Passengers refused to fly. Claim pilot was drunk 04 FEB 2009: A Russian pilot first welcomed passengers aboard in barely intelligible Russian, then switched to slurred and garbled English. Horrified passengers aboard Aeroflot flight 315 from Moscow to New York, which was about to take off, suspected their pilot was drunk, and demanded he be replaced. Airline officials came on board to calm the situation, with one puportedly telling a passenger that even if the pilot was drunk 'it wasn't such a big deal'
'Really, all he has to do is press a button and the plane flies itself. The worst that could happen is he'll trip over something in the cockpit.' The official was quoted as saying.
‘I won’t even touch the controls’
According to The Moscow Times, concerned passengers were at first told to “stop making trouble or get off the flight”.
The officials claimed the pilot was sober, but passengers on the Boeing 767 demanded he be replaced.
The situation failed to improve when Captain Alexander Cheplevsky agreed to face the passengers. According to a reporter from the Moscow Times newspaper who was on the flight, his eyes were bloodshot, his face was red and he was unsteady on his feet.
'The first thought that occurred to me was, "This guy is drunk,"' said passenger Khatuna Kobiashvili.
Another passenger, Katya Kushner, said: 'I don't think there's anyone in Russia who doesn't know what a drunk person looks like.
'At first he was looking at us like we were crazy. Then when we wouldn't back down, he said, "I'll sit here quietly in a corner. We have three more pilots. I won't even touch the controls, I promise."'
TV host leads revolt
After three hours of pleading with the crew and several Aeroflot officials, over 100 passengers signed a statement saying they believed Captain Cheplevsky was drunk and the crew was replaced.
The revolt was led by a reality TV show host Ksenia Sobchak. 'His speech was so slurred it was hard to tell what language he was speaking.'
The TV host, whose father is a former mayor of St Petersburg and a close ally of Vladimir Putin, called the airline to complain from her seat in first class.
No signs of intoxication
Three weeks after the December 28 incident, Aeroflot released a statement saying Captain Cheplevsky might have suffered a stroke immediately before the flight and that tests found no signs of intoxication.
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