STR-LIS cancelled after FO was reported showing signs of intoxication
 

Flight TP523 from Stuttgart (STR) to Lissabon (LIS) was cancelled yesterday evening after authorities relieved the FO from duty for apparent intoxication. A ground crew worker had reported the FO "smelling of alcohol" and walking unsteady, the police said. At around 6:30 PM, police checked on the pilot who was already in the cockpit preparing the Embraer E190 for take-off scheduled for 6:40 PM. Police says the 40yo FO had been "clearly intoxicated" and a blood sample was taken. Prosecutors set bail at 10.000 Euro and seized the FO's licence. As no other crew was available, the flight was cancelled. 106 passengers were brought to a hotel.

And Pax have to wait til Monday for next flight to LIS.

I doubt that they would leave a perfectly good airplane to sit in STR for two or three days. Probably flew a replacement crew with a regular flight into MUC or FRA, just two hours by car each.

They didn't.

The aircraft operated the scheduled departure the following (Saturday) morning, the inbound LIS-STR nightstopper having also been cancelled.

Presumably it didn't have space for 106 extra passengers, hence the comment that they had to wait ...

Just found this, Spiegel quoted TAP on Saturday that the pax had to wait until Monday.
http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/leute...recom-outbrain


There are TAP flights STR-LIS at 6:00 and 17:55 and a Eurowings at 13:00, the other direction, leaving Lisbon there is a EW at 10:15 and TAP at 13:25 and 19:00.

So the drunk pilot was probably removed from the cockpit at about 17:15. Lisbon being an hour ahead, the nightstopper was scheduled to leave 18:00 Stuttgart time. By the time the facts were communicated and the decision made, the other flight probably was boarded already. Strange.

Seems like it would have been less of a hassle to fly in a replacement crew on the 19:00 LIS-STR or 19:20 LIS-MUC and maybe even use the crew that was scheduled to run the morning flight operate the evening flight (if they were already legal by that time). But then there are three daily flights from STR, four from MUC and six from FRA (within TAP/LH and another one on RYR). Seems hard to believe they could not redistribute all pax by Saturday.

Additional question: why is it in such cases that the airport personel or CC notice something, but almost never the captain?

Lisbon being an hour ahead of where ?

Portugal operates on the same time as the UK...so it is obviously ahead ;)

ahead of CET. stupid me, 19:00 LIS is 20:00 STR. Somehow time zones confuse me, especially around the weekend where we change. I probably should have said we are ahead :)

Maybe the earth now rotates is a different direction, but I would say that Portugal (and UK) time are behind CET.

There were no free seats on other TAP flights before monday.

Local german newspaper reports some of the passengers went by train or other airlines.

IIRC the flight in question was operated by Portugália (aka TAP express). AFAIK Portugália's fleet is a dozen E190/E195, while TAP is all Airbus plus a couple Boeings on wetlease? What are the chances of a replacement crew actually having been available in this scenario?

According to a local newspaper, the co-pilot's blood alcohol content was "over 2 ‰" (about 0.2 BAC). If that's true, he was quite hammered. Report also states that security personell alerted authorities after he tottered through security.