Free Republic

The transport ministry ordered Japan Airlines Co. to clean up its act after a drinking episode involving a pilot and his co-pilot that was uncovered after an international flight. The ministry issued a business improvement recommendation, a form of administrative guidance, to the company on Dec. 27. According to the ministry and the company, the captain and his co-pilot began drinking at a restaurant on the day before an international flight from Australia to Japan and ended up consuming three times the company’s legal limit. It emerged they then later conspired to pretend that their alcohol intake was within the...

<p>MIAMI, Florida (CNN) --A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Florida cannot prosecute two former America West pilots for operating an aircraft while allegedly intoxicated because federal law, not Florida law, applies in the case.</p> <p>A spokesman for the Miami-Dade County state's attorney's office said it would appeal the federal ruling.</p>

Several airline pilots have reported sighting a shining unidentified flying object (UFO) near the south-eastern Chinese city of Nanjing, a newspaper reported yesterday. The first sighting was reported by a Xiamen Airlines pilot on Monday, who said he saw a light blue object hovering past his plane while 80km north of Nanjing, the Wen Wei Po daily reported. At the same time, pilots of a Shandong Airline aircraft, which was some 120km away from the Xiamen airlines plane, also reported a similar sighting. They described the UFO as being a white-blue skateboard-shaped craft. A pilot from another airplane, about 300km...

<p>July 24, 2002 -- MIAMI - Two America West pilots accused of being drunk when they tried to fly a jetliner have been in alcohol rehab, prosecutors said yesterday.</p> <p>Lawyers for Thomas Porter Cloyd and Christopher Hughes requested a hearing today to ask a judge to delay their Aug. 1 hearing because the pilots will be in rehabilitation until Aug. 2, Assistant State Attorney Ronald Ramsingh said.</p>