Drunken Aussie Pilot 7 Times Over Limit

A DRUNKEN Australian pilot who tried to fly a packed plane to Dubai when he was seven times over the alcohol limit has been jailed in London. John Cronly-Dillon, 51, was sentenced to four months' jail last Friday by a judge who told him he had brought an unblemished 25-year career to a stupid and ignominious end. Isleworth Crown Court heard the Emirates pilot had been on such a bender that his drink level sent monitors through the ceiling, even though he claimed to have observed the ban on pilots taking alcohol within 12 hours of a flight. He was arrested after stumbling around during a routine search at Heathrow, making incoherent jokes about "not blowing up my plane" with his breath smelling strongly of drink. Douglas Adams, prosecuting, said that tests found 134 micrograms of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood, compared with the allowed limit of 20 micrograms for a pilot. He was arrested minutes before the flight was due to leave, stranding hundreds of passengers. Judge Usha Khan told him that his behaviour during the search had been extraordinary. While waiting for security staff he drank water and ate a whole packet of chewing gum. She said: "Your face was red, and the security guards could smell alcohol on you."You also stumbled as you took your shoes off for the security gate and again as you passed through the metal detector, hitting the side and activating the alarm." The behaviour belied defence claims that Cronly-Dillon did not realise the state he was in. He pleaded guilty to preparing to fly while over the alcohol limit. Judge Khan accepted that he was suffering from stress and fatigue and that the debacle had lost him his job and his home in Dubai. But she told him before he was taken from the dock after a brief glance at his wife in the public gallery, that an immediate jail sentence was unavoidable. "The courts take a very dim view of passengers who get drunk on an aircraft," she said. "It is much worse if it is the pilot, who has a high level of duty of care to those he would have been looking after."