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American Airlines Pilot Arrested On Suspicion Of Drunkenness
British Authorities Arrest Pilot In Manchester Airport; Pilot Free On Bail

POSTED: 11:25 am EST February 11, 2006

MANCHESTER, England -- An American Airlines pilot has been arrested in Britain on suspicion of being intoxicated.

One of three pilots on Flight 55 was arrested shortly before the plane was scheduled to leave Manchester in northwestern England.

The flight left an hour late, and was scheduled to stop in New York to pick up a new pilot before continuing to Chicago. Three pilots are required on flights lasting longer than eight hours.

A spokesman for American Airlines said the airline is investigating the arrest, which he calls an "isolated incident."

Police said the pilot has been released on bail pending the results of tests.

http://www.wral.com/news/6938193/detail.html

Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press.

I'm always surprised by these stories. Pilots are generally failry intelligent, so why woudl they do something so stupid?

gtalum wrote:I'm always surprised by these stories. Pilots are generally failry intelligent, so why woudl they do something so stupid?

Alcoholism doesnt seem to be affected by intelligence. This pilots career is over. Plus he will get a taste of British justice.

george_r_1961 wrote:Alcoholism doesnt seem to be affected by intelligence.

Good point. But it seems like it'd be difficult for a real alcoholic to make it to become a senior pilot for a major commercial airline. I guess he hid it well.

Actually, he may not have been drunk or intoxicated at all. And giving him the label alcoholic is certainly jumping to conclusions.

It is illegal to fly with any level of alcohol in your system above .02 or .04 IIRC; basically the lowest amount that they can accurately test.

He doesn't need to have been an alcoholic. One beer can do the trick, and one beer can ruin a career. Debate the ethics of this as much as you want, that is the way it is.

nystate wrote:He doesn't need to have been an alcoholic. One beer can do the trick, and one beer can ruin a career. Debate the ethics of this as much as you want, that is the way it is.

Pilots know the rules. Drinking even one beer close to flight when the rule is 8 hours "bottle to throttle" indicates a serious problem with self-control.

gtalum wrote:

nystate wrote:He doesn't need to have been an alcoholic. One beer can do the trick, and one beer can ruin a career. Debate the ethics of this as much as you want, that is the way it is.

Pilots know the rules. Drinking even one beer close to flight when the rule is 8 hours "bottle to throttle" indicates a serious problem with self-control.

Thank you gtalum. As a recovering alcoholic im well versed on this subject. Drinking at inappropriate times is a sure sign of a problem.

gtalum wrote:

nystate wrote:He doesn't need to have been an alcoholic. One beer can do the trick, and one beer can ruin a career. Debate the ethics of this as much as you want, that is the way it is.

Pilots know the rules. Drinking even one beer close to flight when the rule is 8 hours "bottle to throttle" indicates a serious problem with self-control.

I am not excusing him; I am just saying that just because he had some alcohol in his system does not make him a chronic alcoholic. We can't judge him based on sketchy information from 1,000 miles away when we know nothing about him.