Sheriff Points To High Blood Alcohol In CA UL Accident

The witnesses agreed that David Brian Lane, an aviation enthusiast known to his friends as "Flyin' Brian," climbed aboard his white and yellow Sky Raider ultralight and blasted into the sky. Lane did that almost every day. What they didn't understand was why the sturdy single-seat bush plane zoomed up 100 feet and then plunged into the ground, nose-first.

It was 4:26 on Sunday afternoon, and the 53-year-old man was dead, killed instantly in the crash.

The Sonoma County (CA) Sheriff's Department thinks they have the answer. Lane's blood alcohol was 0.25 percent, a level that usually signifies severe impairment and three times the legal limit for driving on most states' public roads. The Sheriff must investigate because the FAA does not investigate accidents to ultralight vehicles. The FAA's Bruce Nelson told the Associated Press that the FAA would assist the Sheriff's Office if requested, but would not take lead on the investigation.

The FAA serum alcohol limit is only 0.04 percent, and the FAA requires pilots to cease drinking no less than eight hours before flight, regardless of the amount they have had to drink, or the levels of intoxicants in their bloodstreams. Violating either prong of this rule usually brings emergency license revocation from the FAA -- at least, to survivors.

Some ultralight pilots assume that the FARs don't apply to them. In the case of the Part 91 rules about conduct in the air, they are wrong in this assumption.

Before Lane is condemned out of hand, it is important to bear in mind that ethanol in human blood or tissue samples is sometimes the product of the normal postmortem chemical breakdown process. FAA and NTSB aeromedical experts have a lot of experience with this, but it's hard to say whether a county medical examiner would.

Lane, 53, of Santa Rosa, was single and lived on the ranch owned by his family south of Santa Rosa, CA, taking care of his elderly father. According to the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat, he built the Sky Raider from a kit in 1998.

The airstrip on the Lane ranch was a mecca for local radio-control hobbyists. "He was a good friend to a lot of people around here... We'd come out here on weekends and fly radio-controlled," a neighbor told the Press-Democrat.

Another of Lane's friends, who was not further identified, said that Lane had served in the Marines in Vietnam. Friend and next-door neighbor Ed Weber praised Lane on the day of the crash. "He was a person rich in friends who unfortunately passed away today doing what he loved," the Press-Democrat quoted Weber.

FMI: www.faa.gov, www.sonomasheriff.org