BA Gatwick Airport double vodkas pilot jailed
Image copyright PAA British Airways pilot who turned up for work after drinking three double vodkas has been jailed.
Julian Monaghan boarded a plane to Mauritius at Gatwick Airport, but was led away in handcuffs after colleagues smelt the alcohol and called police.
He had 86mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood in his system in January - the legal limit for a pilot is 20mg.
Monaghan, 49, admitted being over the proscribed alcohol limit and was jailed for eight months at Lewes Crown Court.
During sentencing, Judge Janet Waddicor told Monaghan, who resigned from his British Airways job, "you took a risk and it didn't pay off because you were caught".
'Bottle to throttle'
"You are in charge of a huge aircraft. The safety, if not the lives, indeed, of passengers and crew members are in the hands of the pilot. They are entitled to feel that they are safe."
Monaghan had initially queried the results of the tests but resigned two months after his arrest when further tests confirmed the samples were accurate.
He had insisted he obeyed the airline's eight-hour "bottle to throttle rule", which forbids pilots from drinking for that amount of time before going on duty.
The 12-hour flight had been scheduled to leave at 20:20 GMT, but the Boeing 777 was left waiting at the gate while airline staff looked for a third pilot. It eventually took off just before 23:00.
Defending Monaghan, Emlyn Jones said his client would not have had to take up the role of pilot until three-and-a-half hours into the flight.
He had argued his client was only "a fraction" over the alcohol limit for drivers of 80mg per 100ml of blood.
A British Airways spokeswoman said: "This behaviour is completely unacceptable and not what we expect from our highly professional fleet of pilots.
"The safety and security of our customers and colleagues is always our top priority."
