Drunk passenger jet pilot jailed
Thursday, December 2, 2004 Posted: 1618 GMT (0018 HKT)
Pilot was arrested in the cockpit of Finnair Boeing 757 (file photo).
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LONDON, England (AP) -- A pilot with the Finnish national airline Finnair was jailed for six months on Thursday for trying to fly a packed passenger jet while drunk.
Heikki Tallila, 51, a Finn, is the first person to be sentenced under legislation introduced in March that gives police powers to breathalyze pilots and cabin crew suspected of attempting to fly under the influence of alcohol.
The prosecution told Minchsull Street Crown Court in Manchester, northwest England that Tallila had almost 2 1/2 times the legal limit of alcohol in his blood when he was arrested in the cockpit of a Boeing 757 at Manchester Airport on August 23.
Tallila was completing pre-flight checks for the journey to Turkey when authorities -- who had been tipped off by the taxi driver who brought Tallila to the airport -- boarded the plane, which was carrying 225 passengers.
Passing sentence, Justice John Burke said Tallila was responsible for ensuring passenger safety.
"If you had been a mere passenger causing problems and interfering with your fellow passengers and crew and misbehaving you would have gone to prison," he said.
"In your case the passengers did not even appreciate their safety was in jeopardy. They assumed their safety was in good hands."
The prosecution said Tallila had drunk up to seven glasses of wine and a glass of beer on the afternoon before he was arrested.
A breathalyzer test showed he had 49 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood, well above the legal limit for pilots of 20 milligrams of alcohol for every 100 millilitres of blood.
Tallila's lawyer said his client had since been sacked from his £100,000 pounds ($180,000) a year job with Finnair, where he had worked for 25 years.
He and his wife, who still works as a stewardess for the airline, had suffered a "great deal" of public humiliation following his arrest, Gerard McDermott said.
"This has been a very public humiliation. This has impacted very highly on this individual. The financial consequences have been hard," McDermott added.
He said his client now attends Alcoholics Anonymous course and is receiving counseling for substance abuse.
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