By NAOYUKI TAKAHASHI/ Staff Writer
October 9, 2019 at 15:20 JST
Japan Airlines Co.’s logo (Provided by Japan Airlines Co.)
A Japan Airlines Co. co-pilot who served prison time in Britain after being arrested for being drunk before a flight has had his pilot's license revoked, the first such action taken by the transport ministry.
According to a ministry announcement on Oct. 8, the man in his 40s was in a state of extreme intoxication as he boarded a flight at London’s Heathrow Airport bound for Haneda Airport in Tokyo on Oct. 28, 2018, potentially putting passengers at grave risk.
The ministry concluded that the co-pilot is not worthy of having a pilot's license and revoked it on grounds he tried to cover up his drunken state at the time and had also failed a breathalyzer test on a separate occasion.
An internal investigation held after the Oct. 28 incident found that the co-pilot was 10 times over the legal limit in Britain. He spent 10 months in prison.
He took and passed an in-house breathalyzer test by not blowing fully into the device.
He also tried to camouflage the smell of alcohol with mouth spray, once for a crew meeting at JAL’s office at Heathrow and again after he boarded the aircraft, where he was ordered by a local security inspector to disembark for questioning by local police.
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