MUMBAI: A pilot of a private charter company who had skipped the mandatory breathalyzer (BA) tests to check blood alcohol levels when flying the then chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on several occasions in 2016, has been suspended for three months now for a similar violation.
This time though it didn’t involve a VVIP passenger.
On February 17, the pilot operated an aircraft at Delhi airport without undergoing the BA test or submitting the mandatory undertaking that he hadn’t consumed alcohol in the past 12 hours—the latter was a temporary option put in place due to Covid. For the violation, the DGCA suspended his licence for a month, but after complaints from the industry, increased the suspension to three months.