When you’re flying high in the friendly skies, it’s nice, if space and your budget allow it, to put up your legs, take a sip on something potent, unwind, and let all troublesome thoughts and turbulence drift away as you head somewhere exotic.
Obviously, you can only ever fully relax in a tube of compressed air rocketing through the clouds at fiercely unnatural speeds, as long as you have complete faith in the skillset and competency of the dude in the cockpit and the integrity and professionalism of the cabin crew.
When you’re hurtling through the heavens, where absolutely anything can go wrong at any time, you want to know you’re in safe hands.
What you don’t want is to find a flight attendant completely naked and out of their mind on drugs in the plane’s toilet. Such troublesome and bizarre behaviour hardly helps soothe the nerves of someone who is not a frequent flyer.
Yet that was exactly the scenario that passengers on a British Airways flight from California to London were confronted with recently.
The Mirror reports that a 41-year-old Basingstoke man named Haden Pentecost was busted on board a flight for performing an aviation function while impaired by drugs.
The flight attendant burst out of the plane’s toilet in a sweating, babbling, and agitated state. He was seemingly unaware that he had no clothes on and was not in his right mind.
Fellow colleagues were reportedly first aware that something was amiss with their coworker when he complained of stomach cramps and failed to attend any of the pre-flight checks.
He explained he needed a change of clothes before locking himself in the toilet.
The next time his crew members saw him was when he burst out of the toilet, excitable and naked. Realising he wasn’t aware he had no clothes on, a female colleague helped him into some suitable attire and moved him to an available seat.
After speaking to her captain, they decided to call a health professional .
The flight attendant’s pupils were found to be dilated, his heart rate was high, and he was checked every 20 minutes until they touched down at Heathrow.
Upon landing, paramedics rushed him to the hospital, and blood tests showed that the flight attendant had methamphetamine and amphetamine in his system.
Since the incident, Pentecost has been sacked by British Airways and will be sentenced at Isleworth Crown Court at a later date.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/cU2-CqUSOCs
This latest incident is another blow to the reputation of British Airways. The Sun reports that earlier this year one of their pilots was suspended after allegedly leaving the cockpit door open on a flight from Heathrow Airport to New York JFK. It is claimed that the pilot’s family were on board the flight and he wanted them to see him at the control hub.
A source explained, “Crew and passengers immediately noticed the cockpit door was open and wanted to know what was happening. It made passengers incredibly uneasy. The door was wide open for a significant time — enough for people to worry and comment. BA colleagues were so alarmed that the pilot was reported in the US and bosses had to suspend him.”
