>>I understood he was arrested sitting in the cabin checking the paperwork and therefore had not technically taken charge of the aircraft<<
The feds usually won't buy this defense but it looks like it may have done the trick for the state charges due to the wording of the law. As I observed on the earlier thread:
"In the U.S., pilots can be tested after they report for duty. They do not have to start the engines (a little late to get the tester onboard) or even enter the aircraft. Of course, defense attorneys will try every trick in the book to claim that the test was improper (not that there's anything wrong with that <g> ). In one case it was claimed that there was no intent of flight since the trip was canceled due to lack of crew after the captain was arrested."
>>Whatever happened to that America West crew that actually started taxying out and were called back to the gate? Both were loaded - did they do any time/pay fine?<<
Like the Virgin pilot, they are facing parallel federal and state charges. They did the classic trip to rehab while initially entering an innocent plea on the state charges. Later they claimed they weren't in control of the plane since they were being pushed back etc., etc., etc...
Here's some of the latest in their saga from another thread:
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...5&pagenumber=8