An easyJet pilot is in hot water (scratch that, boiling water) after being busted for flying a passenger-loaded plane the day after popping ecstasy.
Per The Sun, the 49-year-old French pilot was caught out when police, who were monitoring conversations of a drug gang, recorded a conversation where the pilot spoke with the members of the drug ring.
He allegedly told them, “I had the sweats, I wasn’t feeling well. I was just doing any old thing as we came in for landing,” per The Sun.
The police recording the conversations heard the pilot discussing his landing of the packed plane at Orly Airport in Paris in May this year, just a day after taking a third of an ecstasy pill.
Appearing in court, the pilot allegedly claimed he had been confident the side effects of the pill would have worn off “after two hours”.
The French criminal court slapped the pilot with a 12-month suspended jail term, per The Telegraph, as well as banning him from getting behind the controls of a plane again.
The pilot also admitted to typically taking a cocktail of drugs – including cocaine and cannabis – on a usual night out in Paris, but confessed he usually had two or three days without taking anything before flying again.
The father of three, per The Sun, was suffering from an addiction, the court was told.
easyJet told The Sun the pilot was removed from duties as soon as the investigation kicked off, and was subject to disciplinary proceedings.
The airline added, “The safety of passengers and the crew of EasyJet is our number one priority and we have a zero tolerance approach to drugs and alcohol,” per The Sun.
“As a first officer he would always have flown under the command of an experienced easyJet Captain and had any Captain he flew with seen behaviour suggesting drug use or any other safety breaches on this pilot’s flights we would have taken immediate action and stood the first officer down from duty.”
