Safety

High Crimes: Treating Aviation Pros as Felons

By Blair Watson, Special to Aviation.com

posted: 11 July 2008 09:45 a.m. ET

: Patrick Heer, spokesman of Swiss air traffic control provider Skyguide, answers journalist's questions in front of the city hall in Buelach, Switzerland, after the verdicts in the trial against employees of Skyguide were pronounced on Tuesday, Sept. 4, 2007. A Swiss court convicted four Skyguide employees of negligent homicide in the deaths of 71 people in a mid-air plane collision five years ago. Three people were given one-year suspended prison sentences, while the other was ordered to pay a 13,500 Swiss francs fine for his role in the collision, on July 1, 2002, of a Bashkirian Airlines Tupolev Tu-154 and a DHL Boeing 757 freighter near the south German town of Ueberlingen, killing the two cargo pilots and everyone on the passenger plane. Credit: AP Photo/Keystone, Alessandro Della Bella

Pilot associations, air traffic controller unions and other industry groups are concerned about what they perceive to be an increasing trend toward criminalizing the actions of aviation professionals following major accidents.

One of the key issues is that “a predominant risk of criminalization of aviation accidents is the refusal of witnesses to cooperate with investigations, as individuals invoke rights to protect themselves from criminal prosecution,” the Flight Safety Foundation has said.

Last week, a judge in France ordered five people, including two Continental Airlines employees, to stand trial on charges of manslaughter for the July 2000 crash of a Concorde jet that killed 113 people. If found guilty, each defendant could spend up to three years in prison and be fined 45,000 euros ($70,800).

In May, six employees of the former Swiss regional airline Crossair (among them its chairman and its CEO) were tried by a Swiss federal court in Bellinzona on charges of homicide by neglect in connection with the crash of an Avro RJ100 while on approach to Zurich Airport on Nov. 24, 2001. The crash killed 24 of the 33 people on board the regional jet. After an 11-day trial, the court acquitted all six defendants of the charges.

Five months ago, the captain of a Garuda Indonesia Boeing 737 was charged with manslaughter after 21 people died in a March 2007 crash. The captain “was also charged with other offences including violating aviation law and could face more than five years in jail,” reported Reuters. The news report added, “Last year a report by (Indonesia's) National Transport Safety Commission said the pilot ignored 15 warnings as he descended too rapidly.”

In October 2006, two U.S. corporate jet pilots were charged by Brazilian federal police with “endangering an aircraft” — a charge that carries a penalty of up to 12 years in prison — following a mid-air collision of the Embraer Legacy business jet they were flying and a Gol Transportes Aéreos Boeing 737-800 at 37,000 feet over the Amazon jungle. All 154 passengers and crew aboard the airliner were killed.

In August 2006, a Swiss prosecutor charged eight employees of the Swiss air traffic control agency Skyguide with manslaughter after a mid-air collision between a Russian airliner and a DHL cargo plane that killed 71 people, including 45 Russian schoolchildren. Four of the employees were convicted of negligent homicide and given 1-year suspended sentences or (in the case of one person) fined $11,200.

(In another criminal act associated with the collision, a Russian man whose wife and two children were killed in the crash stabbed to death the air traffic controller who gave the aircraft avoidance instructions at the time the collision occurred; the father himself was jailed for nearly four years, until November 2007.)

Alcohol abuse and criminal charges

Whether or not the practice of leveling criminal charges on almost a routine basis against aviation professionals after accidents is fair, or is productive, the law in most countries is very clear regarding one aviation crime: Imbibing alcohol while piloting an aircraft, or just before doing so, is illegal. Professional pilots who transgress and are caught face serious consequences.

A federal regulation states that, in the United States, “No person may act or attempt to act as a crewmember of a civil aircraft” within eight hours of consuming an alcoholic beverage, while under the influence of alcohol or a drug that “affects the person’s faculties in any way contrary to safety,” or “while having an alcohol concentration of 0.04 or greater in a blood or breath specimen.”

In May, a drunk airline pilot wearing only flip-flops and a watch was arrested at night in a wooded area in Pennsylvania. His co-worker, an inebriated flight attendant, was also arrested and charged. Both were scheduled to work the 7:30 a.m. flight.

Last month, an air ambulance pilot was arrested at Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Ky., after the wife of a quadriplegic veteran who was going to be transported on the medevac airplane informed police she smelled alcohol on the pilot’s breath.

Alcohol dependence among pilots

The problem may be wider than is generally realized.

"The National Institute for Alcoholism Research has estimated that alcohol abuse and dependence affects approximately five to eight percent of all pilots,” the Ohio State Bar Association says on its Web site.

There are approximately 600,000 active certificated pilots in the U.S., including more than 130,000 commercial pilots and 144,000 airline transport-rated pilots. However, the number of professional pilots who fly each day while under the influence of alcohol or drugs is unknown.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has a program that allows pilots — private or commercial — who abuse alcohol to receive treatment and fly again. However, not every at-risk pilot participates.

In December 2003, a highly respected, senior captain with Virgin Atlantic Airways was arrested in the cockpit of the Boeing 747 he was about to fly from Washington, D.C. to London. Security staff at Dulles airport reported he behaved erratically and ground staff informed authorities that they smelled alcohol on the captain’s breath. There were 383 passengers on the jumbo jet.

Three years ago, a jury in Miami convicted an America West Airlines captain and co-pilot for being drunk in the cockpit of their airliner just prior to takeoff on a flight from Miami to Phoenix. A witness testified that the pilots consumed 14 beers late into the night prior to their scheduled morning flight.

Each year, the FAA issues more than 1,600 special certificates to pilots — including airline pilots — being treated for alcoholism. The average relapse rate is 10 percent over a three-year period.