Trans State Says They Broke Bottle-To-Throttle Rules

Members of a Trans States Airlines crew are being investigated by the FAA, suspected of boarding a flight while legally drunk late last month.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports in Wednesday's edition that the pilot and flight attendant aboard Flight 5772 spent much of the night before going to work drinking in a hotel bar, violating the company's 12-hour bottle-to-throttle rule.

Neither crew member was given a breathalyzer test because they departed Milwaukee for St. Louis before anyone suspected them of having blood alcohol levels higher than the .04 maximum allowed by law. Regardless, Trans States fired both the captain and the FA.

Still, the FAA wants to know more about the incident. If the agency's Flight Standards Division determines the captain was flying drunk, it would most likely suspend him or pull his ticket altogether.

Ironically, the Post-Dispatch reports, the captain and flight attendant were fired just days after Trans States agreed to pay $11,000 in fines for letting an off-duty pilot board one of its aircraft as a passenger while drunk.

Trans States is one of the biggest regional carriers operating out of Lambert Field. It flies as AmericanConnection and runs feeder flights for US Airways and United.

FMI: www.transstates.net