A German pilot and his Turkish FO are in a Libyan jail while local officials determine whether they should be charged with crashing an almost new Citation Latitude while both of them were intoxicated. According to Turkiye Today, the pair were arrested a day after the aircraft departed the runway and burned at Misrata International Airport in Libya on Monday. Neither pilot was seriously hurt and a cabin attendant was also able to get out safely. The publication said prosecutors found evidence that both pilots had been intoxicated at the controls and authorities detained them while the investigation continues.
Only the crew was on board and none have been identified. They were interviewed a day after the crash and reportedly accused of being drunk at the controls based on evidence presented at that interview. Details of that evidence have not been released. The plane took off from Istanbul Ataturk Airport and was to pick up passengers in Misrata. It left the runway shortly after touching down and the crew got it back on the runway, but it appears the trip through the weeds collapsed the gear. A fire finished off the $22.5 million jet, which had reportedly been recently delivered to Istanbul charter company Bikini Jet.
Its frightening to think, what if that jet had crashed into somebody’s home? Or did an Osama Bin Laden sort of number on a high-rise building?
I can’t help but think of how many drunk driving tragedies we’ve had, where some dude or woman took the wheel of their car with their bloodstreams loaded with 0.2% alcohol, and smashed into someone else’s car and killed several family members without suffering a scratch themselves. Fortunately in the crash we read about above, nobody was in their way. We might not be so lucky next time there’s an intoxicated pilot incident.
When times get tough, many people attempt to drown their troubles with alcohol, not realizing that they are irrigating their troubles instead of drowning them.
If true, definitely a CLM.