Record-setting young pilot dies at 26

On 2008-03-20 08:37:35 -0700, Dudley Henriques said:

I can only hope that those who perpetrated the events that led to this
young lady's ultimate decision to take her life have learned an
extremely painful lesson and that those parents who come after ths
event learn as well from this tragedy.

When pigs fly. Parents like this think they are immune.
--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
news:200803212344418930-christophercampbell@hotmailcom...
On 2008-03-20 08:37:35 -0700, Dudley Henriques said:

I can only hope that those who perpetrated the events that led to this young lady's ultimate decision to take her
life have learned an extremely painful lesson and that those parents who come after ths event learn as well from this
tragedy.

When pigs fly. Parents like this think they are immune.
--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor



The parent's delusion continues ""We will miss her dearly, but we are very, very aware that she is doing important work
somewhere else right now."

On Mar 21, 8:39*pm, WJRFlyBoy wrote:
On Thu, 20 Mar 2008 20:11:51 -0700 (PDT), Phil J wrote:
It's a tough issue, and I can see both sides of it. *I am glad that
there are studies underway to try to really determine whether or not
these drugs have effects relevant to flying. *Given the social stigmas
about psychological problems, I suspect the FAA is a little more
likely to reject these drugs than other types of medication. *What we
need is some objective studies so we know what we are really dealing
with.

Phil

Phil, scientifically, clinically qualified and controlled studies, with
citations, I don't see it happening. Sadly.


That would be a good idea, and something like that should happen.
That said, I think it would probably be fairly easy to test things
like reaction time and hand-eye coordination of people on anti-
depressants. But how do you test the effect of these drugs on pilot
judgment? For that matter, how do you test any drug's impact on pilot
judgment? I suspect that there are plenty of medications approved for
pilots where no research has been done on the drug's overall impact on
flying. But for drugs unrelated to psychological conditions, the FAA
is probably less likely to consider the drug a problem. Without real
data, it's just guesswork.

Maybe looking at the accident statistics in countries where anti-
depressants aren't outlawed for pilots is the right way to go. There
you get evidence of the overall effect of these drugs on flying.

Phil

Phil J wrote:
On Mar 21, 8:39 pm, WJRFlyBoy wrote:
On Thu, 20 Mar 2008 20:11:51 -0700 (PDT), Phil J wrote:
It's a tough issue, and I can see both sides of it. I am glad that
there are studies underway to try to really determine whether or not
these drugs have effects relevant to flying. Given the social stigmas
about psychological problems, I suspect the FAA is a little more
likely to reject these drugs than other types of medication. What we
need is some objective studies so we know what we are really dealing
with.
Phil
Phil, scientifically, clinically qualified and controlled studies, with
citations, I don't see it happening. Sadly.


That would be a good idea, and something like that should happen.
That said, I think it would probably be fairly easy to test things
like reaction time and hand-eye coordination of people on anti-
depressants. But how do you test the effect of these drugs on pilot
judgment? For that matter, how do you test any drug's impact on pilot
judgment? I suspect that there are plenty of medications approved for
pilots where no research has been done on the drug's overall impact on
flying. But for drugs unrelated to psychological conditions, the FAA
is probably less likely to consider the drug a problem. Without real
data, it's just guesswork.

Maybe looking at the accident statistics in countries where anti-
depressants aren't outlawed for pilots is the right way to go. There
you get evidence of the overall effect of these drugs on flying.

Phil

The real culprit in all this isn't the actual test data that can or
can't be obtained unfortunately.
In the United States, we have a legal system built up by lawyers that
over shadow everything even remotely connected with a pilot's health.
The ever present threat of tremendous lawsuits against operators who can
be shown to have allowed a pilot to continue flying while under ANY
medication has and will continue to cause pilots, especially
professional pilots to go underground for needed treatment and medication.
This is a highly dangerous situation. The rub in it is that it isn't the
actual effect of a medication that causes this fear in both pilots and
operators hiring them. It's the ability of the lawyers to SELL a jury
that dictates the fear.
Lawyers in the United States have in my opinion made flying less safe
than it could be through this intimidation of the industry. Pilots who
could be treated and medicated and allowed down time with no penalty are
in many cases keeping quiet rather than risk potential career ending
actions.

--
Dudley Henriques

On Sat, 22 Mar 2008 13:07:10 -0400, Dudley Henriques wrote:

Maybe looking at the accident statistics in countries where anti-
depressants aren't outlawed for pilots is the right way to go. There
you get evidence of the overall effect of these drugs on flying.

Phil

The real culprit in all this isn't the actual test data that can or
can't be obtained unfortunately.
In the United States, we have a legal system built up by lawyers that
over shadow everything even remotely connected with a pilot's health.
The ever present threat of tremendous lawsuits against operators who can
be shown to have allowed a pilot to continue flying while under ANY
medication has and will continue to cause pilots, especially
professional pilots to go underground for needed treatment and medication.
This is a highly dangerous situation. The rub in it is that it isn't the
actual effect of a medication that causes this fear in both pilots and
operators hiring them. It's the ability of the lawyers to SELL a jury
that dictates the fear.
Lawyers in the United States have in my opinion made flying less safe
than it could be through this intimidation of the industry. Pilots who
could be treated and medicated and allowed down time with no penalty are
in many cases keeping quiet rather than risk potential career ending
actions.

--
Dudley Henriques

Beat me to it, Dudley. part of the reason we see prescriptions with "do
not handle heavy machinery" or some such disclaimer.

WJRFlyBoy wrote:
On Sat, 22 Mar 2008 13:07:10 -0400, Dudley Henriques wrote:

Maybe looking at the accident statistics in countries where anti-
depressants aren't outlawed for pilots is the right way to go. There
you get evidence of the overall effect of these drugs on flying.

Phil
The real culprit in all this isn't the actual test data that can or
can't be obtained unfortunately.
In the United States, we have a legal system built up by lawyers that
over shadow everything even remotely connected with a pilot's health.
The ever present threat of tremendous lawsuits against operators who can
be shown to have allowed a pilot to continue flying while under ANY
medication has and will continue to cause pilots, especially
professional pilots to go underground for needed treatment and medication.
This is a highly dangerous situation. The rub in it is that it isn't the
actual effect of a medication that causes this fear in both pilots and
operators hiring them. It's the ability of the lawyers to SELL a jury
that dictates the fear.
Lawyers in the United States have in my opinion made flying less safe
than it could be through this intimidation of the industry. Pilots who
could be treated and medicated and allowed down time with no penalty are
in many cases keeping quiet rather than risk potential career ending
actions.

--
Dudley Henriques

Beat me to it, Dudley. part of the reason we see prescriptions with "do
not handle heavy machinery" or some such disclaimer.
I was in a paint store once and read the label on a can of paint. It
said; "Do not take internally".
What REALLY bothers me is that the guy they wrote this for nullifies my
vote! :-))

--
Dudley Henriques

The standard for negligence is conduct which an "ordinary reasonable man"
would or would not do under similar circumstances. There are some nuances
which might apply to the violation of a legislative or administrative
standard which might apply, but that was historically the standard. The
problem is that conduct is not judged on the reasonable man standard, but
whether anyone could possibly think of a better way, which is almost always
the case given the benefit of years of hindsight. If we adopted the
original intent, with respect to everything from our founding documents to
common law negligence, we might be able to end the tyranny of endless
legislating and lawyering.

Lawyers in the United States have in my opinion made flying less safe than
it could be through this intimidation of the industry. Pilots who could be
treated and medicated and allowed down time with no penalty are in many
cases keeping quiet rather than risk potential career ending actions.

--
Dudley Henriques

LWG wrote:
The standard for negligence is conduct which an "ordinary reasonable man"
would or would not do under similar circumstances. There are some nuances
which might apply to the violation of a legislative or administrative
standard which might apply, but that was historically the standard. The
problem is that conduct is not judged on the reasonable man standard, but
whether anyone could possibly think of a better way, which is almost always
the case given the benefit of years of hindsight. If we adopted the
original intent, with respect to everything from our founding documents to
common law negligence, we might be able to end the tyranny of endless
legislating and lawyering.

Lawyers in the United States have in my opinion made flying less safe than
it could be through this intimidation of the industry. Pilots who could be
treated and medicated and allowed down time with no penalty are in many
cases keeping quiet rather than risk potential career ending actions.

--
Dudley Henriques



In the world created by lawyers that we live in today in the United
States, there need be no negligence. In fact, there need be no just
cause for litigation whatsoever for litigation to take place.

All that is needed for the American lawyer to initiate litigation is
opportunity. From that point on, the game is played out through
intimidation, collusion, and extortion toward those targeted. The target
being thus threatened, must hire lawyers to defend. It's a feeding
frenzy for the lawyers.

This simply completes the "pre-trial" phase for the modern American lawyer.

If that doesn't fill their pockets with gold, they go to court. At that
point, it's nothing more than a sales job on the juries. The lawyers who
are the best salesman are the most successful.

The above has become so prevalent in America, that to continue
projecting the concept of justice and fair play into the American legal
discussion may very well be naive.



--
Dudley Henriques

On Sat, 22 Mar 2008 20:40:47 -0400, Dudley Henriques wrote:

The real culprit in all this isn't the actual test data that can or
can't be obtained unfortunately.
In the United States, we have a legal system built up by lawyers that
over shadow everything even remotely connected with a pilot's health.
The ever present threat of tremendous lawsuits against operators who can
be shown to have allowed a pilot to continue flying while under ANY
medication has and will continue to cause pilots, especially
professional pilots to go underground for needed treatment and medication.
This is a highly dangerous situation. The rub in it is that it isn't the
actual effect of a medication that causes this fear in both pilots and
operators hiring them. It's the ability of the lawyers to SELL a jury
that dictates the fear.
Lawyers in the United States have in my opinion made flying less safe
than it could be through this intimidation of the industry. Pilots who
could be treated and medicated and allowed down time with no penalty are
in many cases keeping quiet rather than risk potential career ending
actions.

--
Dudley Henriques

Beat me to it, Dudley. part of the reason we see prescriptions with "do
not handle heavy machinery" or some such disclaimer.
I was in a paint store once and read the label on a can of paint. It
said; "Do not take internally".
What REALLY bothers me is that the guy they wrote this for nullifies my
vote! :-))

OK, I stole that line. Send me your copyright bill.

WJRFlyBoy wrote:
On Sat, 22 Mar 2008 20:40:47 -0400, Dudley Henriques wrote:

The real culprit in all this isn't the actual test data that can or
can't be obtained unfortunately.
In the United States, we have a legal system built up by lawyers that
over shadow everything even remotely connected with a pilot's health.
The ever present threat of tremendous lawsuits against operators who can
be shown to have allowed a pilot to continue flying while under ANY
medication has and will continue to cause pilots, especially
professional pilots to go underground for needed treatment and medication.
This is a highly dangerous situation. The rub in it is that it isn't the
actual effect of a medication that causes this fear in both pilots and
operators hiring them. It's the ability of the lawyers to SELL a jury
that dictates the fear.
Lawyers in the United States have in my opinion made flying less safe
than it could be through this intimidation of the industry. Pilots who
could be treated and medicated and allowed down time with no penalty are
in many cases keeping quiet rather than risk potential career ending
actions.

--
Dudley Henriques
Beat me to it, Dudley. part of the reason we see prescriptions with "do
not handle heavy machinery" or some such disclaimer.
I was in a paint store once and read the label on a can of paint. It
said; "Do not take internally".
What REALLY bothers me is that the guy they wrote this for nullifies my
vote! :-))

OK, I stole that line. Send me your copyright bill.

I'd rather give it to you than involve a lawyer. All that would mean is
that neither one of us would own the line. The lawyer would have it! :-)

--
Dudley Henriques