Drunken airline pilot stopped at Arlanda
Published: 10 May 12 08:08 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/40742/20120510/
A Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) pilot scheduled to fly a plane out of Stockholm's Arlanda airport on Tuesday afternoon was stopped from leaving after failing a breathalyzer test.
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The SAS crew members were carrying out their duties on Tuesday when theywere asked to take the test and one of the pilots turned out to be over the legal limit.
According to an Aftonbladet source, the man was working on the outer safety checks of the craft when he tested positive for alcohol in the border police test.
The man had a blood alcohol content of over 1.0 promille, which is 0.8 promille over the limit. The limit in Sweden is a blood alcohol content exceeding 0.2 promille alcohol, both for driving and flying.
However, at SAS, the rules are even stricter, prohibiting pilots to fly unless they are under the 0.2 promille limit eight hours before takeoff.
After testing positive for alcohol the man was not allowed to fly the scheduled flight later in the afternoon.
The company were unwilling to disclose the destination to where the man was supposed to fly and told daily Dagens Nyheter (DN) that they view the incident as a “personnel issue” and not a security risk.
“We are aware of the situation and take what has happened extremely seriously. We support the border police’s work to a 100 percent,” said Rebecka Södergren from SAS to Aftonbladet.
This is the first time someone has tested positive for alcohol at Arlanda since new rules came into effect in September 2010, making it possible for police to carry out checks on crew.
Göran Adbro, chairman of the Swedish Airline Pilots’ Association (Svensk Pilotförening) has never before heard of any Swedish pilot being caught in a breathalyzer test.
“There is a zero tolerance policy for drinking and we stand by that,” he said to Aftonbladet.
After the discovery of the inebriated pilot, Scandinavian Airlines will be carrying out its own internal investigation alongside that of the police, according to DN.
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To increase safety in countries where they are less digilent within their airports, mabye every commerical aircraft should be equipped with a breathalizer machine in the passenger seating area. After the safety demonstration, all pilots could come out of the cockpit and blow into the breathalizer so that all of the passengers can see that they are fit to fly the aircraft.
http://www.pprune.org/medical-health/464983-sas-pilot-caught-drunk-last-sunday.html
I well recall drinking into the early hours with a Canadian pilot c/w aircrew and cabin staff, just a few hours before they were due to fly a 747 out of Tenerife.
I believe U.S. carriers prohibit pilot consumption of alcohol for 24 hours before a flight.
Sorry SAS but please wake up, drunken pilots are a security risk. With this attitude it is hardly surprising SAS losses money year after year after year and well run companies are making ever increasing profits. Ryan air -which now is transporting 70-80 million more passengers a year now than SAS. Norwegian has placed huge orders to increase its fleet. Both companies do view drunken pilots as a security risk.
SAS get rid of drunken pilots and staff who don´t view them as a security risk and wake up.
But their pilots apparently drink as much as they want!
It is not a surprise that SAS loses money then.
AF served the passengers dinner with wine.
SAS was charging for water.
SAS may think it a personal issue for the pilot. It would be an even more personal issue for the families of the people he killed when he stuffed it up !
I normally would not call for someone to lose their jobs without knowing the precise circumstances, but this person was in a position of responsibility for possibly a couple of hundred peoples lives. Should they ever let someone like that fly again ?