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Last Updated: Thursday, 2 December, 2004, 14:40 GMT
'Drunken' pilot gets six months
Tallila was twice over the legal limit
An airline pilot has been jailed for six months after drinking twice the legal alcohol limit before he was due to fly a holiday jet.
Heikki Tallila, 51, from Finland, was arrested on 23 August, 20 minutes before the Air Scandic flight was due to leave Manchester Airport.
Tallila admitted the offence at Manchester Crown Court in October.
The Finnair Boeing 757 flight, which carried 225 passengers, had been due to fly to Dalaman in Turkey.
Judge John Burke QC said Tallila had a responsibility to ensure passenger safety.
They (the passengers) assumed their safety was in good hands
Judge John Burke QC
"If you had been a mere passenger causing problems and interfering with your fellow passengers and crew and misbehaving you would have gone to prison," he said.
"In your case the passengers did not even appreciate their safety was in jeopardy. They assumed their safety was in good hands.
"Your body contained almost two and a half times the legal limit of alcohol."
New laws introduced in March give police powers to breathalyse pilots and cabin crew suspected of attempting to fly under the influence of alcohol.
'Public humiliation'
The legal alcohol limit for pilots and cabin crew is 20 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood, while for car drivers it is 80 milligrams of alcohol.
The court heard he had been sacked from his £100,000 a year job as a pilot with Finnair, where he had worked for 25 years.
Both he and his wife, who still works as a stewardess for the airline, had suffered a "great deal" of public humiliation following his arrest, said Gerard McDermott QC defending.
He said Tallila was now receiving counselling and support for alcohol abuse.