Drunk-flying case back before the judge; other legal and legislative actions continue

You know how a guy can think, after a few drinks, that a really dumb idea is actually a smart idea? John Salamone sure does.

Salamone, 44, of Pottstown (PA) is back in the news. He has filed an appeal to his sentence for a drunk-flying incident that made a national splash last year -- fortunately, a splash of news, not a splash of airplane parts and pieces. Indeed, the commercial-rated pilot has been in the news more or less continuously since January 15, 2004, when he took an ill-advised four-hour joyride in his Piper Cherokee. Salamone wandered in and out of the Philadelphia Class B airspace, causing frantic controllers to divert airliners for safety's sake.

The next thing they knew, they were diving for cover as Salamone buzzed the tower. He also buzzed a nuclear power plant. Someone must have thought, "that pilot is flying like he's drunk," before he managed to land the plane in Pottstown and stumble into the arms of police, who quickly determined why he was flying like he was drunk -- he was.

Salamone's blood-alcohol content was .13, and he also had Valium, a prescription depressant, in his bloodstream. Valium combines with alcohol to magnify the effects produced by either drug alone, and is customarily prescribed with a warning against consuming alcohol, driving or operating machinery. It is unclear whether he kept drinking on the four-hour flight, or whether his bloodstream toxins represent his condition after four hours of detoxification.

That he could land the plane in that state was nothing short of miraculous. That he took off in that state is nothing short of idiotic. Or, as the Pennsylvania authorities prefer to say, "criminal."  (When my instructor told me a good landing was "any landing you can walk away from," I did not realize that the alternative was to be hauled off in a paddy wagon - KO).

Salamone, who is listed as president of J. Vincent Concrete Contractors, Inc. in Pottstown (PA),  admits he has "a drinking problem." If this incident did not clue him in, perhaps it was one of his two terrestrial drunk-driving convictions or twenty driving license suspensions, one of which wound up continuing for thirteen years. These facts make us wonder why the Pennsylvania DOT did not do its job and inform the FAA of the convictions and suspensions.

Salamone is presently in prison, where he is serving a six to twenty-three month sentence, to be followed by five years of probation, a $2,500 fine, and mandatory alcohol-abuse treatment. He is likely to be out on work-release soon. But he probably will not be flying.

The Cherokee, none the worse for the flight, was sold by the county, which is fighting to retain the $34,000 proceeds under laws that allow for the seizure of assets used in crime. That decision will be made by the same Montgomery County (PA) judge who presided over Salamone's criminal trial.

Even if Salamone succeeds in his appeal, his flying days are likely over. He violated some of the chunks of FAR 91 that the FAA takes most seriously, and apparently was not exactly leveling with his medical examiner about his alcohol history, if in fact he had a medical in the first palce. Currently, the FAA Airmen Registry shows him as having a Commercial Pilot certificate but no medical, but then again the medical certificate info is probably current.

The Salamone incident led Pennsylvania legislators to pass a strict bill against drunken flying -- Salamone's conviction was for "reckless endangerment" and "risking a catastrophe." Governor Ed Rendell, who is not a pilot, vetoed the bill, but legislators will try again this year.

FMI: www.alcoholics-anonymous.org, www.jvincentconcrete.com/sys-tmpl/door/