really drunk, I should call out tomorrow. That was the fourth chance.
(iv) man, I woke up and am still feeling it. I should really sleep this off and call out of work. That was the fifth chance.
..that can't honestly be your litmus for what's right, wrong, or moral
it's his own actions that might destroy his career
context matters
Spitballing was trying to reverse engineer bac
I’ll ask the same question that keeps getting ignored, you view speeding the same?
Speeding is the same end result and even more deliberate to speed, often sober, than have one too many and drive, or not adequately sleep of whatever nonsense he was doing the last night.
If the worst mistake you ever made was what you listed, you are very young, very sheltered, or very dishonest.
It may or may not be. Context matters, as it does for the OP. He didn't have a couple beers with dinner, get pulled over, blow <0.08, but still get tagged for DUI based on a FST.
Going 75 mph in a car in good repair on a LA freeway when that is the speed 50% of the drivers are going isn't the same as blowing 0.09 5 hours after you (supposedly) stopped drinking. The OP's behavior is more akin to driving 75 downhill on a busy freeway in the rain in a loaded semi. You might get away with it, but it's pretty f-in stupid behavior, with fairly predictable, deadly, potential results.
DaleB
Final Approach
Are you being intentionally obtuse? It does seem like it at times. If you're unable to conceptually differentiate between specific statements applicable to one individual and general statements applicable to everyone, then that would explain a lot of the disconnect. If you're just naturally argumentative, well, that's different.
Tantalum
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No. What does speeding have to do with anything I posted or the OP's actions? He got drunk, drove drunk, and got caught. It demonstrates a lack of judgment. But I'll play along against my better judgment.. most people are laissez faire about mild speeding but generally don't go double the limit or 50 over.. the typical person might pulled over for going 81 in a 65.. you'll get a ticket for around $275.. and you move on with your life. You might even go to court and fight in and win "sorry judge it was a downhill, I've never been pulled over before, and my dog has an upset stomach I was rushing to the vet" .. at any rate, people know that speeding tickets suck, but generally don't ruin your life. A DUI does.. that's where the bad judgment comes in.. if I know that "woops I had 16 beers and now I'm driving" might ruin my life and career I certainly would exercise caution around it, and, well, not drive. People know the penalty for DUI is severe that's why most people don't drive drunk, or at least not drunk enough to get caught. But I'm not sure what your point is? To treat DUIs the same as speeding tickets, or to treat speeding tickets the same as DUIs? Or forgive the OP as a "dumb mistake" and give him a pass? You also have to define speeding, speeding is a leading cause of highway accidents and deaths but it's generally not the person going 5 over the limit but the dude who's already being wreckless going probably 30-50 mph over the average traffic flow
that's still not spitballing, there are well known metabolic rates for alcohol. There may be some variance person to person but this isn't a shot in the dark. If someone blows 'X' at a given time it's fairly easy to make an educated estimate as to what the bac was Y hours before. Chemistry is fun!
That's not what I said, I provided examples of 'dumb mistakes' - driving drunk is not a dumb mistake, but appreciate the insinuation that I'm a young liar.
benyflyguy
En-Route
so that’s why I’m not getting any responses to my
Messages about my slider coming off flat…
His BAC has many factors
Speeding kills the same amount of people as DUI, and is often done by people with a “clear mind”
I posted a NTSB study link to that stat, but it disappeared
GaryM
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Gary M
For that comparison to be meaningful, you’d have to assume there are as many drivers breaking the speed limit as there are driving drunk
There aren’t.
The likelihood of any individual speeder causing an accident is much lower than the likelihood of any individual drunk causing an accident. Our laws reflect this.
The facts are the facts, little Timmy is just as likely to be killed by that evil drunk as Karen speeding along in her minivan.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyam...iving-drunk-new-report-finds/?sh=2d408d2470df
So you’re ether for ending the career of anyone going 10 over, or your pointing a gun at peoples heads?
let me guess
Clip4
Touchdown! Greaser!
You blew 0.09. How you were dressed is not relevant . You didn’t report for duty under the influence. At the average 0.015 BAC reduction per hour, your BAC at flight time (7.5 hours later) would have not been elevated at all.
I would be surprised your work rules don’t prohibit alcohol consumption within 24 hours of a duty shift and you should be terminated for violating the work rule.
I would be surprised your work rules don’t prohibit alcohol consumption within 24 hours of a duty shift and you should be terminated for violating the work rule.
Clip4
Touchdown! Greaser!
Back in the 80s I heard the stat on a Friday and Saturday night 2/3 of the drivers were legally intoxicated and caused 50% of the accidents. If that stat were true the 1/3 that were sober caused 1/2 the accidents and had an accident rate greater than the intox drivers.
DaleB
Final Approach
82.9% of statistics are just made up.
PaulS
Touchdown! Greaser!
Jackk, you are making a false equivalence here. A drunk in his car is one thing, a drunk flying an airliner with a couple of hundred passengers is quite another. This guy was a drunk in his car, on his way to potentially pilot an airliner with many passengers. Big, big difference.
Any bets on whether this was the first time he had driven to a flight in this condition?
Clip4
Touchdown! Greaser!
The urge to bet on everything is compulsive gambling.
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Bro do you even lift
speeding DOES kill. looky here:
Over 500K fentanyl pills discovered after 2 women pulled over for speeding (msn.com)
think of how many people died from those pills that the women had in their car that was speeding (wait, was the car speeding or was the driver speeding?!?).
on the flip side, I guess you can say speeding saves lives, as if they weren't speeding, they wouldn't have been pulled over and had the pills confiscated. now I'm a little confused.
Over 500K fentanyl pills discovered after 2 women pulled over for speeding (msn.com)
think of how many people died from those pills that the women had in their car that was speeding (wait, was the car speeding or was the driver speeding?!?).
on the flip side, I guess you can say speeding saves lives, as if they weren't speeding, they wouldn't have been pulled over and had the pills confiscated. now I'm a little confused.
Tantalum
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San_Diego_Pilot
Just so I understand this right, you would be just as comfortable getting in a car with someone who's going to go 5 or 10 over the speed limit as you would be getting in a car with someone who's plastered? Because it sounds like that's what you're arguing here, that a highway full of people going 5 to 10 over the limit is no different, or actually more dangerous, than a highway full of drunk people
Otherwise I'm lost, or you are trolling us
I fully agree.
But he didn’t fly drunk.
Could he, would he, maybe, no, yes, perhaps, but what we have is a guy who was stopped at .09 in a car who apparently didn’t hurt anyone or damage anything, he’s probably going to take the ride as far as the system goes, it appears to me that this has become such a political issue it’s all money and politics, again, same death rate, sober minded person speeds and pays a few hundred and no one cares, but if it’s a few drinks and no turn signal you might as well be hitler.
In my time in aviation I have non flighted more than a few for not being able to hold centerline, or not being able to handle memory items, situational awareness, I don’t recall anyone trying to show up drunk, I think our priorities are misplaced. The items these days which are glazed over, compared to the things we go defcon over, it is all backwards.
Driving drunk is dumb, but these days it’s also overblown.
I’m not arguing with cold hard numbers, do you argue with a calculator? Driving drunk, or speeding is the same death rate. I posted the link.
I got a few old friends from the PD who I would much rather ride with after a night drinking than most sober Uber drivers.
Point is being a bad sober driver is as dangerous as a drunk driver, at the very least, but one is a no worries couple hundred and the other is leper status these days. It makes no logical sense
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Sifossifoco
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Sifossifoco
I see the problem from a different angle. If real, the guy was an idiot and fully deserve consequences that may as well change his life forever. He knew the rules, he failed, he will be punished. But I stop there, and I don't like lecturing people that are on their knees. We are humans, we all make mistakes. I can have human compassion for somebody even if I totally disagree with what he has done. I don't drink at all, so I feel unfairly safe and lucky compared to the OP, but I certainly make other mistakes. It could even be that the OP, alcohol aside, is a much better pilot than me, and it is sad that he wasted his skills. I feel sorry for him thinking of what he is going through, but I am not condoning the actions. I just don't see the events as cause for celebration, one way or the other.
I commented on a pilot who had 80hrs and no solo, everyone else was cheering him on, I was one of the few that said it might not be for him, why does the same group say one thing to this guy who made a dumb mistake in a car, but another to someone who can’t solo in the same time some get their entire private and most of their instrument?
ThatOtherGuy
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ThatOtherGuy
It's not even remotely the same death rate. If you want to compare rates you have to compare the # of measured incidents against the # of the measured population of interest. Go drive in any major city at 5:15pm on an Interstate. EVERYONE is driving 10-15 above the limit and no one is dying. Speeding when an accident happens does not mean speeding is the cause of the accident. It's the typical correlation does not equal causation argument.
The population of drunk drivers on the road is drastically different than the population of speeders on the road. "Per capita" the drunk drivers cause A LOT more damage that is almost indisputably attributable to the effects of alcohol on the driver. Never mind the long term health effects of excessive alcohol consumption.
Who cares if he reports with a high BAC. Do YOU want to be in the back of that airliner with a hung over pilot?
Wrong.
Tons of the crashes are just idiots who can’t drive, push right of way, etc.
And again, I missed the post where he was flying a airliner at the time.
I have had people almost kill me on my bike, I look over and it’s not a cell phone or a bottle of beer, no it’s alert and hands on the wheel, they are giving it all they have and they can’t even stay in their own lane.
Why don’t we call for them to be tossed in jail and have their license taken and lives destroyed?
Based on the dents on their car, they know they ain’t good drivers, but they choose to drive anyways.
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ThatOtherGuy
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You just made my point. It's not that they're speeding. It's all those other things and they just happened to be speeding at the time.
He would have been flying an airliner at 13:30, and he most certainly would have been hung over.
So the hill you want to die on is defending a professional pilot who drank till 1:00 am, had to get on a company flight to commute at 6:00am, and then would fly passengers at 1:00pm. Didn't make it and got arrested for DUI before reporting. His behavior is questionable, but your insistence on defending it and warped perception of reality are just embarrassing.
The hill of due process and not viewing a traffic infraction as a medical condition is as good a hill as any.
Go have him get a eval, booze is a drug sure, I fully support that, but the FAA should be held to whatever that finding is, no diagnosis no need to report.
The road to hell is paved in good intentions
For those who want a future crimes department, move to china
That lady is flying with an instructor who (presumably) won't turn her loose unless and until she's competent. She's not endangering anyone. Completely different situation.
ThatOtherGuy
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ThatOtherGuy
It's not a medical determination. It's a REGULATORY determination and the regs are well spelled out and published, thus negating your due process argument.
It's simple. 14 CFR 67.107. He has to meet one of the following and then he has a substance abuse problem:
(1) Use of a substance in a situation in which that use was physically hazardous, if there has been at any other time an instance of the use of a substance also in a situation in which that use was physically hazardous;
(2) A verified positive drug test result, an alcohol test result of 0.04 or greater alcohol concentration, or a refusal to submit to a drug or alcohol test required by the U.S. Department of Transportation or an agency of the U.S. Department of Transportation; or
(3) Misuse of a substance that the Federal Air Surgeon, based on case history and appropriate, qualified medical judgment relating to the substance involved, finds -
(i) Makes the person unable to safely perform the duties or exercise the privileges of the airman certificate applied for or held; or
(ii) May reasonably be expected, for the maximum duration of the airman medical certificate applied for or held, to make the person unable to perform those duties or exercise those privileges.
If he meets one of these he's substance dependent:
(A) Increased tolerance;
(B) Manifestation of withdrawal symptoms;
(C) Impaired control of use; or
(D) Continued use despite damage to physical health or impairment of social, personal, or occupational functioning.
By his own admission he's checked the boxes for 14 CFR 67.107(b)(2) (BAC test > .04 ) and 14 CFR 67.107(a)(4)(ii)(D) (impairment of occupational functioning) and questionably 14 CFR 67.107(a)(4)(C) (impaired control of use).
At a minimum it's FAR defined substance abuse, but realistically is most likely substance dependence.
If you're in a place where you're a professional pilot drinking till 1:00 am, driving to the airport legally drunk in uniform to report at 6:00am, and then fly passengers at 1:00pm that day YOU HAVE A DRINKING PROBLEM. It doesn't require a substance abuse evaluation to figure that out. I'll GLADLY live in that reality.
It's simple. 14 CFR 67.107. He has to meet one of the following and then he has a substance abuse problem:
(1) Use of a substance in a situation in which that use was physically hazardous, if there has been at any other time an instance of the use of a substance also in a situation in which that use was physically hazardous;
(2) A verified positive drug test result, an alcohol test result of 0.04 or greater alcohol concentration, or a refusal to submit to a drug or alcohol test required by the U.S. Department of Transportation or an agency of the U.S. Department of Transportation; or
(3) Misuse of a substance that the Federal Air Surgeon, based on case history and appropriate, qualified medical judgment relating to the substance involved, finds -
(i) Makes the person unable to safely perform the duties or exercise the privileges of the airman certificate applied for or held; or
(ii) May reasonably be expected, for the maximum duration of the airman medical certificate applied for or held, to make the person unable to perform those duties or exercise those privileges.
If he meets one of these he's substance dependent:
(A) Increased tolerance;
(B) Manifestation of withdrawal symptoms;
(C) Impaired control of use; or
(D) Continued use despite damage to physical health or impairment of social, personal, or occupational functioning.
By his own admission he's checked the boxes for 14 CFR 67.107(b)(2) (BAC test > .04 ) and 14 CFR 67.107(a)(4)(ii)(D) (impairment of occupational functioning) and questionably 14 CFR 67.107(a)(4)(C) (impaired control of use).
At a minimum it's FAR defined substance abuse, but realistically is most likely substance dependence.
If you're in a place where you're a professional pilot drinking till 1:00 am, driving to the airport legally drunk in uniform to report at 6:00am, and then fly passengers at 1:00pm that day YOU HAVE A DRINKING PROBLEM. It doesn't require a substance abuse evaluation to figure that out. I'll GLADLY live in that reality.
If she can’t solo at 80 she should never be a pilot.
Daleandee
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Dale Andee
Quite a quote but it's shows we have finally reached ... "Godwin's law!"
Obviously said to drive home the ridiculous point.
I have been alive long enough to see people make many comparisons to justify their politics.
Don’t confuse political talking points with justice, and don’t confuse law with medicine, and don’t confuse law with administrative law
Then maybe she never will be. She's not harming anyone by taking lessons and she's under the supervision of a CFI.
Daleandee
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Dale Andee
GaryM
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Gary M
The odds of a speeding driver killing someone aren’t remotely the same as the odds of a drunk driver killing someone. You’re ignoring the massive difference in the populations of each.
If you can’t be bothered to study risk analysis, maybe at least look up how percentages work.
I’m going to go out in a limb and say I’m ok with the Faa, or anyone else considering a BAC of .09 at 9 am to be a big deal. Seriously. There’s no legit excuse for being in a moving vehicle that drunk at 9am.
DaleB
Final Approach
Horse apples. I personally know a pilot who didn’t solo for about that long. He’s fine, probably a better stick and rudder pilot than a lot of guys. Whether she should be a pilot is up to her, her instructor, and a DPE.