A Southwest Airlines flight was delayed for hours after a pilot was arrested for allegedly driving to the airport while drunk, according to police.
David Allsop, 52, was due to be the pilot for the 6.05am Southwest Flight 3772, bound for Chicago, but was arrested on Wednesday morning shortly before take-off at 7am in Georgia after he arrived intoxicated, officials said. He was charged with driving under the influence.
The flight left passengers waiting for multiple hours as the airline searched for a new pilot. The aircraft didn’t leave until 10.56am, nearly four hours after it was scheduled to leave.
“We’re aware of a situation involving an Employee on Flight 3772 this morning from Savannah,” Southwest Airlines said in a statement. “The Employee has been removed from duty. Customers were accommodated on other flights, and we apologize for the disruption to their travel plans. There’s nothing more important to Southwest than the Safety of our Employees and Customers.”
The Chatham County Sheriff’s Office and Southwest Airlines confirmed they are continuing their investigations into the incident.
It comes after a pilot was deemed too drunk to fly an Air Japan aircraft from Dallas to Tokyo last year. The pilot, who was not named, was questioned by police and given a warning after a hotel staff tried to ask the group to be quiet. Both the pilot’s mental and physical state following the heavy night left him unfit to fly. The flight was subsequently cancelled when a replacement for the inebriated pilot could not be found.
The pilot, who’s said to be 49, had one too many and became highly intoxicated after having dinner with fellow crew members in Dallas on Tuesday. Festivities continued at the hotel’s lounge bar, where the pilot continued to drink before retiring to his room, where it’s reported he drank more.
In the early hours of the morning, at 2am, a hotel employee asked the group to be quiet, but the drunk pilot’s disorderly behaviour prompted the hotel worker to call the police. When police arrived, they questioned the man and warned him not to cause any further problems, according to statements from the airline.
The flight, which was due to depart from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport to Tokyo, failed to leave until around 11.05 am, according to the flight-tracking website.
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