According to Dutch newspaper ( https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/klm-piloot ... ~aceffecc/ ) a KLM pilot is arrested at Oslo airport for intoxication while he was preparing to fly back to the Netherlands.
According to Norwegian law he will be held in custody for at least 2 weeks.,
No further information regarding the alcohol level is made public at this time. ( Norway has a zero tolerance for alcohol)
This could be a career ending experience for him.

Out of curiosity, do European regulators have the same 0.02% limit as the FAA?

Is it a worldwide standard? Stricter in any places?

I guess the word „pilot“ is missing in the headline...

What, the whole airline?

LAX772LR wrote:

Out of curiosity, do European regulators have the same 0.02% limit as the FAA?

Is it a worldwide standard? Stricter in any places?

For Sweden, this applies (international (EU?) rules first):

Alcohol consumption may not occur during flight.
Alcohol consumption must not take place 8 hours or later before flight.
Between 24 hours and 8 hours prior to flight, caution should be exercised regarding alcohol consumption.
8 hours before flight, the pilot must be able to drive a car without violating Swedish traffic legislation.
The last point is a Swedish supplement.

The limit in Sweden is a blood alcohol concentration of 0.2 promille (0.02 %), both for driving and flying. You basically have to be sober 8 hours before flying.

/Fredrik

FredrikHAD wrote:

LAX772LR wrote:

Out of curiosity, do European regulators have the same 0.02% limit as the FAA?

Is it a worldwide standard? Stricter in any places?

For Sweden, this applies (international (EU?) rules first):

Alcohol consumption may not occur during flight.
Alcohol consumption must not take place 8 hours or later before flight.
Between 24 hours and 8 hours prior to flight, caution should be exercised regarding alcohol consumption.
8 hours before flight, the pilot must be able to drive a car without violating Swedish traffic legislation.
The last point is a Swedish supplement.

The limit in Sweden is a blood alcohol concentration of 0.2 promille (0.02 %), both for driving and flying. You basically have to be sober 8 hours before flying.

/Fredrik

Does Norway have the same regulations as Oslo is in Norway.

At €12 for a pint of beer I am surprised any pilot can afford to be intoxicated, allegedly.

thaiflyer wrote:

According to Dutch newspaper ( https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/klm-piloot ... ~aceffecc/ ) a KLM pilot is arrested at Oslo airport for intoxication while he was preparing to fly back to the Netherlands.
According to Norwegian law he will be held in custody for at least 2 weeks.,
No further information regarding the alcohol level is made public at this time. ( Norway has a zero tolerance for alcohol)
This could be a career ending experience for him.

I would think that KLM would offer him a rehab course, and if he accepts and completes it, he'll get a second chance.

The original Norwegian article mentions the pilot has appealed and also that the alcohol level was low but over the Norwegian limit. Norway has quite strict rules regarding alcohol, for example, in the Netherlands experienced drivers may still drive with up to 0,5 promille (0,05%) while in Norway (and some other Scandinavian countries) this is 0,2 promille (0,02%). It would not surprise me if the level was low enough to fly with in other countries but exceeding the Norwegian limit.

Some of the Scandinavian countries have or have had significant problems with alcoholism and drunk driving. It is one reason for quite strict/draconian alcohol intake laws. I used to work in some small Swedish towns above the Arctic Circle and especially during winter when the nights are loooooong, there are articles about a drunk driver crashing and taking a few friends along with them in the newspaper fairly regularly (in my experience). Further down South it was a bit less but the amounts of alcohol consumed and people then hopping in a car to drive home were staggering, to me at least.

intrance wrote:

Some of the Scandinavian countries have or have had significant problems with alcoholism and drunk driving. It is one reason for quite strict/draconian alcohol intake laws. I used to work in some small Swedish towns above the Arctic Circle and especially during winter when the nights are loooooong, there are articles about a drunk driver crashing and taking a few friends along with them in the newspaper fairly regularly (in my experience). Further down South it was a bit less but the amounts of alcohol consumed and people then hopping in a car to drive home were staggering, to me at least.

It sure is a problem with drunk drivers, but probably not to a wider extent than most other countries. For general deaths in traffic (not necessarily alcohol related), Sweden is only beaten by Norway if you weigh all statistics (per capita, per car, per travelled distance). Other Nordic countries score high as well, followed by the Netherlands and then Germany (of the more prominent countries). The US has way worse statistics in terms of deaths in traffic. Have a look at this page for more info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... death_rate

Your experience with fatal crashes related to intoxicated drivers is of course relevant and I'd be the first to report a drunk driver (have done so on several occasions). Perhaps such news get more publicity in the north of Sweden as it's an extremely sparsely populated area and when a kid from the village dies in a car crash, it gets in the paper and everyone knows about it. It's a catastrophe every time.

Alcohol rules for most countries (land traffic related):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunk_dri ... by_country

Relating to the actual thread, I think the Norwegian rules permit 0.02% when you start the flight, but other Nordic countries require 0.02% 8 hours before flight. That could mean that you can legally take off in Oslo with 0.02% to, say Arlanda, but cannot legally depart from Arlanda 2 hours later.

/Fredrik

Was he "drunk" as in he was leaving a trail of alcohol smell as he was walking erratically, or what this is really is a confusion with blood alcohol limits in different countries?

AR385 wrote:

Was he "drunk" as in he was leaving a trail of alcohol smell as he was walking erratically, or what this is really is a confusion with blood alcohol limits in different countries?

According to https://www.hangar.no/klm-pilot-nekter- ... ardermoen/ (Norwegian) he was slightly over.

In the article in the OP it says:

”Hij had 0,9 promille alcohol in zijn bloed. Het maximumgehalte voor piloten is 0,2 promille.”

I wouldn’t call 0.9 slightly over 0.2. He was drunk by most standards (assuming the article is correct). Assuming he was on a round trip, what condition was he in when departing AMS???

Do we know which flight this was? The one he was supposed to fly was bound for AMS according to the article.

Edit: KL1146 was delayed one hour on the 25th. Was that the flight? PH-EZZ did that and the previous three legs AMS-OSL-AMS. Would the same crew have flown all four legs? That would mean first take off at 7 and last landing at 16 with longest turn around being 40 minutes. It sure sounds like a really long day, considering 7 am was takeoff, not start of work.

/Fredrik

FredrikHAD wrote:

In the article in the OP it says:

”Hij had 0,9 promille alcohol in zijn bloed. Het maximumgehalte voor piloten is 0,2 promille.”

I wouldn’t call 0.9 slightly over 0.2. He was drunk by most standards (assuming the article is correct). Assuming he was on a round trip, what condition was he in when departing AMS???

Do we know which flight this was? The one he was supposed to fly was bound for AMS according to the article.

Edit: KL1146 was delayed one hour on the 25th. Was that the flight? PH-EZZ did that and the previous three legs AMS-OSL-AMS. Would the same crew have flown all four legs? That would mean first take off at 7 and last landing at 16 with longest turn around being 40 minutes. It sure sounds like a really long day, considering 7 am was takeoff, not start of work.

/Fredrik

How is the sample taken? Breath, urine, or blood?

Tugg

FredrikHAD wrote:

Edit: KL1146 was delayed one hour on the 25th. Was that the flight? PH-EZZ did that and the previous three legs AMS-OSL-AMS. Would the same crew have flown all four legs? That would mean first take off at 7 and last landing at 16 with longest turn around being 40 minutes. It sure sounds like a really long day, considering 7 am was takeoff, not start of work.
/Fredrik

Well, it would be very interesting how to become intoxicated after flying 3 segments: someone would have noticed on the flight deck.

It has to do with scheduling. KLM operates 6 daily flights AMS-OSL: 2 of them are on B737, 4 of them on Embraer. It's an Embraer that nightstops and looking at the schedules, it's probably the night stop pilot that it's about.

These are the four Embraer operated flights on AMS-OSL:

AMS-OSL
0700-0845 A
1150-1335 B
1650-1835 C
2050-2235 D

OSL-AMS
0630-0820 B
0920-1110 A
1405-1600 D
1920-2110 C

The aircraft that flies AMS-OSL 2050-2235 will fly back 0630-0820, but not with the same crew: their rest time would be too short.
So there are always 2 crews present in OSL during the night: the crew that arrives late, and the crew that leaves early.

The letters indicate the pairing:
* The crew B arriving at 1335 go to their hotel to fly the next morning 0630
* The crew D arriving at 2235 fly the next day 1405-1600

So if it was indeed the crew that was supposed to fly the 1405 flight back to AMS, it's someone who arrived the night before and this gives enough time to get intoxicated.

Now there is the question on how the solved it: my guess is that one of the cockpit crew of B that just arrived in Oslo was not yet on his/her maximum hours for the day, so was able to fly the PH-EZZ back home. And they they flew in a reserve pilot on a later flight from AMS to operate the early morning flight.

FredrikHAD wrote:

I wouldn’t call 0.9 slightly over 0.2. He was drunk by most standards (assuming the article is correct). Assuming he was on a round trip, what condition was he in when departing AMS???

Your quote is wrong. The article mentioned another case back in april.

LAX772LR wrote:

Out of curiosity, do European regulators have the same 0.02% limit as the FAA?

Is it a worldwide standard? Stricter in any places?

Isn't the FIA limit for motorsport zero?

76er, quite right, my quote was wrong. Sorry!

Tugger, in both Sweden and Norway a breathalyzer (Dräger) is used to establish if the person is likely to be intoxicated. In Sweden the police won’t even get a number from it, just ”positive” or ”negative”. In Norway they get a preliminary reading, which cannot be used in court. If the test is positive, the suspect is taken to a police station with an ”Evidencer” that measures the exact level, derived from the alcohol content in the breath. Sometimes a blood sample is taken instead, typically if the suspect refuses to use the Evidencer or is too intoxicated to be able to do it.

/Fredrik

FredrikHAD wrote:

76er, quite right, my quote was wrong. Sorry!

Tugger, in both Sweden and Norway a breathalyzer (Dräger) is used to establish if the person is likely to be intoxicated. In Sweden the police won’t even get a number from it, just ”positive” or ”negative”. In Norway they get a preliminary reading, which cannot be used in court. If the test is positive, the suspect is taken to a police station with an ”Evidencer” that measures the exact level, derived from the alcohol content in the breath. Sometimes a blood sample is taken instead, typically if the suspect refuses to use the Evidencer or is too intoxicated to be able to do it.

/Fredrik

Thank you for the information.

I must admit, knowing the fallibility of the breathalyzer process I would demand only blood testing. Breath simply has too much variability (even assuming the "Evidencer" has a carefully monitored and regularly calibrated breathalyzer). Hopefully no one ever provides a number to the public based on just preliminary test.

Tugg

Local news reported that KLM sacked the pilot. Judge ruled in favour of the airline. Local news source is At5.