Comments on: Maybe they were sleeping off the booze

By: observer_85

observer_85 — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:31:54 +0000

Well, I have always said that Air India sucks. I mean its still a 3 star airline by Aviation standards. Its sad when Indian people don't wanna go on AI. This is why I would recommend people to go on Jet Airways. But the fact that AI pilots get drunk is sad. It reminds me of the crime situation in India. We think to ourselves is India just lawless especially when a headline said India is the murder capital of the world? Is this the distinction PIO, Indians, etc. wanna carry? Its sad.

Another thing to ponder is that many of India's airports are using 70's technology. Mumbai had so many near in air collisions between airliners and same with Delhi. So it makes you wonder, where the hell is money being allocated in India and why is there no authority?

By: DesiInNJ

DesiInNJ — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 03:38:19 +0000

A flight from Jaipur to Mumbai is 1 hour, and Mumbai to Goa is 1 hour. So halfway to Goa sounds terrible until you realize they overshot by 20 to 30 minutes.

By: Filmiholic

Filmiholic — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 22:51:52 +0000

I'm afraid to say that my reaction to the unexpected accent was to feel reassured. Does this make me a reverse racist? Please help.

I don't know about that, but I had a similar yet different experience recently. I saw a woman striding around the gate in Chennai airport last winter, wearing (I kid you not) aviator sunglasses and navy trousers and a shirt with epaulets and it was only when onboard the Jet Airways flight to Bombay, when I heard the chef de cabine announce "Our pilot today is Captain Sonia Singh" that I then understood why that woman was out and about by our plane: she was the pilot. I thought that was pretty cool. It took ages on some European carriers to have women pilots.

To do that one better, I was interviewing someone the other day who just left NY for Bombay last night, and who mentioned that he knew a long-haul pilot for Jet who is a woman too. Now that impressed me; it felt like the girls have made it to the "Big Boys" club and are actually allowed to fly the long-distance international flights, not just the shorter internal ones.

By: 747-8

747-8 — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 22:42:47 +0000

13 Â· Videshi said

Hmm...I've had first hand experience both with Air India incompetence as well as first hand experience with the Indian press making up stories to fill space. It says Associated Press--but if this story originated with Times of India it could possibly be bogus.

There have been well known flight cancellations in India after catching (random check) the Pilot in inebriated state.

By: cookiebrown

cookiebrown — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:31:04 +0000

I was on a domestic flight in India last week on SpiceJet. It had an all Indian cabin crew, until the "this is your captain speaking" announcement. Captain Hargreaves (sp?) spoke in that classic southern pilot jock drawl which Tom Wolfe describes in his book "The Right Stuff" (Basically, the point is that all US pilots try to sound like Chuck Yeager, the test pilot's test pilot).

I'm afraid to say that my reaction to the unexpected accent was to feel reassured. Does this make me a reverse racist? Please help.

By: Videshi

Videshi — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 06:12:49 +0000

Hmm…I’ve had first hand experience both with Air India incompetence as well as first hand experience with the Indian press making up stories to fill space. It says Associated Press–but if this story originated with Times of India it could possibly be bogus.

By: boston_mahesh

boston_mahesh — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 05:40:52 +0000

Back in '01, we were flying Air Lanka from S. India to Columbo, Sri Lanka. The flight was the wildest and most frightening flight that I've ever had. When we landed in Sri Lanka and was going through customs, I SWEAR that I saw those pilots playing cards with their fiery red eyes, and below where they were sitting in plain view was a fifth of whiskey! I remember that I had commented on this to my cousin, and one of those guys basically was telling us to buzz off.

By: rishi

rishi — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 03:25:44 +0000

The reason that the incident was hushed up was because it was on an Air India flight. If it would have happened on a any other airline there would have been a huge hue and cry about it. The fleet would have been grounded for weeks, maybe months while an inquiry was carried out.

Until now, most of these air safety incidents have happened on the nationalised carriers. Everybody knows that if something happens on a privatised carrier, the repercussions would be severe.

By: ptr_vivek

ptr_vivek — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 02:41:42 +0000

Flying While Intoxicated and Brown - finally, a flying acronym we can pronounce!

By: pingpong

pingpong — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:19:08 +0000

Error in previous comment of mine: "Hawaii drunk pilots story" should read "Hawaii sleepy pilots story".