A Virgin Atlantic flight attendant is facing a potential prison sentence after she was accused of crashing her car on the way to the airport, abandoning her vehicle, and then boarding a plane before being removed as it was suspected she was drunk.
Police were called to investigate, and the flight attendant was found to be four times over the legal alcohol limit for airline workers.
Kathryn Scott, 44, admits that she drank just two glasses of wine the night before the flight but claims she was recently diagnosed with a liver condition that makes it harder for her to metabolise alcohol.
As for the car crash, Scott says there was a problem with her car’s steering that caused her to crash the vehicle at a roundabout close to Heathrow Airport.
The crash is believed to have been so bad that the car was no longer drivable, so Scott abandoned the vehicle at the side of the road and flagged down a passing motorist who drove her the rest of the way to the airport.
Appearing at Uxbridge Magistrates Court on Tuesday, Scott pleaded not guilty to a charge of performing an aviation function when over the alcohol limit, following the June 12 incident. Scott is due to stand trial in December.
During the initial hearing, the court heard how Scott had to be removed from the plane shortly before takeoff, and was made to perform a breathalyzer test. Police discovered that she had 91 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood – the maximum permitted is just 20 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood.
Scott says she consumed the glasses of wine at least eight hours before her flight, which is the minimum amount of time that authorities say is permissible for pilots, flight attendants, and other safety-critical aviation workers to consume alcohol.
This is the so-called ‘bottle to throttle’ limit, but regulators warn workers that simply abstaining from alcohol for eight hours before a flight might not be enough to bring the blood alcohol limit to within the legal limit.
In 2019, an American Airlines flight attendant avoided jail after being found guilty of trying to work a flight from London Heathrow to Dallas Fort Worth while over the legal alcohol limit.
Cynthia Struble was found to have 93 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood but was spared a prison sentence and instead slapped with a £1,046 ($1,366) fine.
British courts generally reserve the harshest penalties for pilots found to be over the alcohol limit. In 2019, a Japan Airlines pilot was jailed for 10-months by a British court for failing a breath test at Heathrow Airport, and in March, a Delta Air Lines pilot received the same length of prison sentence after he pleaded guilty to reporting for work while impaired by alcohol.
The judge in this case blasted the veteran pilot, saying he “showed a reckless disregard for the safety of his passengers and crew.”
“The pilot of a commercial aircraft holds the lives of hundreds in his hands. He would have put all of them at serious risk.”
