Carson Air Captain blood alcohol 0.24 at time of crash.

[The Mole]

the BC corner service is not federal. Nothing to do with harper "praise leader". If pay = skill as suggested. Then aviation is dominated by terrible pilots.......

[Big Bird Anonymous]

the BC corner service is not federal. Nothing to do with harper "praise leader". If pay = skill as suggested. Then aviation is dominated by terrible pilots.......

It has nothing to do with pay or salaries, it is the operational budgets needed to perform functions related to public service. The budgets have been cut from virtually every level of government service during the Harpo reign of terror and this is the type of vetting we can expect, rushed and no QA. I repeat no QA.

[leftoftrack]

the BC corner service is not federal. Nothing to do with harper "praise leader". If pay = skill as suggested. Then aviation is dominated by terrible pilots.......

It has nothing to do with pay or salaries, it is the operational budgets needed to perform functions related to public service. The budgets have been cut from virtually every level of government service during the Harpo reign of terror and this is the type of vetting we can expect, rushed and no QA. I repeat no QA.

Thread drift?

[cncpc]

What about Type 1 or 2 diabetes, or a diet high in sugars, just prior to the insulin spike? A blood sugar level spike can cause a collapse/incapacitation - a blood sugar crash too. Didn't the crash occur in the early morning, possibly after the pilots wolfing down their breakfast?

Hometown newspaper just printed a story where a teen went in a blood sugar crash and nearly died because of it. Another angle I hope is being investigated...

This airplane crashed because some event tore the wings off it. The horizontal stabilizer is ripped off or otherwise damaged. A prop or both props cut the cockpit off in the coming apart sequence.

I don't see how drink or a low blood sugar could cause this. In fact, there is no evidence the captain had diabetes.

Maybe somebody has a different view, but I can't envision the scenario where a guy flys with no problem up to 9000 and then suddenly engages, accidentally and compounded by drink, in a manouever so violent it takes all the attached flying parts off, all of this while the cojo doesn't notice or do anything.

I'm more inclined to think flying along normally, and then some catastrophic thing happens. Likely something that no one sober or not sober, could have done anything about. Remember, no Mayday, high rate of descent to impact. I do think that he may have spent the night thinking he wasn't flying that day may be significant.

Very few airplane crashes are caused by drunk pilots. That chopper in Alberta a year or two ago is the only one that comes to mind.

[DanWEC]

Passed out on controls, in IMC, the FO didn't have time to react. Or seizure, possibly at the same time.

Just a possibility given the theory of chronic alcoholism.

There's another very dark possibility- One can have very irrational and depressing thoughts when that inebriated.....especially common in depressed alcoholics who are professionals, usually because of the dissonance of reconciling their actions and emotions. Again, not saying this is the case. I didn't know the pilot and don't want to be accused of speculation. When the civil suits come out character witnesses will be able to state whether the pilot had an addiction or not.

[cncpc]

Passed out on controls, in IMC, the FO didn't have time to react. Or seizure, possibly at the same time.

Just a possibility given the theory of chronic alcoholism.

There's another very dark possibility- One can have very irrational and depressing thoughts when that inebriated.....especially common in depressed alcoholics who are professionals, usually because of the dissonance of reconciling their actions and emotions. Again, not saying this is the case. I didn't know the pilot and don't want to be accused of speculation. When the civil suits come out character witnesses will be able to state whether the pilot had an addiction or not.

Yep crossed my mind too. It was shortly after the thing in Europe. Other things say no.

[cdnpilot77]

Very few airplane crashes are caused by drunk pilots. That chopper in Alberta a year or two ago is the only one that comes to mind.

Not drunk but high, the Air Tindi caravan crash 3-4years ago also comes to mind. I agree there are t many, but so what??? That means it CAN'T happen??

I think it's entirely possible that he over stressed the airplane...old airframe, high speed, gusty winds, icing conditions, mountainous terrain and allegedly inebriated. So many scenarios could be in play. The one scenario that comes to mind is the Air Canada pilot who made an abrupt maneuver when he woke up thinking a planet (or star) was an airplane light. Now imagine if you're in the clouds, with high hills, ice, gusty winds and allegedly drunk, if you think you see some rocks ahead of you where they aren't supposed to be, what are you gonna do? Of course that is just one of and endless number of possibilities.

Drunk and/or pilot induced catastrophic airframe failure are certainly as possible as the airframe breaking up on its own.

[Rockie]

I would think comprehensive testing on the failed components will reveal a gradual degradation or sudden catastrophic over-stress to failure. The facts as they appear to be are bad enough as it is without speculating on further actions by the captain. That aspect of it will no doubt undergo a thorough investigation as well.

[Taiser]

Toxicology is collected at the post mortem. Blood samples (if viable, sometimes there is little blood in some cases) is collected from the heart, iliac and femoral artery. Urine samples are also taken. Urine is the most viable for alcohol and can set the "trend" to tell you if the alcohol level in the body was going up or down, although it's not foolproof it's solid indicator. If you have a higher content in your urine than in your blood, then your alcohol level was still on the way up because it shows up in the urine first. If it's opposite, then your BAC was on the way down.

Regardless, BAC is way more accurate with a blood/urine test than any roadside "blow" test. The odds of it being inaccurate when collected at a post mortem is negligible. I can tell you from experience, that at .24 the pathologist would have gotten a massive whiff of it off the body during dissection and made note of that as well on his report. The hardest number I've personally seen is .39 from a hardcore alcoholic that drank a 24 of beer and a 40 pounder a day!!!! Some guys have seen higher, but not much. You get into the alcohol poisoning level soon after that...

[wallypilot]

Wild theiries here for sure. Being intoxicated is just a piece of the puzzle. Its probably something a little more insidious. Like because he was a such a high BAC, he missed things which if not missed would otherwise not have led to this crash. I dont think the BAC of the capt caused the airplane to fall out of the sky directly. However its a good bet that soemthing he did in the few minutes prior due to less than ideal mental and physical state led to the cause of the aircraft to get into a siuation from whih they could not recover.

[cncpc]

I would think comprehensive testing on the failed components will reveal a gradual degradation or sudden catastrophic over-stress to failure. The facts as they appear to be are bad enough as it is without speculating on further actions by the captain. That aspect of it will no doubt undergo a thorough investigation as well.

Exactly.

Re the Air Tindi accident, there is no proof that the guy's high THC or whatever level was a contributing factor in the accident.

[CpnCrunch]

Re the Air Tindi accident, there is no proof that the guy's high THC or whatever level was a contributing factor in the accident.

Perhaps no "proof". However his blood THC level was over 5x what would cause "1.5 to 2 times the risk of accident for a sober person". You also have to wonder about the decision making abilities of someone like this.

[Justjohn]

I would think comprehensive testing on the failed components will reveal a gradual degradation or sudden catastrophic over-stress to failure. The facts as they appear to be are bad enough as it is without speculating on further actions by the captain. That aspect of it will no doubt undergo a thorough investigation as well.

Exactly.

Re the Air Tindi accident, there is no proof that the guy's high THC or whatever level was a contributing factor in the accident.

You are Kidding Yourself. He was stoned, he flew into a hill, and ppl Died. Pot has no place in aviation.

[Heliian]

^ neither does ANY drugs or alcohol.

[Justjohn]

^ neither does ANY drugs or alcohol.

I completely agree.

But! But, because intoxication is more easily determined with alcohol, and because THC residue stays in the body long after consumption, alcohol is a somewhat better choice. Basically, a beer after work vs a puff a week ago, the next days flying is less affected by the occasional beer than the occasional puff.

But to be clear, intoxicated flying, or even the suspicion is completely unacceptable .

[cdnpilot77]

Not to get too far off track, but I seem to remember the van pilots thc levels to be very high, like smoked within an hour of the flight. Someone correct me if I'm wrong there but it was significant enough where Discovery Air tried to implement a random drug testing policy company wide very quickly after that accident.

[Meatservo]

Well, something like that can be very damaging to a company's reputation whether or not it had anything to do with the accident. I don't really find that accident and this one to have much in common other than the toxicology report. Flying below MOCA under VFR flight rules while half in and half out of clouds in an area with high terrain vs. your ship coming unglued and falling out of the sky... There is not much to figure out about the former, other than what the hell the pilot might have thought he was trying to accomplish (which might not have been ameliorated by the fact he was tripping balls) but the latter is still shrouded in mystery regardless of suspected impairment. Something is very strange about the Carson Air incident, and this latest report makes it even stranger and does nothing to help me understand what happened.

[cncpc]

Re the Air Tindi accident, there is no proof that the guy's high THC or whatever level was a contributing factor in the accident.

Perhaps no "proof". However his blood THC level was over 5x what would cause "1.5 to 2 times the risk of accident for a sober person". You also have to wonder about the decision making abilities of someone like this.

The guy smoked pot. That is not in dispute.

There is no evidence he smoked pot before he got in the cockpit. It's been a long time since I've been around anybody who smoked pot, but I do remember it wasn't something that could be done without others near you knowing, for at least an hour or two after. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there was anybody near him prior to flight or on board the aircraft that detected the odor of marijuana from the guy.

Hundreds of people who didn't smoke pot have flown into terrain.

I can accept a view that his decision making abilities might not have been the best, regardless of when he last smoked. I think its a bad decision to smoke pot if you are working as a pilot, or even a private pilot. It's just not right for both safety reasons, and obviously for how you will be remembered if something like this happens.

[cncpc]

Not to get too far off track, but I seem to remember the van pilots thc levels to be very high, like smoked within an hour of the flight. Someone correct me if I'm wrong there but it was significant enough where Discovery Air tried to implement a random drug testing policy company wide very quickly after that accident.

Certainly high levels, but I don't recall any evidence that he smoked within an hour of the flight.

I'm not sure what Discovery did, but I do know a random drug testing policy won't survive a court test. However, I think Discovery probably has a new hire drug test rule, which is reasonable, and takes the view they can test on suspicion of impairment, which is also reasonable.

[Mr. North]

Tindi had a pre-employment drug test in place well before that particular accident but they were fairly lax in it's enforcement. I doubt that's the case now. That being said, the pilot testing positive for marijuana was a red herring in this case which distracted from the real issues that Tindi faced at the time. As a company undergoing a period of aggressive growth they were promoting, hiring, and cutting guys loose with abandon. Coupled with a lack of oversight (especially regarding junior captains), they failed to catch a number of mistakes until it was too late. Much to the surprise of myself and others, this aspect was hardly mentioned in the report as a contributing factor.

Regarding the Carson accident I also think the pilot's BAC (which is off the charts) is distracting us from the larger questions surrounding this incident.

[delta1]

Hopefully this doesn't over-shadow the notion that Metro's are pieces of sh$t.

+1

[Meatservo]

Let's not talk about the Air Tindi accident anymore. I found Mr North's post just above to be very well written, and he brings up a lot of problems that were endemic to Canadian air services of a certain size until quite recently, or really maybe even to this day. However I disagree that the dope wasn't a factor here, in this case. I have a lot of thoughts about that particular pilot that would probably really piss a lot of you off. Also I can not stop thinking that the alcohol findings are germane too. Maybe it's only statistically relevant, and maybe we'll never know what happened. Maybe it's a red herring. I guess it goes to show, if you like to party too close to work time, you never know how or when you'll get caught.

[North Shore]

Hmm, just spent some time monkeying around with a Blood Alcohol calculator (found via GOOGLE)
I simply can't fathom how a guy could get a BAC of .24, and not show some signs? How do you even get to .24? If you (at 6' and 185#) started a 'century club' at 10pm, you'd be back down to .097 by 0700 the next morning..

Did no-one notice at check-in or during the loading of the plane?

[V1 Rotate]

Yup...

Poorly maintained, abused and flown by poorly trained pilots, these Metros, are certainly pieces of shit.

Other ones, are good airplanes that just require a bit more respect than your King Airs and Navajos.

[CID]

I don't understand why people are downplaying this discovery. Personally, I don't care if they were flying the worst airplane or the poorest maintained airplanes or whatever bizarre justification you may raise. This pilot was drunk. Even if the test was inaccurate. That is disgusting and abhorrent and certainly unacceptable. I'm extremely disappointed that thus professional pilot has brought such discredit and dishonour to Canadian pilots.