An easyJet captain was pulled from flying after walking around naked in the middle of the night at the Meliá Dunas Beach Resort & Spa in Cape Verde.
Around 2:30 a.m. on August 5, wandered around unadorned through the hotel’s reception, bar areas, and into the gym and spa after an extended drinking session. Passengers at the resort recognized him as the pilot of their inbound aircraft and alerted the airline. easyJet confirms the captain was immediately removed from duty. (Meliá Dunas is a large beachfront property on Sal that easyJet Holidays also sells so guests and crew mixing at the same resort isn’t unusual.)
- Crew arrived at their layover hotel on August 4
- The naked walk occurred at ~2:30 a.m. on August 5
- A replacement captain operated the return to London Gatwick the afternoon of August 6.
Credit: easyJet
According to the airline,
As soon as we were made aware, the pilot was immediately stood down from duty, in line with our procedures, pending an investigation. The safety of our passengers and crew is easyJet’s highest priority.
Credit: easyJet
No doubt passengers were grateful another pilot was found, because this is the airlne that once let a passenger fly the plane when a pilot no showed.
There’s an ‘eight hour bottle to throttle’ rule and the pilot wouldn’t have flown until 2:45 p.m. – a full 12 hours after his walk. The European blood alcohol limit for pilots is 0.02, half the limit the U.S. sets. However easyJet didn’t wait to test the pilot prior to flight to pull him.
Credit: easyJet
Dropping trou isn’t even the worst European pilot behavior we’ve seen. A British Airways pilot snorted coke off a topless woman before trying to fly passengers from Johannesburg to London – and then documented a confession in texts to a flight attendant. (One BA crew even fabricated a mugging to cover up a wild night in Rio.) Here’s a BA pilot who was suspended because while the rest of the crew were “master of their domain” this one went ‘out’ and ‘lost’ while in the cockpit.
(HT: Paddle Your Own Kanoo)
What do the kids say these days: ‘pics, or it didn’t happen…’
Well then. I’m surprised people recognized him — do people generally remember their pilots faces?
@1990 — Sordid, I assure you.
You can’t make these things up! My brother flew for USA Air years ago and had lots of stories, but nothing like what has happened with the LACK of Morals, Ethics and Values in our worldwide Societies today!
@L737 — Maybe they weren’t looking at his/her face… ‘I apologiiiize… for nothing!’
easyJet pilots could also be naked while seated in the comfort of the flight deck.
One might have tried to cover him up? The lobby, bars, the gym (this is a reason to wipe the equipment before and after ). There must have been a towel somewhere….
@Ken A — Good point. No video, just audio, so they can let things ‘air-out,’ if they really wish (probably not allowed by their ‘company’ but… who would know… don’t ask… don’t…)
This sounds more like an Ambian adventure. I had a friend who used to take ambient and wake up the next morning with a blender and ice cream, and all the fixings out on his counter in the kitchen and not remember any of it.
What’s with the remark about Easyjet letting a passenger fly the plane? You make it sound like they were any old Joe when in fact they were an Easyjet pilot who was headed out on holiday.
Not false but completely misleading by omission.
The pilot may have been “legal” by the time his duty clock started. Looking at Gary’s timeline it appears that the pilot had 36 hours before “show” not 12 as stated in the article. However just because he could doesn’t mean he should. There might be a company policy for time between walking around naked in a hotel until on duty.
Gary, “let a passenger fly the plane when a pilot no showed” is National Enquirer material. I’ve “trip traded” with a company pilot on numerous occasions when deadheading or commuting to work. (At that time AUS was not a crew base for any airline but many crew members chose to live here.) A phone call to scheduling and it’s done. Company policy did require that we be “in uniform” for a revenue flight. That may or may not have happened.
Um, it was 36 hours before his flight, not twelve, according to the timeline above.
It was twelve hours. They had to delay the Aug 5th flight because they had to get in the replacement pilot on the 5th who was probably out of crew rest until the 6th.