A Finnish pilot who was arrested after being found over the alcohol limit in a plane at Manchester airport has been jailed for six months.
As reported, Heikki Tallila was arrested shortly before take-off, having finished pre-flight checks on a plane with 225 passengers on board.
He was escorted off the plane and breathalysed; Tallila was found to have 49 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood. The legal limit for pilots is 20 milligrams.
According to the online news provider Ananova, Manchester’s Minshull Street Corwn Court was told that Tallila had drunk up to seven glasses of wine and a glass of beer on the afternoon before he was arrested.
Ananova states that pilot is the first to be sentenced under new legislation that gives police powers to breathalyse pilots on cabin crew only on the suspicion that they may have been drinking.
Report by Tim Gillett, News From Abroad Ltd
