A United Airlines captain has been handed a suspended prison sentence after being found nearly three times over the legal alcohol limit prior to operating a flight from Paris to Washington, DC.
United Airlines Flight Cancelled In Paris After Captain Found To Be Intoxicated
On Sunday, July 23, 2023, the captain of United Airlines flight UA331 showed up at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG) ahead of a flight to Washington (IAD). The flight was operated by a Boeing 777-200 and scheduled to leave at 5:00 pm.
Only it never did…it was canceled instead.
Security screeners at CDG noticed the captain “was staggering slightly, his eyes were glassy, and his mouth pasty.” When they communicated with him, he was unable to express himself.
He was taken into custody and administered two blood alcohol tests. Those tests revealed a blood alcohol content (BAC) of 0.056 and 0.059 (the BAC limit for pilots to operate a flight in France is 0.02).
In custody, he revealed he had only consumed two glasses of wine the previous evening.
I guess my first question is how big were those two cups of wine?
A judge admonished him for putting the lives of his passengers at risk and:
- fined him €4,500
- Suspended his license (only applies to European Union)
- jailed him for six months (but then suspended his sentence)
It is not clear if he will face further legal consequences in the USA or job termination. At 63 years old, he is just two years away from mandatory retirement.
Part of me wants to downplay this incident because the pilot would still have been “legal” driving a car in the USA and just because his BAC was at that level does not mean he could not safely operate the flight. But that is a very unsatisfactory conclusion.
Just like driving with other impairments like a mobile phone, there are certain risks that are simply not tolerated because this is a job with no room for error. Furthermore, it is not like this was simply a random test and the pilot was found to have a high BAC but otherwise operating normally. No, his words were purportedly slurred and he also purportedly had other telltale signs of being intoxicated.
I’m not going to diagnose what is wrong with the captain (i.e. an addiction problem versus just having a few too many on a night out), but I do hope that this moment serves as a wake-up call. Furthermore, if he did only have two glasses of wine and still wound up visibly intoxicated, perhaps this story suggests that drinking at all the night before a duty day is simply not worthwhile, no matter how well you think your liquor tolerance is.
A United Airlines spokesperson did not suggest leniency:
“The safety of our customers and crew is always our top priority. We hold all our employees to the highest standards and have a strict no-tolerance policy for alcohol. This employee was immediately removed from service, and we are fully cooperating with local authorities.”
In any case, passengers onboard should file for €600 cash payments under EU/261. Pilot drunkness does not constitute the sort of extraordinary circumstance that would excuse United from monetary compensation for this flight cancellation.
CONCLUSION
A United captain was found to be nearly three times the legal alcohol limit in order to operate a commercial flight. He has been handed a suspended sentence, fine, and is no longer permitted to pilot an aircraft within the European Union for a period of one year. This a sad story.
(H/T: One Mile At A Time)
This man should have gone to jail in France. Disappointed his sentence was suspended. His idiocy risked lives.
Also, shouldn’t any of the crew he travelled to the airport with have realized this moron was drunk?
Unless he has a serious disorder , 2 glasses of wine in 2 hours wouldn’t yield a .056 let alone then night before.
It was probably 2 mega pints.
The flight departs at 5PM. The encounter at security took place at 3PM. How could this be from the night before? Day drinking before a flight is more to the narrative and not a good thing for a pilot.
I was a flight attendant on an Anchorage layover in January, 1977, when a local cab driver drove a three-man Japan Air Lines flight deck crew to the airport. They were to operate a cattle charter to Tokyo. The captain was so obviously drunk that the cab driver called his dispatch. By the time word had made it to the airport the DC-8 had taken-off. The plane crashed during climb-out, killing the three pilots and two cattle handlers (and all the cattle). There was a lot of talk at the time about WHY didn’t the 1st and 2nd officers refuse to fly with their drunk captain. The consensus was that they were afraid for their jobs if they reported the incident. Sadly, far more was lost than just jobs…
It is a slippery slope for sure. Especially in that case in the 1970’s Japan. Even now, why did the United crew not say anything if the pilots behavior was obvious to others. They had to have noticed SOMETHING.
I get that you don’t want to be the one to ruin someone’s career. But there are other approaches. If I was the FO and noticed it I would take the captain aside and quietly tell him, “Look, Henry, it’s obvious you have ben drinking. I can’t let you go to the airport. Let’s do this, I want you to call in sick, food poisoning, I will back you up on this, the exchange is that I need verifiable proof that you seek help when we get home and stop flying until then. Take a medical leave, whatever. If you don’t, I will have no choice but to file a report. Get help, it’s our secret. Don’t get help, your career is over.”
Fantastic approach. That’s what people are missing today, the flexibility in finding legal but “outside of the box” ways to solve problems. Imagine if the airport guys didn’t catch the situation of the pilot and it ended up in something very serious. Problem is that as many described here, people don’t want be the ones taking actions mostly to avoid future problems and that avoidance can be very dangerous.
” and just because his BAC was at that level does not mean he could not safely operate the flight.” … He couldn’t even answer questions at CDG security but you’re fine with him trying to communicate with ATC. You’re such a United apologist,
Fire him. No excuse for intoxication when you are about to become responsible for the lives of 300 passengers.
That’s a ridiculous charge. What I’m saying is that his BAC is not too much to drive in the United States – the impairment from alcohol is minor (or at least should be). It seems like there is something else going on. But if he did abuse alcohol, he should be fired…not sure how that is being a United apologist.
I agree. Shouldn’t be slurring at .059. Perhaps some meds with the booze?
I’m not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, but from what I know about such people I have this theory:
My father, RIP, was a “heavy drinker” and never got a DUI in his life. He had a rule that he didn’t drink when he was working or early in the day. The pilot admitted he had been drinking (perhaps fibbing about the amount), it was 3PM and this was at airport security meaning he had probably drunk about 2PM or even earlier. Two hypothesis:
1) He’s not a regular drinker and perhaps had only two champagne OJ’s at the hotel along with breakfast and his metabolism isn’t accustomed to them and that’s how he didn’t know he was drunk. This would be exacerbated if he abstains from alcohol normally.
2) (more likely) His “pasty mouth” sounds like a symptom of a hangover. For his BAC to be relatively low but to show such extreme symptoms means he probably drank A LOT the night before, up to 2AM, and was sauced and thought he was better in the morning after perhaps having a cup of coffee.
Some people may think that just because one hasn’t had a drink for nearly 12 hours doesn’t necessarily mean they’re sober. He perhaps had drunk evenings before and was legal to fly and didn’t think it a big deal.
I got freebie BAC chemical testers (one time use) that will change color if someone whose not legal to drive blows into them which I issue to party guests but I suppose that, sort of like “clean needle” programs, airlines wouldn’t want to encourage pilots to carry them because it would encourage drinking.
This happened 5 days ago and is already settled? Here this would be tied up in court for the next 2 years until a determination was made.
I’ll give the French credit in this case. Along with Charlie Hebdo, they do some things well.
With the great French Wines in France, the the guy a break (kidding). No, I mean there is a lot of substance abuse and alcoholism going around, not just with pilots, and this is not to be seen as an isolated case.
Give the guy a beak, the French wine got to him.
Alcoholism is a disease. We should be treating people with the disease, not criminalizing the disease. Especially in a situation where nothing happened because he was stopped.
That aside, I also think some of the other explanations are plausible. Was there a mimosa served at breakfast when he thought it was merely orange juice? Or maybe he had some medicine or spiked drink?
In the US, the blood alcohol limit for pilots is 0.4. In France, it’s 0.2. In the US, driving is 0.08 in some states. 0.56 in a 63-year-old male doesn’t sound like nearly enough to cause these issues.
0.04, 0.02, 0.056 that is. 0.056 isn’t far off from 0.04.