Skywest crew caught drinking, not thinking

I don't know if they FAA can charge them with any FAR violation. The GOM is more of policy, drinking isn't covered in the opspecs. I've seen in the past where the FAA has deferred to the company for discipline and if the FAA agreed with that is all that was done to the pilot. The company most likely will try to fire them to appease the public and send a message to the pilot and FA group.

It will be interesting to see if the union can save their jobs.

I know a pilot that was fired during a probationary period for simply having alcohol in roller board.

At least the captain was smart here and didn't even associate with them. I wonder what the company would have done if he knew about them drinking and said nothing....
 
Not to be confused with justification of drinking too much before flying, but it from this it seems like they opened their mouths way too much without a lawyer or representative of some kind (not talking about the non-union thing although I'm sure they'd be willing to have paid some union dues before this situation). Maybe it's just the way the article is written or maybe not.
 
*shrug* I believe in rules that are black and white. If the regs say don't drink for eight hours before flying, I don't drink for eight hours before flying. If the GOM says don't drink for 12 hours before flying, I don't drink for 12 hours before flying. If the Feds or my company told me not to drink for 48 hours before flying, I'd do that too, or find another job. But these rules that aren't really rules rub me the wrong way extremely. Tell me, when I take the job, what's expected of me. I'll do it, or I'll quit. But don't come at me with "discredit to the company" when the goalposts weren't sighted at the git go. What I do in my off time is my business, and no one else's. So if these people didn't break any FARs, and they were within their GOM's strictures, why are we even having this discussion? If they weren't, and it can be proven, well...why are we even having this discussion?
 
dasleben said:
Not many people know this about me, but I lost a parent in 2008 due to alcohol abuse. I do have fun here and there, but if it gets too out of hand I pull back and walk away from the situation. Sometimes people need to do exactly that, no matter how boring the alternative is. The consequences are simply not worth it.
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Agree 100%. I lost my mom in 2002 (less than two months after my 16th birthday) due to acute liver failure from a lifetime of alcoholism. I'm a stickler when it comes to alcohol abuse.

It is never worth it.
 
A Life Aloft said:
"Police were called to Bemidji Regional Airport at 5:19 a.m. Thursday after Hampton Inn and Suites employees contacted the airport and said the flight staff had been drinking there and that they could smell alcohol on them, according to a police incident report. Airport employees could smell alcohol on the flight staff as well, according to the police report.

The co-pilot told police that he began drinking at the Hampton Inn and Suites bar at about noon Wednesday and stopped between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. that night, according to the police report. He said he only had four 12-ounce cans of beer, although he admitted it was probably more after the responding officer questioned that claim based on a sobriety test.

The attendant told police she had four glasses of wine between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. Wednesday at the hotel bar."

I don't care if your overnight is in the middle of bejebus help me nowhere. If you feel like the only productive thing that you can do to pass the time is to sit at a bar and drink from 4 to 7 hours when you know you have to report for duty early next morning, and work in an industry with very strict regulations, where every move you make is under a magnifying glass and in a career in which you spent a small fortune and many years to obtain, then you have bigger problems than you are obviously aware of and need a reality check.
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So says the guy with an alcoholic dog as an avatar. ;)

Really though, They land and get to the hotel around lunch time. Have a couple of beers with lunch, that could be two hours easy. Now its around 2pm, and you have 2 more beers. Now its about 4pm and you decide to order dinner and have a beer while you wait on it. 30 minutes later you get your food and finish your beer and order one more while you eat/finish up.

Thats about six beers over six hours with almost 12 hours between the last beer and duty time. The body, on average will process about 1 drink an hour. Theres no reason why these guys should have even been suspected. My guess is someone probably got pissed at them, or they mouthed off, or simply saw a flight crew drinking and got hyper sensitive.

I guess if you work for an airline, dont drink at the hotel bar, or don't show up in uniform, or don't try and brag about what you do. This stuff isn't really that complicated. Just dont be a social autistic.
 
Boris Badenov said:
So if these people didn't break any FARs, and they were within their GOM's strictures, why are we even having this discussion? If they weren't, and it can be proven, well...why are we even having this discussion?
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That's what I'm trying to figure out. Why is this even news?
 
cmill said:
I guess if you work for an airline, dont drink at the hotel bar, or don't show up in uniform, or don't try and brag about what you do. This stuff isn't really that complicated. Just dont be a social autistic.
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This is a pretty good takeaway from the whole mess. Cheers, sir! Shirley Temples, natch.
 
My dog is holding a cup of steaming coffee.

I'd like to know why anyone has to have two beers with lunch, then another two beers just for the hell of it, and then another two beers with dinner all in the same day. Is there a shortage of other beverages available? Now we are so desperate to justify drinking and the amounts that we drink while on working trips, that we are down to counting the amount of alcohol, our body weight, how much food we eat, the length of time, how quickly it might all metabolize etc., all in a quest to convince ourselves that what and how much we are drinking, while we are on a work schedule, away from home and not off at home, is okay. Really?

We are now even assuming that "someone had it out for them", or "that they must have bragged about drinking" or any other plethora of more ridiculous scenarios. Maybe the FO bitched at the van driver too and he turned him in or a horny business man was tuned down by the FA in the bar and he's the culprit. Let's just do whatever it takes to deflect from the real issue/point. Good grief.
 
A Life Aloft said:
Now we are so desperate to justify drinking and the amounts that we drink while on working trips?
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Woah, stop right there, cowboy. Who's trying to justify anything to you? And why should they be? I've seen dudes at a bar give a teetotaler a ration of poop over not drinking, and I find that just as offensive as someone giving me poop over what I choose (or don't, in many cases) to imbibe when it's within the strictures of the Law to do so. How bout you mind your business and I'll mind mine, and everybody just goes right along living their lives and figuring out what those lives mean and how they should be lived at their own pace?
 
cmill said:
So says the guy with an alcoholic dog as an avatar. ;)

Really though, They land and get to the hotel around lunch time. Have a couple of beers with lunch, that could be two hours easy. Now its around 2pm, and you have 2 more beers. Now its about 4pm and you decide to order dinner and have a beer while you wait on it. 30 minutes later you get your food and finish your beer and order one more while you eat/finish up.

Thats about six beers over six hours with almost 12 hours between the last beer and duty time. The body, on average will process about 1 drink an hour. Theres no reason why these guys should have even been suspected. My guess is someone probably got pissed at them, or they mouthed off, or simply saw a flight crew drinking and got hyper sensitive.

I guess if you work for an airline, dont drink at the hotel bar, or don't show up in uniform, or don't try and brag about what you do. This stuff isn't really that complicated. Just dont be a social autistic.
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If hotel, and airport staff could smell alcohol on them, they were freaking • trashed the night before. Sorry, I have had my share of alcohol. For me to smell like booze after a shower and brushing my teeth means I partied my ass off until blackout. And even then I would be shocked if I stunk of booze.

Even on the off chance you had more than 6 beers in a 12 hour period, the body shows BAC differently depending on body mass. They still might have been legal when they blew. More importantly, 6-8 beers in a 12 hour period wouldn't produce 2 stinky pilots unless they didn't shower. And if they didn't shower, they deserve to burn in hell for being dumb and stinky.
 
A Life Aloft said:
My dog is holding a cup of steaming coffee.

I'd like to know why anyone has to have two beers with lunch, then another two beers just for the hell of it, and then another two beers with dinner all in the same day. Is there a shortage of other beverages available? Now we are so desperate to justify drinking and the amounts that we drink while on working trips, that we are down to counting the amount of alcohol, our body weight, how much food we eat, the length of time, how quickly it might all metabolize etc., all in a quest to convince ourselves that what and how much we are drinking, while we are on a work schedule, away from home and not off at home, is okay. Really?

We are now even assuming that "someone had it out for them", or "that they must have bragged about drinking" or any other plethora of more ridiculous scenarios. Good grief.
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Because some people enjoy it? I mean, I really don't know what you're asking. I was just pointing out a situation where the crew could have been completely legal. I understand if you dont agree with certain actions, but theres no reason to go after people whose actions are completely legal.
 
Alcohol abuse is alcohol abuse, but correct me if I'm wrong, drinking 12 hours ago and blowing less than .04 does not usually result in "smelling of alcohol." There has to be more to this.
 
Boris Badenov said:
Woah, stop right there, cowboy. Who's trying to justify anything to you? And why should they be? I've seen dudes at a bar give a teetotaler a ration of poop over not drinking, and I find that just as offensive as someone giving me poop over what I choose (or don't, in many cases) to imbibe when it's within the strictures of the Law to do so. How bout you mind your business and I'll mind mine, and everybody just goes right along living their lives and figuring out what those lives mean and how they should be lived at their own pace?
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I wonder if that FO and that FA believed the same thing and had that same philosophy. How's that working out for them right about now?
 
A Life Aloft said:
I wonder if that FO and that FA believed the same thing and had that same philosophy. How's that working out for them right about now?
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Which part? Are you suggesting that if they had worried more about what you thought they ought to be doing, they'd be doing better? I'm confused. You might have noted when reading what I wrote (which I'm sure you did) that I said "within the Law". IF they were outside of the Law, well, they brought it on themselves, obviously. But you seem to be suggesting a much broader, yet rather amorphous, set of strictures on drinking and the appropriateness thereof. The only solid thing I can find in it is your opinion of what constitutes "wrong". And your opinion just doesn't interest me that much.
 
Inverted said:
If hotel, and airport staff could smell alcohol on them, they were freaking trashed the night before. Sorry, I have had my share of alcohol. For me to smell like booze after a shower and brushing my teeth means I partied my ass off until blackout.

Even on the off chance you had more than 6 beers in a 12 hour period, the body shows BAC differently depending on body mass. They still might have been legal when they blew. More importantly, 6-8 beers in a 12 hour period wouldn't produce 2 stinky pilots unless they didn't shower. And if they didn't shower, they deserve to burn in hell for being dumb and stinky.
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Doesn't matter, they passed the only sniff test that mattered: the breathalyzer. The only people that "smelled" the booze in the first place was the hotel staff. All im saying is, how do you know that they smelled of anything in the first place?

I can't believe how quickly people are willing to throw their own under the bus for the word of a minimum wage hotel worker, EVEN AFTER a test has proven them innocent. WTF is wrong with you guys?
 
cmill said:
Doesn't matter, they passed the only sniff test that mattered: the breathalyzer. The only people that "smelled" the booze in the first place was the hotel staff.
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"Airport employees could smell alcohol on the flight staff as well, according to the police report."
 
cmill said:
I can't believe how quickly people are willing to throw their own under the bus for the word of a minimum wage hotel worker, EVEN AFTER a test has proven them innocent. WTF is wrong with you guys?
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Innocent? They blew well over company limits, and they smelled enough of alcohol that they aroused attention in uniform. Nothing innocent about it.

Also, 6 beers in normal afternoon is...well, whatever. I won't go into it.
 
cmill said:
Doesn't matter, they passed the only sniff test that mattered: the breathalyzer. The only people that "smelled" the booze in the first place was the hotel staff. All im saying is, how do you know that they smelled of anything in the first place?

I can't believe how quickly people are willing to throw their own under the bus for the word of a minimum wage hotel worker, EVEN AFTER a test has proven them innocent. WTF is wrong with you guys?
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Dude I am on your side. What I am saying, is that if they were legal by the blow test, then they probably DIDN'T stink of booze. But to stink of booze you have to have consumed a bunch of alcohol.
 
Again, why is this a multi-page thread? They were legal or they weren't. End of story. If they broke the Law, they burn, and I won't be crying for them. If they didn't break the Law, wtf are we talking about?
 
I've never seen in the FARs where smelling like alcohol was a violation. Are you both somehow suggesting that the crew tricked a BAC test, or that mormon air is covering it up? If thats the case, then lets get Qutch in here.

I respect you dasleben but it frankly isnt your business what someone does on an overnight if it's legal.
 
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