Fly Me to the Moonshine
Thursday, April 13th, 2006 • Filed under Drunks
In most non-threatening circumstances, drunks are funny. Come on, admit it. You’re sitting in a hotel bar waiting for a friend to come down from his room where he’s watching “Baby Geniuses” on the Spectravision and someone lost soul shuffles into the room, walks head first into a wall with a satisfying sounding “THUD,” knocks over the dessert cart and lands face first into a tray of Baked Alaska. That’s comedy-and-a-half, my friends! You can’t write material like that, and I know because I just tried. Just like I wouldn’t be able to write supreme dumbness like this…
MUMBAI (Reuters) – An Indian low-cost airline suspended a pilot after he was found drunk shortly before he was due to fly an aircraft with about 100 passengers on board, officials said Wednesday.
The surprise Tuesday check at Mumbai airport — India’s busiest — threw up several minor violations of safety norms by airlines, including an instance of a pilot in another low-cost carrier trying to fly in a T-shirt because his only uniform had gone to the laundry.
While aviation officials let most offenders off with a warning, Captain N. Ronaldo, a South American pilot flying an Air Deccan aircraft from Mumbai to the eastern city of Kolkata, was referred for “action” after being found drunk on duty.
Heh, “threw up several minor violations.” Wasn’t that after the pilot went on his little drinking binge?
We’ve all been in that situation where a drunken friend insists on driving home even though he keeps trying to put the keys in the cigarette lighter. But what do you do when a pilot wants to fly the plane when he’s three sheets to the wind? It’s not like you can say, “Don’t worry, I’ll fly you home” or “We’ll just call a cab to Venezula.”
Still, the good part of the story is that no one was injured and that the plane never left the ground before Otis the Drunk had a chance to get his grubby little hands on the wheel. The bad part of the story? He drove himself home.