I agree. I am just adding that as an aging professional athlete, these drugs were very common for him. These were a daily prescription for likely many years. It seems like a lot to you and I, but to someone who had been taking these doses for years may not be quite as much. Was he impaired? Most likely, yes. Was he so impaired to where he could not operate an aircraft? No. Did the drugs have an impact on his judgement regarding the penultimate maneuver? Perhaps.
Agreed. I'd like to hear what his doctors have to say before besmirching the man's legacy.
The levels of drugs found in his system are probably less than what my mother had in hers when she died, as she was prescribed everything on that list and then some. I know for a fact from her bloodwork results that the Baclofen and Morphine results are pretty typical of a 30 to 60mg twice per day script for long acting slow release Morphine, and for a typical Baclofen script. It also depends on the time before death these scripts/drugs were taken, and the results from lab tests can vary wildly with the same dose because of this.
The amphetamine result is the only one that gives me any pause, as they weren't very specific about the type of amphetamine that was detected. It's very, very possible he was on Adderall or Ritalin, and it's surprising how high the dose of some if not all of the drugs listed can get after long term use. My mother was 86 lbs when she died, and she was on 150 micrograms/hour of Fentanyl, just to give an example.
I agree with Perd regarding the level of impairment - we'll never know how much this contributed to his accident, but there are tons of people on long term prescription meds in North America, driving, and even flying, every day. Once the body develops a tolerance to many of these drugs, it's surprising how many will pass roadside impairment tests performed by law enforcement...
