The Civil Aviation Authority took no action when told a balloon pilot had been too “pissed and/or high” to fly, an inquest has been told.

It had also been told Lance Hopping, 53, had cheated on pilot exams and impersonated a CAA official.

Hopping was the pilot of the hot-air balloon flight that hit powerlines and crashed near Carterton of January 7, 2012. Hopping and his 10 passengers were killed.

The revelations came at the end of the seventh day of the inquest in Wellington into the crash.

Lawyer Alastair Sherriff, acting on behalf of some of the families of the victims, presented a document detailing an internal CAA investigation into complaints about Hopping. It began two months after the tragedy and focused on processes followed after complaints it received in about 2010 into Hopping’s fitness as a commercial balloon pilot.

Copies were given to media. Sherriff suggested that if the complaints had been revealed that would have prevented the tragedy.

They included an allegation Hopping had on more than one occasion been too “pissed and/or too high” to fly, causing flights to be suspended.

Earlier, the daughter of a couple killed in the crash has made an emotional plea for the CAA to stop resisting proposals to enhance safety measures.

Rouse said her parents, Ann Dean, 70, and Desmond Dean, 65, would not have got into a balloon piloted by Hopping if they had known he had no medical certificate and was a habitual cannabis user.

As well as the Deans and Hopping, Valerie Bennett, 70, Diana Cox, 63, Howard Cox, 71, Denise Dellabarca, 58, Belinda Harter, 49, Stephen Hopkirk, 50, Johannes “Chrisjan” Jordaan, 21, and Alexis Still, 19, were killed.

Through tears, Rouse said the crash was not an accident, because it was preventable. She felt “ripped off” at losing her parents, for whom family had been everything, and spoke of the hurt of not being able to ring them to share her childrens’ milestones.

“There needs to be changes to this industry … the ramifications of these simple checks [on Hopping’s medical certificate, and a drug test] are endless,” Rouse said.

It has previously been established that pilot error was the main factor in the crash.

Rouse said outside court that CAA representatives giving evidence today would be less resistant to making changes in the industry if they had lost loved ones.

Earlier, a CAA manager said further safety restrictions on commercial balloonists could put some out of business

CAA general manager of general aviation Steve Moore was cross-examined by lawyer Grant Burston, assisting coroner Peter Ryan.

Moore is in charge of the CAA’s commercial ballooning regulations, known as part 115.

These were planned for years before the Carterton tragedy to formalise the sector, but did not come into force until afterwards.

During questioning he said changes needed by the industry were provided by part 115, which ensured balloon operators obliged their pilots to fly within the law.

However, Burston said not enough had been done to eliminate pilot error.

Moore said there were no plans to take further measures.

“I’m happy that the current requirements are sufficient … we can never eliminate all risks and the next accident could have nothing to do with powerlines.” Ultimately, pilots were responsible for making judgments during flights to keep their passengers safe, he said.

Burston suggested the Carterton crash showed the CAA needed to take steps to “incentivise” pilots to maintain a bigger margin of error in relation to powerlines.

Moore replied that restrictions on commercial balloonists flying within a larger prescribed distance from powerlines could stop some operators that had operated safely for decades.

The inquest ran for five days in May before being adjourned and resuming yesterday.

Getting high before work is common for a wide range of Kiwis – and employers are increasingly doing their own drug testing.

The Global Drug Survey 2014, conducted in partnership with Fairfax Media, found that, of the 5646 New Zealand participants, 13.7 per cent of respondents had in the past year taken drugs, including alcohol, less than two hours before starting work.

A further 13.8 per cent had done so, but not in the past year.

Click here for our interactive drug survey results page.

One industry where illicit drug use was reported to be common was farming.

Warrick Cocker, who works on a small south Wairarapa dairy farm, said he knew of a farm where workers grew their own marijuana, but they got the job done so their boss did not care.

A 29-year-old man, who did not wish to be identified, reported that he showed up to work stoned every day for five years while he worked on farms in Waikato, Canterbury and Southland.

“There’s only three or four people working on a farm, and there’s always been one person who had weed,” he said. “We’d just get real high and do our work. This isn’t like a little bit of weed, this is smoking three or four times, every time we come back to the house for a break.”

He estimated a quarter of all farm workers smoked marijuana and, the further north you went, the more prolific it became. “A lot of my mates would make more money off selling dope than they would working.”

The use of drugs around heavy machinery was dangerous and remained a problem, but more farmers were exploring options about testing their workers, he said.

“I haven’t really heard of it getting into farming yet, but they do think it’s round the corner. There are just too many people getting injured.”

The survey also found prevalent drug use in professional and office-based industries.

A man in his early 20s, who worked at a telemarketing call centre until 2012, said workers were supplied with the ADHD drug Ritalin to keep them focused.

The New Zealand Drug Detection Agency, a private drug testing company, did more than 80,000 urine drug tests in 2013, which was 19 per cent more than the previous year.

But small, remote workplaces, such as farms, cannot afford to have third parties come and test their workers every time they need to, so a new market has grown to enable them to do it themselves.

Advance Diagnostics specialises in educating and equipping workplaces with the knowledge and tools to carry out drug and alcohol screening.

Its operations director, C K Rahi, said interest in its services was growing all the time, especially around saliva screening, which required no qualifications to do.

Environmental Science and Research forensic toxicologist Paul Fitzmaurice said a lot of synthetic cannabis products on the market could not be picked up by any drug testing.

Websites have also been established to give advice to people about how to beat workplace drug tests.

Although testing numbers are increasing, just 13 per cent of the employed respondents in the survey said their current employer exposed them to drug testing.

More than 20 per cent said they would be less inclined to take an offer of employment if the employer used drug testing.

Employment lawyer Susan Hornsby-Geluk said those people would have little choice if a workplace had drug testing in its employment agreements.

“From the outset, any employer can make a drug test a condition of employment. If a candidate doesn’t wish to submit to that type of test, they obviously won’t be considered.”

Random testing presented a more contentious problem, she said. “That is lawful, but only in relation to certain roles . . . The test is basically that the roles are safety sensitive where there would be an immediate and direct impact on safety.”

To check your drug and alcohol use go to

www.drinksmeter.com

www.drugsmeter.com and

globaldrugsurvey.com/highwaycode

The Dominion Post

Christchurch dairy owners are rushing to offload their K2 stock before a substance ban comes into effect at midnight – including two caught by police selling to someone under age.

Sergeant Bevan Seal said diaries were offering discounts on the normal $20 price – including $15 a packet or two for $25 deals.

The ban on two substances found in K2 was announced by Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne last week.

Anyone selling the products after midnight tonight can be criminally prosecuted for possession and distribution of a class C drug.

Seal said if convicted, the offence could result in imprisonment.

He said police would be actively enforcing the ban.

Officers had been in regular contact with dairy owners explaining the harmful effects of synthetic cannabis, reminding them it was illegal to sell to under 18s and warning them about the impending ban.

One dairy owner spoken to by The Press said he had been told by K2 distributors to ”get rid of it”.

He was offering two packets for $35. Any left over at midnight would go in the bin.

Police ran a controlled purchase operation ahead of tonight’s ban to see if dairies were asking customers for proof of their age.

A 17-year-old visited eight city dairies last night asking to be sold synthetic cannabis.

He was refused service at six dairies. Two failed to ask for ID and sold him packets of K2.

Seal said those two dairies would face fines of up to $500 each for the offence under the smokefree legislation.

”The first didn’t want to give us an explanation. The second told us he knew it was illegal but sold it anyway.

“We’ve been pushing the message. Unfortunately a few dairies have been slow in picking it up.”