Originally Posted by
rickair7777
I know exactly how it works. In this case I think they are making it up, although there's some grey area.
Like I said, the underlying rationale is reasonable but there's not enough regulatory meat to justify where they took it.
FAA should simply amend the reg in this case, rather than jam through enforcement. Bad precedent. I'd like to know, in writing, what my regulatory boundaries are, and not have to guess. Example: "Good Moral Character"... they could have a real field day with that one. And BHM FSDO would apply it quite differently than OAK FSDO.
In the context of this thread, then, where the question regards being fit for duty, is this really a grey area in which we need it spelled out? Is there any question whatsoever that when one is sent to training, one is expected to be fit and ready to train?
I had a experienced captain show up to a simulator briefing, drunk. It wasn't a training event; it was an informal prebriefing at the sim center the night before the sim sessions the following day, and a preparation for an oral. It wasn't an assigned event; the meeting was an invitation, not a duty assignment. Never the less, for anyone to show up at a simulator training center intoxicated, is an idiotic and unprofessional act. Might he have been subject to disciplinary action? Enforcement action? Just guilty of being an idiot? Did it really need to be spelled out, or should he have been responsible enough to know?
The goof moral character clause of the ATP requirements has been subjectively applied to the carriage of drugs in an aircraft, and even to a pilot handing his naked rear end out the window of a DC-3 while taxiing. It would be very hard to codify hanging one's butt out the window as a specific regulatory item, and one shouldn't need to have every detail spelled out to know that it's an unprofessional and stupid act, to say nothing or careless and reckless. The pilot in that case became subject to enforcement action and a sanction against his pilot certificate.
I was given a long duty day, including multiple international legs, a long deadhead, long car ride, then what amounted to a very short rest, with commercial travel the following day to get to a training event, where I would go right into the proficiency training event. I called fatigue. No way to get adequate rest, no way to be fit for the sim. Regardless of whether checking or training is taking place, every trip to the sim is a jeopardy event, and let no one be foolish enough to believe otherwise. My training was delayed, and I eventually got there, got rest, and completed the training.
Whether one goes into a training event intoxicated or so tired one has the same mental impairment as intoxication, it becomes a matter of professional judgment to know better. One shouldn't need to have that spelled out. If one can't figure that out, one may be undeserving of the job.
If one is sent to a training event with insufficient rest and the pressure to take the assigned schedule means that the pilot is concerned for the security of his job, or the potential damage to his record or reputation, he may or may not have resources available to call upon. Union representation? Contract? Company policy? Nature of the training and the specific circumstance? Type of operation? One needs to know what applies and what doesn't to one's specific situation. This determines if one has a leg to stand on .
The regulation cannot possibly be written to cover every single unique, specific situation. There are many cases which go to enforcement action that involve decisions by an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), which do NOT set precedent, but to lend some insight into application of the regulation in that specific case. How the regulation is applied in another case may be different, because specifics matter. It's for that reason that I asked the original poster to expand on his or her question. The original poster has thus far elected not to do so.
Regarding your comments, nobody is "making up" anything. You're responding to a poster who cited an old, dated ALPA article referencing a legal interpretation, and you're asserting that this is making things up. It's not. The article, as quoted, suggests that the FAA had an "little-known and little-disseminated" clarification: a legal interpretation. The article suggests that somehow the FAA has failed to distribute this to the public, and failed to publish it in the federal register, or to codify it in the regulation. This is because legal interpretations are direct responses to a specific enquiry, and are made available for those who wish to search them, and are not regulation. They are interpretations of the regulation. Obviously they are not published in the federal register; anyone who would expect so displays gross ignorance of what the letter of interpretation is and also of the regulatory system. The FAA is not responsible for disseminating letters of interpretation to the public. The FAA will not come to your house or flight school and teach you the regulation. You are expected to know it and abide it, and that responsibility is on you, and each airman who is subject to the regulation. This isn't a "made up" interpretation, nor a "cowboy" action. It's part of a well known, well-established process, and those who don't take the time to know the regulation cannot use ignorance of the regulation, it's meaning, or interpretation, if they become subject to enforcementa action. "I didn't know" is an indictment on the person making the statement: a profession of ignorance.
There is nothing professional about ignorance.