Interesting to note the differences in the degree of recall between the two in the above cases...
And the American Airlines pilot at Manchester who was acquitted in a jury trial after blowing 'almost eight times over the legal limit'. A third of his bottle of Bushmill's mysteriously disappeared while he was sleeping according to his testimony:
Earlier, the jury was told that he had left the Renaissance Hotel in Manchester for a seven-hour drinking session with his two fellow pilots. He had drunk pints in at least four pubs before retiring for a Scotch in the hotel bar.
Around midnight, he swallowed a sedative to help him to sleep. When he woke up the next morning, after 9am, he could hear his captain banging on the hotel door. He noticed that about a third of the Irish whiskey he had bought the previous day had been consumed, but he had no memory of drinking it.
"American Airlines pilot who drank whiskey 'in his sleep' is cleared"
He successfully convinced the Minshull Street Crown Court jury that he had showed up at the airport drunk in full uniform only to tell the captain that he was unfit for duty and that he had no intent to operate the flight to ORD. As noted elsewhere in this thread, this 'we didn't know we wuz gonna fly' defense no longer works very well in the U.S.
"Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."