American Airlines Pilot Fails Breathalyzer Before Take-off

After being alerted that a member of the flight crew may be impaired, security officers at London's Heathrow airport acted quickly and decisively and may have prevented a terrible tragedy. Security officers alerted police when it became apparent that a pilot may have been impaired. An American Airlines pilot was pulled aside and given a breathalyzer prior to taking the controls of a flight from Heathrow to Chicago. The pilot failed the breathalyzer test and was detained by airport security while a replacement pilot was found and assigned to the flight.

American Airlines declined to release the name of the pilot who failed the test and the company has been quick to point out that it has a zero tolerance policy for any sort of substance use by its employees during working hours. Eventually, the name of the pilot will be released and there will be a media frenzy around the story, trying to determine what happened and why the pilot was about to fly while impaired.

Also likely will be the pilot's complex legal defense, which will involve the inadvertent combination of a prescription drug with some other substance that created the intoxicated effect that would result in a failed breathalyzer. Ultimately, it's fairly safe to assume that the pilot will no longer be flying planes for American, but American will never acknowledge that the pilot was, in fact, intoxicated prior to taking control of one of its flights.