Fear of flying

The Times reports:

It is normally a moment of cheery reassurance when an airline pilot greets passengers during preparations for take-off. But Alexander Cheplevsky sparked panic on flight Aeroflot 315 when he began to speak.
His slurred and garbled comments ahead of a flight from Moscow to New York convinced passengers that he was drunk. When he apparently switched from Russian into unintelligible English, fear turned to revolt.
Flight attendants initially ignored passengers’ complaints and threatened to expel them from the Boeing 767 jet unless they stopped “making trouble”. As the rebellion spread, Aeroflot representatives boarded the aircraft to try to calm down the 300 passengers.

One sought to reassure them by announcing that it was “not such a big deal” if the pilot was drunk because the aircraft practically flew itself. . .

An Aeroflot spokeswoman said that tests had revealed no trace of alcohol in the pilot’s blood. She blamed “mass psychosis” among passengers for the decision to replace the crew, although the company later issued a statement saying that Mr Cheplevsky could have suffered a stroke just before the flight.

And this guy thought he had problems on Virgin.

Monitor: Tim Blair