12 November 2009

Drunken pilots: not a major worry

Incidents such as the one where a United Airlines pilot was pulled off a plane for suspected drunkenness are rare but they do happen. For example:
 

 Last May, an American Airlines pilot was arrested at Heathrow after failing a breathalyzer test.
 In 2002, the pilots on an American West flight were pulled off their plane after US Transportation Security Administration screeners smelled alcohol on their breath.
 

 In March 1990, Northwest Airlines pilot Joe Balzer flew drunk, ferrying 91 passengers from Fargo, N.D., to Minneapolis, Minn., after a night of drinking, according to the AP.
 

In the latest incident, United Airlines Flight 949, with 124 passengers and a crew of 11, was ready to push back from the gate at London's Heathrow Airport and head to Chicago when authorities boarded and the pilot left the cockpit for a breathalyzer test.
 

The pilot, Erwin Washington, was subsequently arrested on suspicion of violating alcohol limits, and later took a blood test as well. Washington, 51, has been released on bail, London police said.
 

He faces up to two years in prison and a fine, if found guilty, according to U.K. prosecutors.
 

The flight was cancelled and the passengers were transferred to other flights, according to the British Airports Authority.
 

In an interview with ABC News, the admittedly drunk pilot in an earlier incident, Balzer said:
 

"I was pretty much a train wreck looking for a place to happen. We were out in a bar, we'd gone about 3:30 in the afternoon and we were drinking and one thing led to another."
 

The plane landed safely but Balzer and his two fellow pilots were fired, and their licenses revoked. He went to jail.
 

ABC News aviation analyst John Nance said such cases make up "a very, very small percentage" of all commercial flights. "I don't think we have a big problem."
 

By David Wilkening
 

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• Maybe drunk, but whose rules?
  
  

  The United pilot was charged with "being aviation staff, performing an aviation function whilst exceeding the proscribed alcohol limit." Britain's regulations are considerably stricter that those of the FAA. The legal limit is set at 20 milligrams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood. That is a QUARTER of the British limit for drunk driving, and equates to about .02% blood alcohol level. The U.S. FAA blood alcohol limit for airline pilots is 0.04%, and U.S. pilots are banned from consuming alcohol within eight hours of reporting for duty. I forget the definition of reporting for duty. The United pilot was allegedly shopped by another United employee. Drunk driving is understandable by all of us but I am still awaiting the REAL story behind the Northwestern overflight where the pilots couldn't be reached.

  By J Hewson, Tuesday, November 17, 2009