Like gun control, a lot of societal issues are.

Looking back at Prohibition may be instructive. About 2O% of people appear to either psychologically or physiologically incapable of being social drinkers. If they drink they tend to be drunks. Most of those people handle the situation by just NOT drinking, but even so, the cost to society, not just due to the death toll from drunk drivers but the social cost to the nation as a whole from everything from failed marriages to loss of productivity is high - the CDC estimated a quarter TRILLION dollars back in 2010, which was at that time about 4% of the entire GDP.

https://www.cdc.gov/features/costsofdrinking/index.html

That being the case, the decision way back when to institute Prohibition wasn’t an irrational one, just sort of a naive one. And it was instituted by constitutional amendment with bipartisan super majorities in both houses of Congress and an overwhelming bipartisan majority in almost all the state legislatures.

The ‘logic’ was flawless. There were lots of countries where alcohol wasn’t legal. OK, most of them were Islamic, but they survived without ‘demon rum,’ certainly the US could too. And it COULD HAVE - at least in theory - had the 80% of people to whom alcohol wasn’t really much of a problem been willing to give up drink for the common good. And some of them did, but a lot of them didn’t and the societal costs of dealing with those scofflaws soon greatly exceeded the costs of just tolerating the people who couldn’t control their own drinking successfully.

Many of the same states that lead the way in instituting Prohibition were the same ones leading the fight to repeal it once those costs became known

And the reality is that we STILL have a lot of people that aren’t really capable of being social drinkers which is why we have things like HIMS programs and pilot to pilot intervention programs that have salvaged the careers of nearly 4000 professional pilots.

https://www.alpa.org/news-and-events...y-corey-sloane

But what is naive is thinking that by banning something the problem will go away. It won’t, which means we must all be vigilant, for the safety of the public, for the profession itself, and for the welfare of our fellow pilots and their families.

 

^^^^^well said^^^^^^^

 

I thought the Captain was tested at the plane and released immediately. It was the two FO’s they were arrested. One of them now flies for a cargo carrier (not purple or brown)...not sure about the other FO.

 

The names are available if you google enough articles. Ine of the names was listed as captain, although journalists do make errors so you might be right. I have no first hand knowledge if the event.

If you enter the names in the airman database lookup it would appear that one has no certificates currently (and a rather strange note referring you to an FAA office) and the other has a commercial and current CFI but no ATP.

That’s what I found anyway.

 

Well this won’t help. “United” at the top, “Air Wisconsin” later. It will be interesting to see how far the PIC will be held responsible.

Drunk flight attendant passes out on plane, doesn’t know what city she is in, cops say.

https://www.kansascity.com/news/nation-world/national/article233658102.html

 

Correct. The CA was never detained.

 

You can disagree but with the most recent change, the Company is already 90 percent of the way to a 13.5 hour rule.

Current rule 12 hours to “intent to perform duty” which is presenting oneself at a controlled entry.

Basic flight report first flight of trip is one hour. 12 hours prior to intent to perform duty = 13 hours prior to scheduled departure. Global flight report first flight of trip is 1.5 hours. 12 hours prior to intent to perform duty = 13.5 hours prior to schedule departure.

Subsequent basic flight have a :45 minute show (12:45 prior to scheduled departure), subsequent global flight are still planned at :90 minute show, reducible to :75 minutes. (13.5 or 13.25 hours prior to scheduled departure)

So the current company rule varies from 13.5 hours to 12.75 hours prior to scheduled departure depending on report time. Why not simply it to one number? (Even a across the board 13.5 hours may not be quite enough as “intent to perform duty” adds 10-20 minutes.)

Of course no rules will help an alcoholic; conversely no rules are required for those who abstain.

 

Next violation. Whitelist this app on the company iPad and require a sample before the FFD button will unlock. This seems inevitable if people keep breaking the law since no amount of hours before duty will be 100%.

 

Why stop there? Maybe the airplane should have an interlock device installed? You have to blow into it every 15 minutes or the engines stop.

In case the sarcasm isn’t obvious enough......I hate your idea.

 

Or responsible adults.