The BBC article linked in Post #3 certainly thinks so...

I wouldn't expect a colleague to 'turn him in' unless the pilot under suspicion, when challenged by his colleague, refused to go sick.

I wasn't there, so can't really comment directly on the incident at hand, but I can say that it can be pretty difficult to detect when a full-time career alcoholic is intoxicated. Chronic continual alcohol consumption changes the way it affects you physiologically. I can think of 2 individuals with whom I worked fairly closely, (not as flight crew) whom I later came to know were pretty much drunk, all the time. Yet they never appeared outwardly to be drunk in the sense of slurring words or staggering or other typical signs of intoxication. "drunk" was simply "normal" for them. Point being, it's not always obvious and certain that someone is intoxicated, and accusing them of showing up intoxicated is a pretty big "no-turning back" step, one that would go badly for the accuser if it turned out that he was mistaken and the accusee was stone cold sober. At the very least, you're now known throughout the airline as the guy accuses co-workers of drinking when they haven't been. So it's understandable that someone might be a little hesitant to ring the "You're drunk and I'm reporting you" bell unless they're pretty confident their suspicions are correct. Would you summon the authorities for a fellow crewmember who wasn't showing outward signs of being drunk and smelled of aftershave and breathmints? What it it turns out he just likes aftershave and breath mints?

Not first , not last .
 

He had been due to be part of a crew flying a Japan Airlines (JAL) flight JL44 to Tokyo but failed a breath test 50 minutes before the departure time.
The Boeing 777 aircraft took off after a 69-minute delay.
- Maybe he went to the toilet on the way to the plane, BUT fair play to the Bus Driver should be promote.

Come on! you had a serious drinking problem, didn't you? You admitted as much.
You lost your job at BA but kept your licence and kept flying, quite a result if you ask me. I would be thanking my lucky star if I was you. You where treated with a LOT more compassion and consideration than many people would advocate in this site

There are a number of aspects to your question. One is that a lack of a criminal conviction is not proof of innocence. A verdict of "Not guilty" does not mean that the court found that the defendant was innocent, just that his guilt wasn't proven" beyond a reasonable doubt". That's a pretty high standard (intentionally so) and it's a long way from having been shown to shown to be innocent. A company making a decision to retain or dismiss an employee is not a court, nor is it a criminal issue, so the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard isn't applicable. If anything it seems like a company would be more guided by the "preponderance of evidence" standard used in civil matters. I would assume that would be the standard which would apply if their decision were to be contested in court (but I may be assuming too much) It also may be that the company's decision to dismiss someone is informed by information not available to a criminal court. Just as a purely hypothetical example, criminal defense counsel might have a blood alcohol test result of 0.12% suppressed, because a piece of lab equipment had missed a mandatory calibration date by a day, so a jury might never see that result. Meanwhile a manager might have seen that report, and might (reasonably) conclude that there's a fairly low probability that the equipment went that badly out of calibration in 24 hours, and choose to be guided by that BAC test result that the jury never saw.

In sum:

Neither the lack of a conviction nor the lack of a prosecution is proof of innocence.

A company is not a criminal court, so employee infractions do not have to be proven "beyond a reasonable doubt."

A company is not a court at all, a court's rules of evidence do not apply, so a company's decision may be based on information which a court wouldn't be allowed to consider.

Stack those together and it's neither remarkable nor outrageous that an employee might be dismissed in an incident that did not result in a criminal conviction.

Par for the course in Korea and Japan.

This happens a lot more often than is reported. It is a serious problem and I've tried to do my part in reducing it through some of the training I do for those that utilize my services.

East Asia has a serious drinking problem and when you mix it in with the Korean and Japanese culture of "Whatever the boss says and does is never wrong" it is a recipe for disaster.

My Mrs. (who is Japanese) reports that this is less of a problem amongst younger generations; bosses are less able to "insist" these days. Does still happen though. Intervening in someone else's private affairs is a big taboo, even if the need to do so it pretty stark. This is a big problem for safety.

Japan tends not to have rules / regulations / laws for things where there is a belief that everyone involved will naturally do the right thing. That's great, right up until they discover it isn't true. And so now we hear that the Japanese government is rushing in new regulations concerning enforcement of pilot sobriety...

If I recall correctly, the incident happened in early 2003 and the pilot was dismissed following a disciplinary hearing. Whatever the grounds for dismissal, if an employee deviates from the employer's standards or contractual requirements I guess the company can terminate employment - assuming disciplinary procedures are applied correctly. The law regarding limits on breath/blood-alcohol levels for aviation workers in the UK was introduced around mid-2003, hence at the time of the event no law was broken (well, not as a result of specific alcohol levels in the body, anyway) and so nothing to prosecute.

Some regulatory authorities, but not all, won't specify a cut-off time for drinking, only that it is an offence to report for duty when unfit due to alcohol or drug consumption, so a real bender at lunchtime can still leave you unfit for most of the following day. Companies can/do give a cut-off time for drinking in their OM, eight to twelve hours seems the most common and even if no state, federal or country laws are broken, (so no prosecution), an individual can still be dismissed for breaching the company OM.

India is one country that has a countrywide law forbidding drink within twelve hours of reporting for duty and I remember a case where the hotel were asked to produce the room service receipts to establish just what time last drinks were ordered. Moral of that story is pay cash and tip well!

Ordering a drink is not proof that one drank it. I have, very occasionally, bought drinks for others....

He was caught in Sweden, so Swedish criminal law would apply.

No, what we're now hearing is the usual Japanese knee-jerk reaction and being seen to be strict guardians of the Right Way.......when we all know how far from the truth that is.

The rules were/are already in force. It's not a matter of doing things because it's the right thing to do. The rules and regulations concerning alcohol and flying duties are there in black and white and this pilot disobeyed them. Will it be just him who is punished? Of course not; that is not the Japanese way.

The Japanese seem absolutely incapable of dealing with the actual trouble-makers and, instead, apply blanket punishments and restrictions to everyone......just in case. The recent ANA manager is a very good case in point. He'd had a few wines and accidentally sat on a woman who was asleep in her lie-flat bed, believing it was his seat. Nothing deliberate. He wasn't wandering the place legless, just a genuine mistake. But, of course, he was considered 'drunk; and instantly fired and now ALL ANA Group employees are banned from consuming alcohol on ANA flights, including in the lounges, even if they are on full fare commuting tickets. All of this just so ANA can turn round and show how they have dealt with such disgraceful behaviour as shown by the manager for sitting in the wrong seat :rolleyes:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46231780

This also has the above statistics of 19 infringements and 12 delays, and later:

Japan Airlines will implement a series of measures as a result of the recent breaches.

These include new breathalyser systems at overseas airports and introducing penalties "for flight crew violating the regulated alcohol concentration level".

The new systems are already in place at Heathrow and domestic airports in Japan, the spokesperson said.

They will be introduced at other airports on 19 November.

Pilots will also be prohibited from consuming alcohol in the 24 hours prior to reporting for a flight from Japan, the firm said.