More Weird Aviation News: Drunk Pilots and UFOs!

'Drunk' United Airlines Pilot Arrested Before Takeoff
Tuesday, October 21, 2008



LONDON — A Unied Airlines pilot was arrested in a jet’s cockpit minutes before take-off Sunday on suspicion of being drunk.

Hundreds of stunned passengers watched police march the 44-year-old American first officer off the Boeing 777.

The United Airlines flight to San Francisco was delayed at Heathrow for almost three hours while a replacement co-pilot was found.

Cops swooped after a tip-off from ground staff, who suspected the airman was boozing before the 5,300-mile flight.

One stunned passenger said: “We couldn’t believe what we were seeing. The pilot was frog-marched off the aircraft.

“A couple of police officers stormed on to the plane as we were all sitting down and went straight for the cockpit.

“We didn’t have a clue what was happening and we were kept waiting on the plane for hours.

“It is horrifying to think we were apparently so close to being flown thousands of miles by somebody who could have been drinking.

“It was a horrible start to our trip but if it wasn’t for the person who called the cops, our dream holiday could have become a nightmare.”

The pilot was arrested at 9am on board flight 955 after failing a breathalyser.

He was bailed and ordered to return to Heathrow airport police station in January.

The legal limit for pilots is nine micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The drink-drive limit is 35 micrograms. If convicted, the officer would face up to two years in jail.

U.S. Pilot Ordered to Shoot Down UFO Over England
Monday, October 20, 2008



The Sun


Apr. 2008: A visitor from outer space? A 'UFO' is photographed over Dudley, England.
A former Top Gun said Sunday he was ordered to shoot down a massive UFO over Norwich, England, 50 years ago.

RAF controllers told U.S. pilot Milton Torres to "lock on" and launch all 24 of his rockets over the city.

But as he came within seconds of firing at the alien intruder — "the size of an aircraft carrier" on his radar — it vanished at 10,000 mph.

The amazing close encounter is revealed in secret Ministry of Defense X-Files which are being declassified Monday.

Milton said, "It was some kind of alien snooping over England. I guess we'll never know what it was."

The incident happened in 1957 when Milton was a 26-year-old U.S. Air Force lieutenant based at RAF Manston in Kent, England.


UK: Jet captain reported UFO sightingStory Highlights



LONDON, England (CNN) -- Thousands of documents about reported UFO sightings -- ranging from calm accounts by professional pilots to unhinged rants about the extraterrestrial menace -- have been released by the British Ministry of Defence.


Taiwan resident Lee Chun-hung took these pictures showing a ball of fire trailing across the sky.

The 4,500 pages cover sightings that were reported from 1986 through 1992. The British military released them to a curious public as part of a four-year project to transfer all such documents to the National Archives.

One highlight from the batch released Monday involves the captain of an Italian airliner. He shouted "Look out!" to his co-pilot in April 1991 after claiming to see a beige "missile-shaped object" shoot past the cockpit.

In that instance, the defence ministry ruled out a missile and "all the usual explanations," wrote David Clarke, a UFO expert and journalism instructor at Sheffield Hallam University, who worked with the National Archives to prepare the new materials for release.

"The end result was this was a genuine UFO and the file was simply closed," he wrote. "There was nothing more they could do."

The newly released documents also carry an account by a U.S. Air Force pilot who says he was told to shoot down an unidentified flying craft over eastern England. But before he could fire, the object disappeared.

Don't Miss
Secret UFO files released by UK government
The next day, a man arrived to debrief the pilot and "he was told in no uncertain terms that what he had seen on his radar was top secret and he wasn't to speak about it to anyone," Clarke wrote.

The first set of files was made available to members of the public in May. It covered reported UFO sightings from 1978 to 1987, and included hundreds of police reports taken from witnesses who described seeing lights or strange objects in the sky.

People who reported having seen UFOs typically describe various shapes and colors of lights, moving in formation or hovering in the sky. Witnesses reported orange, red, white and green lights that were diamond-shaped, square, or cigar-shaped.

They reported them to police, who have a standard 16-question form specifically for UFO sightings.

"The vast majority of them are just ordinary people who've seen something unusual and thought that they ought to tell someone about it," Clarke has said.

The Ministry of Defence said it examined the reports solely to determine whether enemy aircraft had infiltrated British airspace. Once it was determined that no enemy aircraft were in the sky, it did not investigate further.

"The Ministry of Defence has no other interest or role regarding UFO matters and does not consider questions regarding the existence or otherwise of extraterrestrial life-forms," it said in May.

That left many incidents unexplained.