Two America West pilots charged with showing up drunk

WSVN | 07/01/02

[Lazamataz]

MIAMI, July 1 (Reuters) - Police arrested two commercial airline pilots on Monday at Miami International Airport, and a local television station said the pair had shown up drunk in the cockpit.

Television station WSVN said the America West pilots were preparing to take off on a flight to Phoenix, Arizona, when police took them off the plane. Tests showed they were legally drunk, the station said.

Miami-Dade County Police could not immediately confirm the details but said they had arrested the two pilots at the airport. An America West spokeswoman at the company's headquarters, in Phoenix, was not immediately available for comment.

[wrench]

First Officer to Captain,

"Run that rule by me again, no smoking within 24 hours of flying, and no drinking within 50 feet of the aircraft?"

[Regulator]

They're still paid enough to show up sober! And even at their rate - which IS low relative to the other big 10 carriers - it's a good life: enough to afford a nice house in Phoenix/Tempe (there are worse places to live, as you know, like, um, Lukeville), they still only work 75 hours a month (max), and the equipment is wellllll - it used to be OK...they just seem to have a hard time getting around to those pesky inspections...

[Marine Inspector]

Agreed.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

That looks like the same illustrator for some books I read as a child! lol......... how old is that picture?

[safisoft]

Still, the pilots broke one of strictest rules in aviation - the "24 hour" rule.

You do not know what you are talking about. There is no such thing as a "24 hour rule." FAR Part 121 is the governing law, and most airlines use a way more conservative 13 hour rule. Even in the old days it was "eight hours bottle to throttle". 24 hours. Your ignorance is showing.

Pilots are very highly compensated and they get plenty of "down time" between duty cycles to hit the bars all they want.

Are you professionally ignorant, or are you just talking to read yourself? Pilots to NOT have "pleanty of down time" between duty cycles. Once you begin a trip you are governed by FARs which permit an AVERAGE of 12 hours off between 14 hour duty periods.

Few airlines waste money sitting people on a layover when the FARs do not require it. Pilots are glorified truck drivers anyway. It is so easy to pilot a plane that even 13-year-olds can master it. Any stewardess can learn to be a good pilot.

No you have lost credibility. You say: 1. Pilots are highly compensated. 2. Anyone can do their job. Question then, what kind of idiot would NOT try to get the job? How dumb are you that you are NOT an airline pilot? Flying Microsoft Flight Simulator is not the same as .8 Mach at FL390 with Level 5 TRWs on a dark night. Sheesh... And, what pray tell is a "stewardess" - WHO ARE YOU? Have you even FLOWN as a passenger in the past 20 years? There is no such thing as a "stewardess" and hasn't been for 25 years.

[FITZ]

If America West has that bad of a maintenance history, the pilots might have to be drunk to have enough intestinal fortitude to get the nerve to get off the ground.

Or they don't trust airport security and are drinking for courage.

[safisoft]

they still only work 75 hours a month (max)

Most airlines have 80 hour max in month FLYING time. To get that you have to WORK 240-300 hours a month. There is an 85 hour limit which is an FAA limit for Part 121 (major airlines). Remember, those are FLYING hours. An airline pilot works an average of 3.5 hours for every hour flying. I know, I am an airline pilot and I also have a company that prepares statistics for pilot schedules.

An average airline pilot during his career will miss 90% of all Christmases. 90% of all his/her children's birthdays, 90 of all their anniversaries. They will be medically poked every 6 months, with their job on the line. Every 6 months they will spend 4 hours of hell in a simulator with their job on the line. He/she will be away from their homes and family for 17-20 days and nights every month.

Being airline pilot is great. It also has its down sides. One of them is reading about idiots who make the rest of us look bad. Another one is reading every two-bit know-it all who spouts off about how great it must be to be an overpaid airline pilot. My question to those is why they are not trying to be airline pilots. After all, anyone can do it...

[WarrenC]

Local news just reported the pilots attracted attention when they tried to get a cup of coffee past the bag screeners. This is against the rules and they got belligerent when advised they couldn't bring the coffee past the checkpoint. The security screeners noticed the odor of alcohol on the men and called airport security, which notified the tower. The plane had just been pushed away from the gate by the tug. The pilots were ordered back to the gate and taken off the plane.

[WarrenC]

Oops - sorry about the redundant post. Didn't notice sungirl's post above.

[Cagey]

how old is that picture?

Probably not as old and forgetful as I am. I meant to flag "HappyGal" to that picture, but I typed "Happygrl". Happygrl may not even like Guinness. The world knows Happygal does. LOL

[PoisedWoman]

An America West spokeswoman at the company's headquarters, in Phoenix, was not immediately available for comment...

....but is expected to sober up enough to walk and talk within an hour.

[SamAdams76]

Flying Microsoft Flight Simulator is not the same as .8 Mach at FL390 with Level 5 TRWs on a dark night.

And who says it is? BTW, those who fly military fighter planes such as the F-18 are on a far different level than those who fly commercial aircraft. Not even the same league. Commercial piloting is more akin to truck driving, whether you care to admit it or not.

[Regulator]

Now that was easy...I knew when I put that up there, some guy would jump in and tell me all about the ancillary time it takes to get them 80 (oh, please, 75 is real common) hours a month.

Hey, sport, just a little jibe. I'm an Aeronautical Engineer who worked his way through engineering school as a boring ol' fright instructor. Mostly prop time, some jet, and a LOT of friends still flying the line (all the guys I used to fly with!). Like, at America West (where my wife worked for 10 years). And a few at Delta (including the first guy I ever hired as a pilot); and at United (ex-mil, ex-civ, across the board); and American, ad nauseum. Me? Bad eyes, sweetie. 20/400, even. Maybe nowadays they hire that, but they didn't 20 years ago.

I've had to listen to every one of those guys bore me with their crying about how hard their lives are, and every one of them tell me how underpaid they are.

Hey, know what? If you're holding a 737 line out of SLC that only does lovely little day routes that take you out of the house, oh, a coupla nights a week, so what? Like I said, it's a good life. Anytime you'd like, I'll trade places with ya! You can come fly the satellites that I fly (3 weeks vaca a year, when we can fit it in), or design the jet engines that I used to design (note the ugly yellow buildings on the north side of Sky Harbor, and imagine yourself there for 30 years or so, maxing out at $70,000 / yr even if you had a PhD...well, a few do better).

Please. I've flown with guys who never saw the inside of university and get nauseous thinking about algebra, much less real aerodynamics. Are they capable, and worth a decent salary? You bet. It's a skill, and experience counts. But worth what? Well, whatever their union can get for them. Those of us who put in the time to learn how to design and build airplanes and their propulsion systems just never did have much of a union.

By the way, whaddya say we let foreign carriers have interstate rights? Us guys in the manufacturing companies have to compete with foreign aircraft manufacturers. Why not y'all? I mean, there's a real chance to compete openly. After all, it's hard work, right?

[Rebelbase]

Send those birds my way.

[SamAdams76]

And, what pray tell is a "stewardess" - WHO ARE YOU? Have you even FLOWN as a passenger in the past 20 years? There is no such thing as a "stewardess" and hasn't been for 25 years.

You seem to be the one who is misinformed about the airline industry. I flew several times in the past year and each and every time, I had stewardesses on board. In fact, if you read the news, you would have heard about the stewardess who thwarted a terrorist attack on an airplane over the Atlantic last December. They guy was going to light some explosives in his shoe on fire and the stewardess stopped it!

It is because of that incident that I changed my mind about stewardesses. A few months prior to that incident, I posted here that stewardesses should be done away with entirely. I proposed that the airlines hand out a bag lunch to each passenger as he/she boards the plane and provide vending machines in the back for such things as beer, soda, peanuts and headphones. It used to annoy me greatly to have stewardesses lug those blasted beverage carts up and down the aisles during flight, blocking off my egress to the lavaratories.

But alas! I have come around on the issue of stewardesses in the months since the December incident. Stewardesses have proven their value after all. I just wish they didn't have to lug around those beverage carts. Maybe we can still stick some vending machines in the back and hand out those bag lunches. The stewardesses will then have more time to focus on suspicious passengers.

[Regulator]

He's referring to your lack of political correctness in the use of the word "stewardess". The official nomenclature is..."Flight Attendant". Don't you feel awful?

[Regulator]

And one more thing. I own a 310 that flys for a living. If one of the guys who flys that thing for me shows up with even a hint of a hangover, he's gonna be one dead puppy.

There isn't ANY excuse for showing up with even a 0.03 blood alcohol limit, much less 0.091 like the two clowns in Miami, and I don't give a damn how bad a CEO Bill Franke was. There just isn't any excuse!

My comment to Marine Inspector stands: there are 1000 guys waiting in line for that job, and you know it. Those pilots have a good living - even though we all know HP has some of the worst management - but it's still a good job. They sure as hell have no excuse making life hard for their fellow pilots at HP who will now have to bear the brunt of the jokes and sneering like the idiots at Northwest brought on their peers.

[Frank_2001]

a "new career", indeed! But hopefully not as a truck driver!;)

[takenoprisoner]

Catch the pilot who had a beer last night or the terrorist?
Yea, go for the pilot, he's easy.

[Chad]

You are misinformed. The FAA alcohol rule is 8 hours, not 24. As for your statement that "it is so easy to fly a plane that even 13 year olds can master it", I'll advise you that when I went thru USN flight school from 1982-84, the wash-out rate (flunk-out rate) was nearly 70%. All students were college graduates, many from the USNA. We even had an MD from the University of Michigan who wanted to eventually become an astronaut, but he did not make it thru.