Qantas pilot suspended for alleged drinking before flight

A female Qantas pilot has been suspended after she was suspected of being drunk before a flight.


The female captain was ordered from the controls just minutes before it was due to take off on a flight from Sydney to Brisbane.


Flight attendants on the Boeing 767, which can carry 254 passengers, informed the airline's flight operations managers that they suspected the captain of the plane had been drinking, reports the Daily Mail.


The aircraft had already pulled back from the domestic terminal and was taxiing towards a runway for take-off when Qantas management decided to call it back.


The pilot was suspended and Qantas has since launched an investigation into the incident after the senior pilot recorded a positive reading for alcohol.


The investigation into the captain's alcohol reading is expected to take at least a month.


A Qantas spokesman confirmed that a captain had been "withheld from service for administrative reasons" last week but he declined to comment further because the matter was under investigation.

Monday, August 6, 2012

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