Drunken pilot arrested on departing American Eagle flight

Saturday, 06 Jan, 2013 0

It reads like the plot of the film, Flight, in which a drunken pilot played by Denzel Washington swills down mini bar bottles of vodka just before takeoff.

AP and other news sources report that an American Eagle pilot getting ready to fly from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport to New York on Friday was arrested on the aircraft before takeoff for being intoxicated.

Witnesses tipped off airport police that they could smell alcohol on the pilot who had just boarded the plane and was conducting preflight checks. Police administered a Breathalyzer text to Kolbjorn Jarle Kristiansen, 48, and arrested him on suspicion of drunkenness. Criminal charges may or may not be filed, depending on results of the blood test.

American Airlines told USA Today’sToday in the Sky that the flight involved was a Bombadier CRJ-700 carrying 53 passengers. The flight was delayed for a little over 2 hours while a replacement pilot was found.

The Airline says that it is cooperating with authorities and conducting a full investigation. They said that the pilot will be suspended from service pending the outcome. Kristiansen was returned to the airport and released to airline personnel on his own recognizance.

After the premiere of the film, Flight, several months ago several pilots’ unions as well as airline spokespeople commented to the press that the scenario of a pilot drinking before takeoff was implausible.

In 2009, The Telegraph reports, passengers on board an Aeroflot flight bound to New York from Moscow protested that their pilot was drunk and the flight should not take off. After airline personnel boarded the plane and told them a drunken pilot was "no big deal" because the plane basically flew itself, a first class passenger with connections to Vladimir Putin called the airline herself and the flight was restaffed with a different pilot.

–Gretchen Kelly, TravelMole US/North America

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Gretchen Kelly

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