Airliner Pilots on Alcohol

Today one Romanian Airline TAROM Boeing long-range cruise pilot has been found with an alcoholemy of 0.8/00 in Amsterdam at a reggular random checking procedure.
So, the Romanian Airliner pilots are drunk you shall say ? Not really. This was the only case ever to discover a Romanian.
However this only digged-up a very old story which implies Alcohol in Airliner flights.
Hearing of this incident, two American pilots actually changed their scheduled course that same moment and landed at Bruxelles International Airport in Belgium coz "there ain't no checking there !" !
Also, the closer investigation digged up some older cases, here are some:
By far the most serious case involves two British Airways pilots who were so drunk that they could bearly walk on their own feet towards the plane that they were going to....fly..so they say. A blood-test revealed the amazing thing that the two have been drinking an astonishing quantity of 3 litres of wine EACH just before entering the cockpit ! Now, I can say I have a little experience in "over-drinking", but le'me tell'ya that 3 litres of wine would knock me down in a second...
Another case is of a Moroccon pilot who also drank too much and was going on the way to his plane...well, at least he was trying to, as his "straight walk" was a 10m deviation zig-zag...Talk about lack of space during maneouvres...;)

Copyright ©2000 by Sorin A Crasmarelu

10th of November 2000