The drunk pilot was sentenced to 10 months in prison because he was caught with a bottle of alcohol less than two hours before the scheduled flight.
The 63-year-old pilot Laurence Russell was almost two and a half times over the legal limit for alcohol before the flight from Edinburgh to New York. A half-empty bottle of Jägermeister was found during a search of his bag at Edinburgh Airport, writes the Daily Record.
Russell was scheduled to pilot the Boeing 767 in the early hours of Friday, June 16, 2023, the court heard. A Delta Airlines pilot was stopped when his carry-on was rejected by a security X-ray machine that revealed two Jägermeister bottles, one of which was open and half empty.
Dressed in a pilot’s uniform, Russell admitted that the alcohol belonged to him. The police immediately arrested him, he failed a breathalyzer test.
A later blood test showed Russell had “at least 49 milligrams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood.”
The flight to New York was suspended after the incident. Delta Airlines, where Russell worked, issued the following instructions to passengers affected by the situation.
The company said: “While Delta Airlines does not comment on pending litigation, the company’s alcohol policy is one of the strictest in the industry and we do not tolerate violations of this policy.”
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2024-03-30 17:47:50
#pilot #drunk #plane #ended
