Airline pilot arrested failing Breathalyzer test
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Airport police arrested an American Eagle pilot Friday after he failed a blood-alcohol breath test as he prepared to fly from Minneapolis-St. Paul to New York City, authorities said.
The pilot was conducting preflight checks at about 6:30 a.m. when airport police officers acting on a tip boarded the aircraft, Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport spokesman Patrick Hogan said. Officers made him take a Breathalyzer test and arrested him on suspicion of being under the influence of alcohol.
"There was a witness who smelled what they thought was alcohol on the pilot's breath and notified police," Hogan said. Passengers had not yet boarded the flight to New York's LaGuardia Airport, he said.
The pilot has been suspended pending an investigation, said Matt Miller, a spokesman for American Airlines, which uses Eagle to operate shorter connecting flights. Both airlines are owned by AMR Corp.
The company is cooperating with authorities and will conduct an internal investigation, Miller said.
The flight was delayed about 2 ½ hours while a replacement pilot was arranged, he said.
After the pilot was taken to Fairview Southdale Hospital to have a blood sample taken for testing, he was returned to the custody of airport police, Hogan said.
The alcohol limit for flying is generally lower than for driving a car. Federal rules prohibit pilots from flying within eight hours of drinking alcohol or having a blood-alcohol level of 0.04 percent or higher, half the level allowed for motorists in many states.
Pilots face drug and alcohol testing when they seek a job, are involved in an accident or return from alcohol rehabilitation. Some are selected for random tests. More than 10,000 pilots are tested each year and about a dozen flunk the alcohol part - a number that has remained mostly steady for more than a decade, according to federal statistics.
Twelve pilots failed the breath test in 2011, 10 in 2010, and 11 in 2009, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
The pilot was conducting preflight checks at about 6:30 a.m. when airport police officers acting on a tip boarded the aircraft, Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport spokesman Patrick Hogan said. Officers made him take a Breathalyzer test and arrested him on suspicion of being under the influence of alcohol.
"There was a witness who smelled what they thought was alcohol on the pilot's breath and notified police," Hogan said. Passengers had not yet boarded the flight to New York's LaGuardia Airport, he said.
The pilot has been suspended pending an investigation, said Matt Miller, a spokesman for American Airlines, which uses Eagle to operate shorter connecting flights. Both airlines are owned by AMR Corp.
The company is cooperating with authorities and will conduct an internal investigation, Miller said.
The flight was delayed about 2 ½ hours while a replacement pilot was arranged, he said.
After the pilot was taken to Fairview Southdale Hospital to have a blood sample taken for testing, he was returned to the custody of airport police, Hogan said.
The alcohol limit for flying is generally lower than for driving a car. Federal rules prohibit pilots from flying within eight hours of drinking alcohol or having a blood-alcohol level of 0.04 percent or higher, half the level allowed for motorists in many states.
Pilots face drug and alcohol testing when they seek a job, are involved in an accident or return from alcohol rehabilitation. Some are selected for random tests. More than 10,000 pilots are tested each year and about a dozen flunk the alcohol part - a number that has remained mostly steady for more than a decade, according to federal statistics.
Twelve pilots failed the breath test in 2011, 10 in 2010, and 11 in 2009, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
"In Minnesota, the legal limit for pilots is .04, much stricter than someone traveling on a road in the state," he said."
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It needs to be ZERO.
That blows up a career. Those guys have huge stress, sometimes days at a time away from home, and extremely low pay for the responsibility given them. It doesn't excuse putting passengers' lives in danger.
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I can't remember if mouthwash registers on a breath test. My friend was a PO and had a portable tester we used to try different things to see what would cause a false reading. We got it to read some absurdly lethal value by swishing red wine (worked better than whiskey) like mouthwash and then blowing.When a pilot fails a preliminary test they're given a secondary, more accurate test. The second test will typically rule out stuff like poppy seeds or aspirin but it's too expensive to administer randomly. As I read it, a quarter of US airline pilots are tested randomly each year. If there are no problems for a year or whatever the period is now, the testing schedule will fall to one in four in order to save money. Pilots very rarely fail the random tests, and almost always for alcohol. One way or the other, airline transport remains the safest form of travel ever, and I can't recall ever hearing of an alcohol-related airline crash.
 @Playanekes Thanks for the info!
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Is the secondary like a full blown lab analysis or something? I could imagine that would be spendy!
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the move "flight" comes to mind all thought  its fictionalÂ