I smelled alcohol
Hi all,
Recently I've done a flight and I'm still bothering myself if I have done the right thing and would like to hear your thoughts, own experience and maybe advice if this would happen to me a second time.
First a short intro: I am a first officer with under 1000hrs on the 737, flying in Europe for a charter airliner. Some of you might call me 'inexperienced'.
On this early morning flight (takeoff at 6 am.), crew joined together in crewroom, all was normal, weather was looking great for a 3+ hr flight to a nice holiday destination somewhere with seaview...
I chose to be PF on the outbound flight so when we arrived at the aircraft, I did the cockpit preperation and the captain went outside to do the walkaround. When he returned we did the preflight checks, and I briefed the departure. After the briefing, waiting while the passengers were boarding, the captain fell into a snoring sleep. I was a bit surprised by this, but I didn't bother too much untill I noticed his breath smelling of alcohol. My first thought was: 'this is not happening to me'. Thereafter I was in a lot of doubt what to do. We only had 10 minutes left before our pushback time so I did not have much time to think about it. He woke up when the handling agent came to pick up the last paperwork. And off we went...
During taxi out and takeoff, everything was normal, as I was fit for the flight and enjoying the sunrise while taking the plane in the air. When airborne however, it became very obvious that this guy was all but 'in the loop'. He missed a lot of radiocalls, made erratic calls like 'airlinexxx approach FL80', while we were in fact already passing FL120, cleared to FL260, and the previous clearance had been to FL80...
After breakfast he fell vast asleep again. I had to shout and prod at him 5 times to wake him up so I could go to the toilet. I then had a talk with the senior cabin if she had noticed anything, she admitted to have smelled alcohol in the crewroom, but did not pay any major attention to it as she didn't know this captain and was not sure if it was normal for him or not (it wasn't). He slept for the whole outbound flight and woke up just 10 min. prior to descent. Landing was uneventfull.
On the ground we had a small talk about my feelings about the previous flight and he admitted to have been to a 'small' party and did not sleep at all (!) the night before the flight. So that was why he had to catch up with sleep. I asked if he felt fit enough to be PF on the way back and he answered something like 'yes ofcourse, no problem'. As he appeared to be fitter after the 3+ hrs of sleep during the flight, I decided just to do the return flight as well, and this leg was quite uneventfull except for some minor mistakes but those could also have been made among a completely fit crew. However he did sleep again for about half of the return flight.
During the whole episode the senior cabin crew was very supportive to me and checked with us about every 20 minutes (capt being asleep), just to make sure that I was still alive and kicking, which I very much appreciated...
After the flight I again initiated a small talk with the captain about how I felt about the situation. He admitted to have been unfit to fly and promised that he would report sick if it would happen again (on which I insisted).We shook hands and that was about it...
Looking back to it, I am thinking that I might have done a better job to speak up immediately after that early morning departure briefing when I smelled his breath.
If it would happen to me a next time, I think I will:
1. Seek someone that shares my opinion, and ask the opinion of the senior cabin crew.
2. Speak up to the capt. immediately about my uncomfort.
3. If I am sure that the other crewmember is not fit to fly, I would ask him to call in sick, or otherwise I will do it myself. I want to avoid the airplane from departing with an, in essence, incapacitated crewmember.
It was also a lesson for this cabin crew member, I think next time she will speak up about something like this. Also cabin crew often come closer to a pilot during 'the greeting ceremony' (kisses), so they will be the most likely persons to notice this.
I share the story to first of all relief my thoughts, second; hear your thoughts/advice and third it might be a learning experience for my fellow 'inexperienced' f/o's, and maybe cabin crew as well.
Regards and thanks for replies!