Carson Air Captain blood alcohol 0.24 at time of crash.

[BigWillyStyle]

Oops. Beg your pardon AuxBatOn. My mistake.

[Gear Jerker]

Thanks for your informative and generous posts BigWillyStyle. It's great to have an actual subject matter expert to cut through some of the BS.

[DanWEC]

Not to change the subject, but it's absolutely hilarious how circular these threads can be once they get a few pages deep.

There should be a "I have read and understood this post" checkbox at the bottom of each and every post that must be clicked before someone can make a "new" comment.

[cncpc]

Thanks for your informative and generous posts BigWillyStyle. It's great to have an actual subject matter expert to cut through some of the BS.

Very true, but still, you can't help but wonder if that is him in the avatar picture.

[BigWillyStyle]

I am happy to provide perspective in an area of expertise for the benefit of people lacking the training. I don't see it as cutting through the BS per se, rather helping people out with a field of study that can be very terminology-dense, and frankly, the fine details of death and dying are not for everyone.

And my avatar is definitely me, Doc can verify. Everything else he might say about me, I will deny.

[iflyforpie]

Again thanks for that very informative post, BigWillyStyle.

But I wonder if anyone can shed light on how a chronic alcoholic could pass a Cat 1 medical each year without any flags going up? I would imagine that alcoholism would fall into a very grey area unlike diabetes, vision, blood pressure, and obvious physical injuries or disabilities where there are clear standards in place.... Perhaps doctors are unwilling to risk the pilot's careers and their reputations if they manage to pass the exam?

While there were other very big issues that would have resulted in grounding had he been a pilot, the chronic condition of the Engineer in the Hinton Train Collision comes to mind.

[BigWillyStyle]

Much of the damage from chronic alcoholism remains low key for years, sometimes decades. The Carson Air pilot was only 34, so it's entirely possible that nothing was obvious. (Assuming that the current narrative is borne out by the evidence) The alcohol intake question can of course be lied about, and if there is no contradictory objective data at the disposal of the MD, then that box gets checked as good. Alcoholism wouldn't show up to any great extent in blood pressure, lung auscultation, urinalysis, eyesight, ECG, and so on. If a full blood lab panel was mandatory for every Cat 1, then we might see some interesting repercussions. If I was making the rules, I would tighten up the Cat 1 criteria, and add lab values, and a cardiac stress test. That said, other people might ask how many accidents have been caused by medical problems cropping up in flight, and I would have to concede that it's a very small number. How many accidents directly attributable to alcohol? Good question. I can't see TC taking it upon themselves to mandate breathalyzer ignition interlocks in every plane, but I can see increased policy (shocker) coming out of this accident.

I've been through ridiculously brief Cat 1 medicals. I'm not sure if I should take it as a compliment, or just assume that TC doesn't pay MDs enough to justify them taking a whole bunch of extra time.

If we really want to go down the rabbit hole, how about alcoholism as an addiction, therefore a diagnosable medical condition, therefore not the person's fault, therefore any disciplinary action could be grounds for discrimination....hoo boy. How does one maintain medical confidentiality when AMEs install a booze interlock on only some planes? It would have to be all or nothing. How do operators ensure the safety of the public while protecting the medical confidentiality of the crew members?

With this accident, and the 'suicide by airplane' in Europe a few months back, we are in for some tough regulatory moves in the near future.