A Southwest Airlines pilot was arrested just before he was about to get behind the controls of a Boeing 737 with as many as 143 passengers onboard early on Wednesday morning after a TSA agent detected booze on his breath.
According to the Chatham County Sheriff’s Office, 51-year-old David Allsop was arrested by the Savannah Airport Police Department on suspicion of driving under the influence and is being held on a bond of $3,500.
Southwest flight WN-3772 was due to depart Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport (SAV) at around 6:05 am on January 15 for the two-hour flight up to Chicago Midway Airport.
Following Allsop’s arrest, however, Southwest had to scramble to find a replacement pilot, and the flight didn’t end up departing Savannah until just after 11 am. In the end, the passengers arrived in Chicago with a delay of nearly five hours.
According to sources cited by NBC News, Allsop was stopped as he was passing through the TSA checkpoint after alcohol was smelt on his breath and the airport police department were called.
Under Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rules, pilots must not consume alcohol within 8 hours of a flight – the so-called ‘bottle to throttle’ rule. That rule isn’t, however, foolproof, as pilots must still ensure that they haven’t drunk so much alcohol that their blood alcohol concentration doesn’t exceed 0.04%.
Pilots can face stiff penalties for attempting to fly while over the alcohol limit, especially internationally, where local authorities take the issue very seriously.
Last March, a Delta Air Lines pilot was jailed for 10 months in the United Kingdom after pleading guilty to ‘reporting for duty as a pilot while being impaired through alcohol.’
Captain Lawrence Russell, 63, had been due to fly a packed Boeing 767 from Edinburgh, Scotland, to New York JFK when his bag was pulled aside for further inspection at the airport security checkpoint.
Officers became suspicious when they found a half-drunk bottle of Jägermeister in Russell’s carry-on, and the police were called. Russell was found to have 49 milligrams of alcohol in 100 milliliters of blood, whereas the legal limit is just 20 milligrams.
Late last year, two on-duty Delta flight attendants narrowly avoided being arrested in the Netherlands after they both failed random breathalyzer tests at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport just minutes before they were due to board a flight to New York JFK.
One of the crew members was ordered to pay a fine of €1,900 (US $2,000) after she was found to be seven times over the legal alcohol limit for aircrew, while the second crew member was fined just €275 after he failed the breathalyzer test by just 0.02.
In a statement to NBC News, a spokesperson for Southwest Airlines said on Wednesday’s arrest: “We’re aware of a situation involving an employee on Flight 3772 this morning from Savannah. The Employee has been removed from duty.”
“There’s nothing more important to Southwest than the safety of our employees and customers.”
