The felony convictions of three cockpit crew members for operating a Northwest Airlines jetliner while under the influence of alcohol likely will prompt Congress and the airlines to toughen regulations preventing pilots from drinking before flights, a prosecutor said.
"There has been so much attention to this case over the past months that I'm sure the pilots and the rulemakers and the congresspersons will look at this type of issues now," Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth de la Vega said Monday after the verdicts were returned.The three pilots were convicted of being under the influence of alcohol on March 8 when they flew a Northwest jetliner carrying 91 passengers from Fargo, N.D., to Minneapolis.
The defendants - flight captain Norman Prouse, 51, of Conyers, Ga., co-pilot Robert Kirchner, 36, of Highland Ranch, Colo., and flight engineer Joseph Balzer, 35, of Antioch, Tenn. - stood stone-faced as the verdict was read.
"I came into this trial expecting the worst," Prouse said after leaving the courtroom.
Sentencing was expected in about 30 days, pending the results of a pre-sentence investigation. The pilots, who were released without bail, could be sentenced up to 15 years and fined $250,000 each on the felony convictions.
The three men were arrested in Minneapolis after a patron at a bar in Moorhead, Minn., notified the Federal Aviation Administration that the crew had been drinking for several hours the night before the flight. Northwest fired the three men, and the FAA revoked their federal pilot licenses.
The Boeing 727 landed without incident, but the pilots were charged after tests indicated they still had alcohol in their bloodstreams about two hours after the flight.