WASHINGTON — A veteran Virgin Atlantic Airways pilot was in a Virginia jail Saturday facing a charge that he showed up drunk to fly a planeload of almost 400 passengers to London.
The airline said Richard George Harwell, 55, an American living in England, had a spotless record during 14 years as a Virgin pilot.
"He was suspended with immediate effect pending an internal investigation," said John Riordan, a Virgin Atlantic spokesman.
Police at Washington Dulles International Airport in suburban Virginia seized Harwell aboard Virgin Atlantic Flight 22 on Friday night after being summoned by the Transportation Security Administration, whose screeners had detected alcohol on Harwell’s breath, said Tara Hamilton, spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.
He was interrogated at the airport, arrested and charged under Virginia law with operating an aircraft while under the influence of an intoxicating drug or alcohol and jailed at the Loudoun County Detention Center, Hamilton said. She said Harwell will be arraigned at a bail hearing Monday on the charge punishable by as much as five years in prison and a $500 fine.
Riordan said the Boeing 747-400 was to leave on the flight to London’s Heathrow Airport Saturday night after a 23-hour delay. Its 383 passengers were put up in area hotels, Riordan said.
In London, Virgin Atlantic spokesman Paul Moore said Harwell had a "completely unblemished record" with the airline. "We will be talking to him and the authorities over the coming weeks to find out what has happened," Moore said.
Moore added, "It’s the first time it has happened in the 20 years we’ve been operating and is totally out of character for Captain Harwell, who is an extremely experienced and popular pilot."
The airline is "at a loss to explain what has happened," Moore said.
Federal Aviation Agency spokeswoman Laura Brown said the agency, which licenses pilots to fly within the United States, will carry out a civil investigation parallel to the Virginia state criminal probe to determine Harwell’s status.
"The two investigations are not really related, except they relate to the same incident," Brown said. A pilot must have a valid airman’s certificate — a pilot’s license — and medical certificate to operate commercial aircraft in the United States, she said.
In such cases as the Dulles incident, she said, the medical certificate might be revoked if the pilot were found to have been medically unfit to fly.
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