Drunk JAL pilot jailed for 10 months

A Japan Airlines co-pilot who was nine times over the legal alcohol limit has been jailed for 10 months and has lost his job.

Katsutoshi Jitsukawa was arrested at Heathrow Airport on October 28 after he tried to get into the cockpit of a Japan Airlines flight as a first officer 50 minutes before the Toronto-bound flight was due to take off.

Staff reported him having ‘difficulty standing straight’, smelling of alcohol and having ‘glazed eyes’, but when challenged he said he’d been drinking whisky the night before and had already passed a breathalyser test.

He was then found in the plane toilet gargling with mouthwash.

He pleaded guilty at Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court on November 1 and was sentenced at Isleworth Crown Court yesterday.

He appeared via videolink from Wandsworth Prison. The court was told he felt an ‘abject disgrace’.

Judge Phillip Matthews described Jitsukawa as ‘very intoxicated’ who ‘had clearly been drinking for a long period up to a time shortly before you were due to go into that plane’.

Japan Airlines deputy general manager in London, Yasuhiro Kikuchi, said: “As an organisation we are going to work together to prevent this happening again.”

source: Travel Mole