In the “what were you thinking?” category, a United Airlines pilot was recently arrested for being drunk. Yes, you read right — for being drunk before piloting United Airlines flight 949, which, by the way, was full and due to leave London’s Heathrow Airport.
According to a Nov. 11 article on MSNBC.com, the pilot, Erwin Vermont Washington, 51, is the third U.S. pilot in 13 months to be arrested for being over the strict alcohol limits imposed on airline staff. He failed a breath test shortly before taking off as a result of having too much alcohol in his system.
Luckily, a co-worker figured out that he was sauced and turned him into authorities. Who knows what might have happened had that co-worker, who reported him under the condition of anonymity, remained silent?
The scary thing about this case is that this jerk was drunk and had planned to fly anyway. The great thing about this incident is that someone spoke up when he or she felt that the pilot was inebriated and authorities tested him.
The piece on MSNBC.com stated: “Under British law, pilots are forbidden from having any more than 20 micrograms of alcohol for each 100 milliliters of blood in their system, or .02 percent. For most average-sized men, that is the equivalent of having just had about half a glass of regular strength beer.” [Editor’s note: This paragraph was revised Nov. 22, 2009 to more accurately attribute the article it references. Thanks CLTBlog.com!]
According to the MSNBC.com article, Scotland Yard said that Washington, who has been released on bail, would have to appear at a court in northwest London on Nov. 20. If convicted, he faces up to two years in prison, a fine, or both. United Airlines has suspended him until an investigation is concluded.
This incident has folks reeling because it is the third such incident in just over a year, and comes on the heels of another incident of bad pilot behavior — the two Northwest Airline pilots who overshot their destination by 150 miles because they were distracted. These two failed to respond to any communication from the control tower for more than hour, causing the White House to ready fighter jets in case it was another terrorist attack and families to worry about their loved ones.
Thank God for the Miracle on the Hudson, or I’d be more stressed about flying to Spain through Heathrow in the coming weeks. If you can’t trust the pilot of a plane to stay focused, alert, responsive and sober, then we are in trouble.
A Boeing 767, the model of the airplane that Washington was to fly from London to Chicago, holds a couple hundred people. Why would this one person risk the lives of hundreds if indeed he had been drinking? Just who does this guy think he is?
Like many of you, I could never come to work drunk or inebriated — even at Creative Loafing — and expect to keep my job. It just wouldn’t happen, and I’m not even in charge of anyone’s safety. For the life of me, I cannot understand why a drunk person would attempt to fly a full flight. And when this happens, a person can only report him or her under anonymity, for fear of reprisal? Is this for real or for play play?
I get it. He obviously has a problem with alcohol if he thinks that he is “sober enough” to fly a plane and clearly isn’t. Was he drinking alone before he came to the flight? Pilots come into contact with many people while making their way through the airport. No one other than this unnamed person saw that he was drunk? I’m not inclined to believe that this was a first time for this pilot. It very well could have been, but I would hope that if it was not, then he would thank God for the safe arrival of the passengers and himself … and pledge to not do something so dumb and unnecessary ever again.
This is a person who is part of a team whose mission is to get you to where you need to go … safely. Not by the hair of his chinny chin chin and not on a wing and a prayer, pun intended.
Negligent behavior like Washington’s has got to stop, particularly with the media glare that is on everything. Perhaps a pilot could have gotten away with overindulging in booze in previous years or decades. Not now, because if your co-workers don’t turn you in, someone else will. If that someone else doesn’t, then a media person will find out and tell it anyway.
If the responsibility of the lives of hundreds of passengers is not enough to make you take your job seriously, then maybe the fact that you can’t get away with anything these days will.
Nsenga K. Burton, Ph.D. is managing editor of TheLoop21.com. She is an assistant professor of Communication and Media Studies at Goucher College and writes the blog Tune N (http://nsengaburton.wordpress.com), which examines popular culture through the lens of race, class, gender and sexuality.
This article appears in Nov 17-23, 2009.
