Flying Under the Influence

Drunk pilots, drug smuggling flight crews...what happened the the friendly skies?

From the The Independent (UK)...

Passengers aboard an Aeroflot flight from Moscow to New York were greeted by a welcome announcement from the pilot, Alexander Cheplevsky, that was so garbled it was impossible to tell what language he was speaking. They became so scared that a group of passengers demanded to see the man at the controls to check whether or not he was drunk.

The Moscow Times, which had a reporter on board the plane, claimed that an Aeroflot representative boarded the aircraft and told the passengers it wasn't a big deal if the pilot was drunk. "Really, all he has to do is press a button and the plane flies itself," the representative allegedly said. "The worst that could happen is he'll trip over something in the cockpit."

"I don't think there's anyone in Russia who doesn't know what a drunk person looks like," a passenger, Katya Kushner, told The Moscow Times. "At first, he was looking at us like we were crazy. Then, when we wouldn't back down, he said, 'I'll sit here quietly in a corner. We have three more pilots. I won't even touch the controls, I promise'."

If that's not bad enough, check this out from The Mail (UK)...

An aircrew arrested after £250,000 ($350,000) of cocaine was discovered in baggage on a plane have been released on bail.

The 15 South African Airways employees were arrested after UK Border Agency officers found 5kg of cocaine when their flight from Johannesburg arrived at Heathrow.

The latest arrests follow a similar incident on January 21, when a 15-member crew from the same airline was arrested after cocaine and cannabis worth £310,000 ($435,000) was found on their flight.