Govt calls in airlines over drunk pilots

TOKYO: After a spate of recent alcoholrelated scandals involving pilots of Japanese airlines, Japan’s Transport Minister Keiichi Ishii said his ministry will hold a meeting of 25 domestic airline companies today to thwart similar problems.

The meeting aims to share information on preventative measures compiled by a group involving All Nippon Airways (ANA) and Japan Airlines (JAL) whose pilots were caught drinking heavily, delaying flights in the last two months.

A unit of Skymark Airlines, which was rocked by a similar case, was examined yesterday by officers from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.

JAL and ANA were examined by the Transport Ministry, in November.

The inspection came after a Skymark flight was delayed on Nov 14 when alcohol was detected on the breath of its American pilot.

Skymark submitted a report on Nov 22 to the Transport Ministry on measures to prevent reoccurrences, including training all staff on alcohol detection.

On Nov 30, a British court sentenced a JAL co-pilot to 10 months in prison for exceeding the legal alcohol limit by around 10 times prior to a flight in October.

Katsutoshi Jitsukawa pleaded guilty to being over the alcohol limit.

According to JAL, Jitsukawa admitted drinking two bottles of wine and more than 1.8 litres of beer over six hours the night before he was due to be part of the crew of Flight JL44 to Tokyo from London on Oct 28. He cheated on a pre-flight alcohol test administered at the airline’s office and briefly managed to board the plane.