The Calgary Police Service reported an incident on New Year’s eve in which a pilot on a flight from Canada to Cancun, Mexico allegedly passed out in the cockpit. After the Sunwing Airlines crew contacted the police about the pilot’s odd behavior upon boarding, he was arrested.
The plane was carrying 99 passengers, six flight crew members and the pilot himself. Police said they charged the pilot with controlling an aircraft while intoxicated and two counts of controlling an aircraft while impaired.
The spokesman for the airline, Jacqueline Grossman, stated to CBC, “We are very apologetic for any upset that this has caused and would like to assure our customers that safety remains our utmost priority.”
This incident comes after a similar one on Wednesday in which an Indonesian budget airline’s pilot was suspected to be under the influence, causing many passengers to cancel and the airline executives to step down. The flight was going from Surabaya to the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta, raising safety concerns to the many customers that use the airlines.
Reports of drunkenness had previously been made against the 32-year-old pilot, Tekad Purna; however, these reports were dismissed because drug and alcohol tests were negative. He is now under investigation, banned from flying throughout the investigation, and is under threat of license revocation if the reports are proven to be true.
The pilot can be seen on a YouTube video going through security in a seemingly unstable manner, dropping his things and staggering. The Director and President of Citilink, Albert Burhan, said, “We apologize for the discomfort. I have to be responsible for that and therefore I and my production director resign.”
In addition to these reports, last year in December, a pilot and two flight attendants were arrested for allegedly doing methamphetamine at a hotel.
