Oxon Flyer

Folks, so it seems this is of those threads where some posters seem hellbent in nosediving a discussion about a serious incident into the ground.

Let's keep things on-topic and relevant.

the mod team

atcodave

It may be appropriate to say now that aviation professionals are governed by different rules to the rest of the public. Our regulations are 0.2g of BAC, that is a quarter of the U.K. drink drive limit (yes I know Scottish rules are different). It would not be difficult to break that limit, which is why most of us have adopted a no alcohol before duty rule.

Also we don’t know the facts here, but what does happen, as Waterhouse said is that once reported, either direct by the airline or via ATC, that it is the police will decide what happens next. Who hasn’t been held up on a motorway whilst investigation takes place, I was just a couple of weeks ago, frustrating yes but that’s life.

Sad to see the usual suspects quoting nonsense on what is likely a sensitive subject.

Ghoulish

Yes, because then all the evidence could be called into question, and my lawyer would spring me.

Schind

An hour is excessive for anything alcohol related in my opinion. Breath test results are only admissible in court if they're taken on an evidential breathalyser in a police station, the handheld ones can't be used for this.
Because alcohol naturally dissipates from the body, usually quicker for females than males, any borderline cases will be dropped if the time taken getting the evidential test is too long.

There is no crime scene to secure - it's not a murder. The evidence is in the person's body.

South London Bon Viveur

This is sad to hear. I also presume the Captain would have only noticed after the fight had taken off as otherwise he or she would not have departed with the crew member in the first place?

BlueThroughCrimp

Depends on how they're proceeding with it.
Our post incident and random screening is usually breath and urine done by occupational health nurses rather than going straight for the authorities under the Transport and Works Act 1992.
More serious incidents would obviously involve the police.

skipness1E

Beggars belief she wasn't asked to quietly sit down the back alongside the senior CC with rear doors kept closed while passengers departed via 1L. I know the Police are perfectly capable of making a quiet arrest with dignity that doesn't involve loads of members of the public being detained.

Waterhorse

Indeed

BOH

EXACTLY this ^^^^

It's amusing how so many are condescending in this thread and believe that detaining all passengers for an hour on the plane is perfectly acceptable. Maybe so many have become conditioned to now believe that all air travel delays are perfectly acceptable.

As someone else pointed out, it's not a murder

Fatdickie

One of the people responsible for the safety of nearly 180 people at 38,000 ft, is potentially drunk and may or may not have been taking drugs.

I personally consider that serious enough

Waterhorse

So write to the police and complain, it�s their deal once on the ground, the crew and passengers have no control over how they do their business. But wait, indignation is far better done through a keyboard and an internet travel forum.

Right I�m not quite annoyed by self righteous idiocy, I�m off to read the Mail Online comments section

GM1985

It�s also amusing how many have feigned outrage despite not personally having suffered a second of inconvenience at this event.

I strongly suspect that BA leadership, and the flight and cabin crew on the aircraft concerned, would have preferred to not have this dirty linen aired in public. And I agree that the passengers would have preferred not to have been delayed for an hour. But there are many valid reasons why the police may not have been in a position to allow immediate disembarking by passengers - chain of custody of evidence, the need to potentially talk to passengers as witnesses�

Isn�t it a little histrionic to lump this - very much a black swan event - in with the usual sort of gripes about lack of staff to load catering, not enough people to turn on stand guidance, etc, etc?

corporate-wage-slave

What is unusual about this event is that we have not heard much from, say, a passenger affected by this incident. Normally if something unexplained happened, given the reach of the BA forum on FT someone will come forward with a first hand report, or a lurker will sign up. It may be that it was handled with more sensitivity than implied above.

But then let's wind back through this. Journalism has changed a lot in the internet age and it's now accepted practice that one report is then copied on by others. Where an individual newspaper now adds value is in the commentary and analysis side, rather than on the facts. An aspect of this isn't new given the role of press agencies such as Reuters and AP. The Daily Mail's website is relatively open access without a paywall, and also scrapes stories from a long list of sources that are generally reliable. But what they will do is at the end of a story essentially say from where they got their version. In this story's case it's The Sun that got the story, and their version is here, I think it's couched in fairly moderate wording.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/211996...rrested-drunk/

Now there is an implication that passengers may have been held up by the remote stand issue, but it's not actually clear that passengers were actually held up - no passenger reports at all in fact other than an inference about looking on in horror. If you put out a remote stand - a bit rare at LGW - then it does have the advantage that you can link the steps to the front and rear of the aircraft and so, for example, passengers can be led off the front while the crew could be held back at the rear for questioning, with anyone arrested also taken down by the back stairs. So in other words fairly discreetly. The police rarely enjoy the presence of by-standers, there is nothing to see here.

In short what we know is that there is an allegation of someone's personal tragedy, presumably about to unfold in a magistrate's court, not one complaint from a passenger, no shaky phone videos and no obvious risk to the aircraft's operations.

krispy84

Come now CWS, the BA FT forum isn�t the place for calm, reasoned posts. How else is Sir Bufton Tufton going to choke on his morning kippers?

IAMORGAN

I think the poster meant in the pax�s interests. The reason why crew being pissed is a serious no no is that they are supposed to be responsible for safety. So it is in the interests of passengers and the public that this gets sorted out.