February 3, 2009

Only on Aeroflot

By: David Donadio

A pilot on an Aeroflot flight sparked a revolt when passengers came to suspect he was drunk:

Mr Cheplevsky did little to ease passengers’ fears by refusing to leave the cockpit to show that he was sober. When he was finally persuaded to face them, witnesses said that he appeared unsteady on his feet and had bloodshot eyes.

“I don’t think there’s anyone in Russia who doesn’t know what a drunk person looks like,” Katya Kushner, one of the passengers, told the Moscow Times, which had a reporter travelling on the flight.

“At first, he was looking at us like we were crazy. Then, when we wouldn’t back down, he said ‘I’ll sit here quietly in a corner. We have three more pilots. I won’t even touch the controls, I promise’.

Read the whole thing.