Impaired Pilots

There's a local pilot that has a disability. His speech is affected by it.
Dave
68 7ECA

Jay Honeck wrote:

On a flight to Galesburg, IL last week, we were utilizing Quad Cities
Approach for VFR flight following. Being a Thursday morning, we
pretty much had the airwaves to ourselves, with the exception of a
Cirrus driver who was coming in to land in the Quad Cities.

The first call we heard from our Cirrus pilot was him asking approach
if he was "headed in the right direction for Rwy 5?" What caught our
attention, aside from the non-standard radio lingo, was the fact that
he was doing a PERFECT Truman-Capote-on-qualudes immitation.

This seemed a bit odd, but the controller cooly assigned a vector to
the pilot -- to which the Cirrus pilot slowly and way too deliberately
responded "Raaaahger, come to a heading of threeee waaaaaahn
zeeeeerrrroo, Ceeeerrrusss November XXXX..."

Mary and I started laughing, thinking that the guy surely must know
the approach controller, or something. It wasn't a southern accent
the guy was using, but rather a Robin-Williams-pretending-to-be-stoned
voice, with that added little Capote-ish lilt that absolutely NO ONE
could be using in a natural way.

With no witty response forthcoming from our severely under-worked
controller, however, we started to suspect that perhaps our Cirrus
driver wasn't playing with a full deck.

Then, at the next call, our hapless pilot, sounding like a cross
between Huckleberry Hound Dog and Foster Brooks, announced waaaay too
slowly and deliberately that he "haadd the aiiirporrrrt in sight, and
woulld like vectors to Runway 5."

By now it seemed pretty clear that (a) the guy didn't know which
direction Rwy 5 faced, and that (b) he was impaired in some fashion.

The fact that he was flying a $300K airplane seemed to eliminate the
possibility that he was just a nervous student flying into controlled
airspace for the first time, but I suppose it's possible.

The last call we heard was ATC switching him over to tower, to which
he again responded in a sleepy, slurred, non-standard way. We just
shrugged, and proceeded on to our destination.

The episode brought a few questions to mind:

1. When does a controller assume that a pilot is impaired? What
mis-steps are required, or what actions must be observed, for ATC to
presume impairment?

2. What would ATC actually *do* about it?

3. If I, or another pilot, witness an obviously impaired pilot, are we
legally (not morally, which I think is easily answered) required to
actually *do* anything about it?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

On Sat, 02 Oct 2004 11:56:23 -0400, dave
wrote:

There's a local pilot that has a disability. His speech is affected by it.
Dave
68 7ECA

snipped Jay's message....

I've heard that guy. In fact I hear him almost every Sunday, usually
late in the afternoon. He sounds like he's about 95 years old. More
importantly than that, he sounds like someone that really loves
flying. He may sound impaired but you can "hear" him having fun when
he makes his calls. His radio calls are always accurate and
informative. I hope he can keep flying as long as he wants to. I
certainly hope that he is never grounded because someone doesn't like
the way that he sounds.
Rich Russell

I've seen him go up in C152. It's seems to be quite a struggle for him
to get into the airplane. You're absolutely right, he really does seem
to enjoy it. Good for him.
It doesn't seem fair to assume that someone is drunk because they don't
sound "normal".

Dave
68 7ECA

Richard Russell wrote:
On Sat, 02 Oct 2004 11:56:23 -0400, dave
wrote:


There's a local pilot that has a disability. His speech is affected by it.
Dave
68 7ECA


snipped Jay's message....

I've heard that guy. In fact I hear him almost every Sunday, usually
late in the afternoon. He sounds like he's about 95 years old. More
importantly than that, he sounds like someone that really loves
flying. He may sound impaired but you can "hear" him having fun when
he makes his calls. His radio calls are always accurate and
informative. I hope he can keep flying as long as he wants to. I
certainly hope that he is never grounded because someone doesn't like
the way that he sounds.
Rich Russell

I've seen him go up in C152. It's seems to be quite a struggle for him to
get into the airplane. You're absolutely right, he really does seem to
enjoy it. Good for him.
It doesn't seem fair to assume that someone is drunk because they don't
sound "normal".

So now the impaired guy we heard flying a Cirrus has morphed into a 95-year
old C152 pilot with a speech impediment?

Talk about thread drift!

;-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

No, just a pilot like you and me than has some physical handicaps that
limit his mobility and affect his speech. I actually enjoy seeing him
go flying although I haven't seen him in a few months.
Dave

Jay Honeck wrote:
I've seen him go up in C152. It's seems to be quite a struggle for him to
get into the airplane. You're absolutely right, he really does seem to
enjoy it. Good for him.
It doesn't seem fair to assume that someone is drunk because they don't
sound "normal".


So now the impaired guy we heard flying a Cirrus has morphed into a 95-year
old C152 pilot with a speech impediment?

Talk about thread drift!

;-)

No, just a pilot like you and me than has some physical handicaps that
limit his mobility and affect his speech. I actually enjoy seeing him go
flying although I haven't seen him in a few months.

I've got nothing against someone like that flying at all. More power to
him.

But that's not the guy I was talking about. Thus, my comment about "thread
drift"...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

On Wed, 06 Oct 2004 15:03:22 GMT, "Jay Honeck"
wrote:

No, just a pilot like you and me than has some physical handicaps that
limit his mobility and affect his speech. I actually enjoy seeing him go
flying although I haven't seen him in a few months.

I've got nothing against someone like that flying at all. More power to
him.

But that's not the guy I was talking about. Thus, my comment about "thread
drift"...


It's not thread drift because the point is that you don't know the guy
in the Cirrus. The point is that for all you know, his situation may
(or may not) be similar in some way to the old guy. We just don't
know.
Rich Russell