World's Dumbest Pilots

Extraneous conversations are prohibited during takeoff and landings for good reason: flying is complicated. According to a transcript released by the National Transportation Safety Board, US Airways Express pilots Thomas Joseph Morrow and Robert Eugene Saltsgaver III were gabbing about Corvettes and bygone prom dates during takeoff from Charleston, WV, in early 2008. When a warning light indicated that his flaps were set wrong, Morrow aborted takeoff. According to CNN, the jet came to a halt “about 100 feet short of the edge of a steep hillside.” No one was hurt.

Sometimes, a bad choice of words is worse than making a bad decision. When the pilot in charge of flying an Air Canada jet from Toronto to Paris in 2008 told his chief steward, Hugh Bouchard, “he had nothing to lose” because “he was being fired anyway,” the attendant became concerned. According to The Canadian Press, four crew members subsequently refused to fly. They were replaced, and the flight was allowed to take off. Two years later, a judge sided with the crew members’ union. According to the court, whether the pilot was suicidal or not, his unwise statements should’ve prompted Air Canada to investigate further.

Despite the myth that modern jets can “fly themselves,” piloting a plane actually requires the full attention of both pilot and copilot. Which makes the actions of captain Ranbir Arora and copilot Aditya Chopra that much more mind-boggling. During Air India flight IC884 from the United Arab Emirates to Delhi in October 2009, the two men came to blows with two colleagues at 30,000 feet. The brawl spilled into the cabin, where a female crew member “hit the cockpit door with such force that she started bleeding,” according to the Times of India.

After their Airbus 320 overshot its destination—the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport—by 150 miles in October 2009, pilot Richard Cole and his first officer, Timothy Cheney, told investigators they’d been concentrating so intently on their laptops (itself a violation of company policy) that they forgot to land. At the time, some aviation experts speculated that they were sleeping, since they were out of contact long enough to attract the National Guard’s attention. (The pilots deny this.) They didn’t realize their mistake until a flight attendant tipped them off. They agreed to have licenses revoked without protest in March 2010.

No one likes a layover, least of all regional pilots. According to Salon’s “Ask the Pilot” columnist Patrick Smith, they “can face a 14-hour duty day with six or seven legs and a nine-hour layover at a motel.” In 2008, pilot Jeffrey Paul Bradford tried to spice up his time in Harrisburg, PA, with stewardess Adrianna Connor. After dinner and drinks, the Pinnacle Airlines employees dashed into the nearby woods for a romp. When they got separated, she got lost and he hid in a barn. The police found Bradford wearing only his flip-flops and a wristwatch.

Thanks to strict industry regulation and random testing, drunk pilots are increasingly rare. Still, passengers and crew members should remain vigilant. In November 2009, pilot Erwin Washington was acting so strangely at London’s Heathrow Airport that his crew alerted the tower. After a “frantic race” through the terminal, police prevented the takeoff of United Flight 949 and administered a breath test. Washington failed; a subsequent blood test put him at 2.5 times over the legal limit. He was eventually given a suspended sentence and sent to rehab.

Not every drunk pilot is caught before takeoff. In 1990, three Northwest pilots were found to be drunk after completing their flight from Fargo to Minneapolis (according to newly implemented federal guidelines for pilots). The L.A. Times reports that captain Norman Prouse did not deny having drunk heavily the night before. But, his attorney argued, as an alcoholic who had been drinking for 35 years, he had built up a tolerance to alcohol and did not get drunk easily. Prouse got 16 months in jail—just about one month for every rum and Diet Coke he had reportedly enjoyed.

When Aeroflot pilot Alexander Cheplevsky made a slurred announcement before a 2008 takeoff from Moscow airport, several passengers questioned his sobriety—and they didn’t keep it to themselves. As panic spread through the cabin, Aeroflot representatives assured them that the “aircraft practically flew itself,” according to the Times of London. Cheplevsky was removed from the flight. Though Aeroflot has denied that Cheplevsky was drunk, they apologized for nearly allowing him to fly the plane.

In 2008, an Air India flight headed for Mumbai from Dubai overshot its destination by more than 350 miles. According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), a source told the Times of India that the pilots were napping. The report said that air traffic control became so concerned about a hijacking that they “buzzed the cockpit and woke up the pilots, who turned the plane around.” Air India has denied this; Mumbai’s airport manager claims the aircraft suffered a communications failure.

For most people, flying a plane isn’t a task to be undertaken lightly. Or without proper training and certification. But according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China, between 2008 and 2009, more than 200 pilots on the payrolls of Chinese airlines had falsified or exaggerated their credentials, and 1 in 7 of Shenzhen Airlines’ pilots—more than 100 overall—should not have been flying.