Air Baltic Crew escorterd from AC by police.

[TowerDog]

An Air Baltic charter flight in OSL, with a 05:45 departure was delayed as both pilots and 2 F/As were taken away by the authorities for suspicion of being over the blood alcohol limit of 0.2.
Ground staff explained the crew had fallen ill.

http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/l...en/a/23502093/

Another head line: (in Norwegian)
Police stopped flight over the limit
http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/ir...g-8118834.html

[fjencl]

Latvian Air Baltic pilot and three crew members were pulled off a Greece-bound passenger plane in Oslo early Saturday after failing a breathalyser test before take-off, Norwegian police said.

"Results of the breathalyser tests confirmed that four of the five crew members ... were above the legal alcohol limit of 0.2 promille," Romerike police prosecutor Edith Ek Sorensen told AFP.

The pilot, co-pilot and two stewardesses -- all from Latvia and employed by Air Baltic -- were taken into police custody and escorted to hospital for blood tests to confirm the breathalyser tests.

Results were expected later.

Sorensen said police had acted after receiving a tipoff from an anonymous caller around 4:00 am (0200 GMT).

The four risk up to two years in prison if found guilty.

Sorensen would not comment on the flight's destination, but Norwegian daily Dagbladet said it was a tour group flight operated by the Norwegian group Startour headed for Chania, Greece, with 109 passengers on board.

[TowerDog]

Looks like the crew is going to jail...

The police was alerted by a hotel employee at 04:00.
Don't drink and fly in Norway, they don't like it and get grumpy

From today's VG Tabloid:

06:48 DEL Del
- Vil fengsle promillebesetning
- Vi har pågrepet fire besetningsmedlemmer på bakgrunn av mistanke om promille. De sitter i arresten i Lillestrøm, siktet for promille. De vil bli fremstilt for varetektsfengsling mandag, sier jourhavende jurist Charlotte Visdal Benneche i Romerike Politidistrikt til VG.

Det var lørdag morgen at politiet rykket ut til flyet, etter tips fra en hotellansatt der besetningen hadde overnattet. Fire medlemmer blåste rødt.

Besetningen er siktet etter luftfartslovens paragraf 611 (bruk av alkohol i tjeneste, promillegrense 0,2) og 612 (forbud mot inntak av alkohol åtte timer før tjeneste). Tre av besetningsmedlemmene er avhørt, den fjerde sitter i avhør nå, opplyser politiet til VG.

[B739ER]

Company culture?

Wow. 4 crew members in the same set of crew. None of them said "no, wait a minute, we cant do this...". All 4 continued drinking and all 4 were willing to show up for work.
Then it might be a problem with the company culture about saying "no" and reporting.

I crew member under influence is bad enough, imagine both pilots and half the cabin crew. That is a different level of danger to safety for that flight.

[Can737]

When your company culture is pay to fly for your pilots, you can't expect much standards.

[G-CPTN]

I guess that that hotel will now lose its airline customers.

[B739ER]

P2F

Ahhh, so we have already established that these 4 local Baltic crew members are P2F? Even the cabin?

Anyway, I hope there will be more random tests in the future. It is needed. Also tests for drugs. Only pilots I dont want to fly with are worried for those tests.

[skyship007]

If the drivers are P2F, then the folks in the cabin will be P2S as well, although for only 10% of the 20K plus of the co-pilots.

I got arrested once (Post flight) along with the co-pilot near Newark, BUT I never got detained as the company accountant had enough cash (1K usd) to bail us both out after we signed the papers. Case dismissed 6 months later cos the part time summer Policeman did not contact the FAA first and he had no real evidence that we were guilty of disorderly conduct likely to endanger public safety (It's a general charge that can apply to many different activities).

We were just doing a spot or two of low flying for a film crew, but the chaps on patrol though we must be drunk (Bumpy sea breeze front).
It turned out to be a classic wrongful arrest case, which I knew although the co didn't help things by saying he had not touched a drop of anything in the last 8 hours (It was a 10 hour flight). The ground crew boss did not help either, as once we had shut the engines down, he got on the external emergency PA system and shouted, "Come out with your hands up"!

[AreOut]

it seems drunk pilots problem isn't just russian but more soviet one

[strake]

It seems drunk pilots problem isn't just russian but more soviet one

I think you'll find that the majority of recent cases are western European and North American.

[SMT Member]

The amount of wilful ignorance here seems quite prevalent, as well as all kind of absurd excuses (drinks bought by 'clients' which can't be refused -8H prior departure. WTF?).

Most everybody who's been in this business long enough knows, that sometimes a meal and a few drinks amongst crew members post landing goes a bit south. And with a limit as low as 0.02 it doesn't take much more than a hours sleep to little, or a beer too many, for the alkometer to raise the alarm.

Now the vast, overwhelming, majority knows when and where to call it a day, but it is inevitable that once in a while someone will push it a bit too far and get his or her arse busted. While we are all only humans, that is still a major violation of the trust bestowed in the holder of a commercial aviation license, something we all knew about when we signed up.

So how about we talk openly about this, and help each other as aviation professionals to ensure this doesn't happen to any of us. The camaraderie formed between crew members working, and resting, together is a very special part of this industry. Let's use that to protect ourselves, by helping each other calling it day before the line is crossed.

[captplaystation]

SMT Member, some common sense here at last

G-CPTN, We can dream Eh ?

[deptrai]

I was drinking a few beers with a guy a bar in an SE Asian country, when he left he told me he'd be flying to Oz in a few hours. I did my best to convince him to call in sick. I didn't call the police. Still wondering - maybe naively - what else I could have done, calling the chief pilot, crew scheduling, or dispatch? I don't want to be perceived as a troublemaker, this was a senior, well connected local captain, and I was the junior, contract foreigner. A similar situation in (insert another SE asian country here): Senior, local captain snorting cocaine a few hours before duty. The guy who gets to fly all the VIP's. How do you deal with those?

[Intruder]

Senior, local captain snorting cocaine a few hours before duty. The guy who gets to fly all the VIP's. How do you deal with those?

You do what you failed to do both times: Call the police. They have the investigative ability to find out if those pilots are actually scheduled to fly, and to take the appropriate action if they are.

Alternatively, you can call the airline.

[crewmeal]

The days of raucous room parties seem to be long gone. Thank God I retired years ago. I'm sure many on here could recall the 'goings on' at said room parties.

What do crews do on night stops these days? Facebook? Twitter?

[andrasz]

@Intruder,

Obviously you have not lived or worked in said SE Asian countries. Would you do either of your suggested courses of action, the chances are that the police would take YOU for a breathalyzer test just before your next flight, and surprise, surprise the test would fail...

You would have plenty of time alone to ponder why taking this action is perhaps not the best idea.

[MrSnuggles]

When I read the clip from the Norwegian news, it became obvious that this wasn't your usual alcohol control.

The police was called by a hotel employee.

This isn't your average "a pint and some chatter" when the hotel personnel gets worried enough to do something...

I give my respects to the employee who took his/her responsibility for other peoples' lives and safety.

[OldChinaHand]

Thank you to the Hotel staff and the Authorities.

I would like to thank the hotel staff for their intervention when they felt concerned. Further thank you to the Norwegian authorities for reacting in a timely manner. The Crew members concerned are entitled to due process, and may have a case to answer or not.

[deptrai]

I'd also like to extend thanks to the media for not publishing names and pictures.

[parabellum]

when he left he told me he'd be flying to Oz in a few hours

Having worked in SE Asia I would wonder if, perhaps, you weren't being set up Deptrai to see if you would report it, only to discover he was positioning as a pax? Just a thought.