Qantas pilot flew thousands of passengers around the globe while high on painkillers and tranquillisers

A Qantas pilot flew thousands of passengers across the globe while high on a cocktail of painkillers over three years. He’s had his application to fly again dismissed after it was found there wasn’t enough evidence he had kicked the addiction. Read the ruling here.

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A Qantas pilot flew thousands of passengers across the globe while high on a cocktail of painkillers and tranquillisers.

Nathaniel Whitehall had his wings clipped by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal of Australia because he took hundreds of opioids and Benzodiazepines (minor tranquillisers) while working as a pilot from August 2014 to October 2017.

The drugs he took have side effects of dizziness, drowsiness, blurred vision and vertigo.

Tribunal deputy president Ian Hanger refused Mr Whitehall’s application to fly again, dismissing the international pilot’s evidence that he had kicked his addiction.

The tribunal heard the pilot of 40 years first took the drugs in 2013 to deal with back pain.

At one time, he admitted himself to Campbelltown Private Hospital to deal with the addiction.

“During his stay in the hospital he was on one occasion found semiconscious in the bathroom with the ketamine syringe in his hand having given himself a large bolus of ketamine,” Mr Hanger wrote in his decision.

The tribunal heard Mr Whitehall lied to Qantas about his addiction while being prescribed hundreds of oxycodone, Panadeine Forte, Tramadol, temazepam and Benzodiazepine.

In November 2015, Mr Whitehall was stood down after fellow employees reported to Qantas he was not fit to fly.

Mr Whitehall was prescribed a variety of different drugs including Panadeine Forte

In June the following year he was prescribed 160 oxycodone tablets, admitted to a drug rehab clinic and allowed to go back to flying all within a day.

“Mr Whitehall was cleared to return to work by Dr Russell Brown and he told the doctor that he was no longer using opioid medication,” Mr Hanger’s decision reads.

“That was obviously completely misleading.”

Mr Whitehall returned to flying that November while continuing to take his cocktail of drugs.

“On 18 November 2016 the applicant was referred to The Oaks Medical Practice to continue his buprenorphine treatment,” the decision reads.

“He told Dr Ron Campbell at that practice that he was a lawyer who had to travel overseas a lot. He admitted in evidence that he did that to minimise the risk of his opioid dependence being reported to CASA.”

His problem nosedived in May 2017 after a relationship breakdown led to his partner telling police he was a drug addict.

Police told Civil Aviation Safety Authority, which pressured Mr Whitehall, to supply it with his Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme records.

He stalled for six months before handing over his records from 2010 to 2015 “which was not what was asked for and obviously had nothing whatever to do with the issues which he knew were of concern.”

His medical licence expired that month in October 2017.

“We are satisfied that there is a personal history, problematic use of opioids and Benzodiazepines and that his abstinence from problematic use of them has not been certified by an appropriate specialist medical practitioner and he has not provided evidence that he has undertaken or successfully completed an appropriate course of therapy,” Mr Hanger wrote in his conclusion.