'Drink and Fly' Holiday Jet Captain Jailed Six Months

[Kellanved]

An airline captain was today jailed for six months after he was caught preparing to fly a packed holiday jet while drunk.

Heikki Tallila, 51, from Finland, was almost two and a half times the legal alcohol limit for a pilot when he was arrested in the cockpit of a Boeing 757 on August 23, Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court heard.

The Finnair pilot was finishing pre-flight checks when the authorities boarded the plane which had 225 holidaymakers on board minutes before take-off.

He is the first to be sentenced under new legislation introduced in March in the UK which gives police powers to breathalyse pilots and cabin crew suspected of attempting to fly under the influence of alcohol.
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http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3833534

[napi21]

1. This guy is just stupid!

I'm far from being a tee totaler, but noone should ge to work drunk! I guess it's one thing if you are a bar tender, and the only person you're going to hurt is the bar owner because you aren't competant enough to count money, but it's another thing when you are trying to do a job that affects many other people while you are impaired.

I don't know about Finland, but all the pilots that I know like their job, and are fairly well compensated. For this guy to jeopardize that is just plain dumb!!!