Drinking and Driving.........Airplanes....

Pilot arrested 'for failing breath test' minutes before he was due to fly plane carrying 300 passengers

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 10:41 AM on 27th April 2009

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Marching orders: Pilot Daniel Dufour was arrested for being over the alcohol limit just before take-off from Heathrow

A pilot was marched off his plane and arrested for being over the alcohol limit moments before he was set to take off from Heathrow Airport.

Security staff at Terminal 3 alerted police claiming they could smell alcohol on Daniel Dufour's breath.

The 45-year-old captain was then hauled out of the cockpit and arrested after failing a breath test.

Dufour had been due to fly 300 passengers on a nine-hour trip to Calgary from London on the Air Canada Flight AC851.

He had allegedly been drinking with colleagues the previous night, according to The Sun.

A police source told the newspaper: 'He was amazed to be still over the limit in the middle of the day.

'He was close to tears. At this stage he appears to have thrown away his distinguished career.'

A reserve captain was called in to fly the Airbus A330.

Dufour was taken to Heathrow police station where he gave a blood sample and was reportedly bailed for further inquiries.

Shock: Horrified crew and passengers looked on as Captain Dufour was led off an Air Canada plane

His arrest comes four months after Jet Airways pilot Michael Harr was arrested at Heathrow over fears he had drunk too much to fly.

The plane, which also had 300 passengers on board, was about to begin a nine-hour flight to Mumbai when airport staff told security Harr smelled of alcohol.

Airline pilots are banned from drinking alcohol less than eight hours before flying - the so-called 'bottle to throttle' rule. They are deemed unfit to fly if they are a quarter of the drink-drive limit - 20mg per 100ml of blood.

What scares me the most about this article was that I have made that 9hr flight from Heathrow on Air Canada. Drinking and driving is obviously stupid, and even worse if you are drinking and driving on the job, such as a delivery person, or a bus driver. BUT A PILOT! It's a little harder maneuvering a massive aircraft through the sky and then landing it on a tiny airstrip while, oh yea, carrying 300 people! This guy went out drinking the night before and was STILL over the legal limit in the middle of the next day. I mean, sounds like he might be a fun guy to party with but you better make sure your taking a cab home.

I used to work at a country club which held functions upstairs and it would drive me nuts because while proms were happening upstairs, the limo drivers were at the bar having cocktails. No, they were not getting disastrously drunk. If they were just out to dinner and having a couple of drinks it would be fine. But no, they are driving 12 teenagers around. I remember how worried parents were about drinking at after prom parties. That was why you got the limo, to prevent drunk driving. But would ever think as a parent that you would need to worry about the limo driver? How about as a passenger, have you ever worried about the sober level of your pilot?!

ILVTOFU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF_2L4a75iM

Now before you get offended by my headline watch the video!

This woman found a way to express her environmentally friendly eating habits on her license plate. She wanted a custom plate to say ILVTOFU....I love Tofu.....Combined with the rest of the stickers on her car, the message is clear what she is trying to say. She's clearly vegan and promoting that she is. The DMV is denying her request so that other drivers don't take the message the wrong way. You would have to have your head in the dirt to not see what her intentions truly are, and I would say, as long as she knows what she's doing, then go for it. If it can be a play on words then that just makes it a little more fun for the rest of us. People, in the majority, would not be offended by this because it is not intended to be offensive. it is intended to be a comment about food. If she was clearly trying to flip people off, well then yes it would be offensvive. But if I saw this on the hihgway as I was driving placed right underneath "stop global warming, go vegan" I would still get a kick out of it but I would know she's not trying to flip me off. LIGHTEN UP PEOPLE.

Become a child movie star....then get sold by your parents?

Most people are familiar with the oscar winning movie Slumdog Millionaire. Here is a very interesting article I found online related to the movie. The link to the article is found below....

http://www.usmagazine.com/news/report-slumdog-millionaire-kid-star-put-up-for-sale-by-father-2009204

The father of Slumdog Millionaire star Rubina Ali reportedly offered to sell his 9-year-old daughter for nearly $300,000, Britain's News of the World reports.
Trying to confirm that he is fielding several lucrative adoption offers, reporters from the paper posed as a wealthy Middle Eastern family interested in buying the girl.
"I have to consider what's best for me, my family and Rubina's future," said Rubina's dad, Rafiq Qureshi, who claims to be broke and left with "nothing" from the Oscar-winning flick.

The paper claims that Rubina was originally being sold for $75,000, but her father raised the price after the success of Slumdog.
"The child is special now," the girl's uncle said, according to the paper. "This is an Oscar child!"

A rep for Save The Children, a charity with offices in Mumbai, said Rubina's case should force India to crack down on child and human trafficking.
"The Indian government must sign up to the International Labor Organization's convention for abolishing the worst forms of child labor and trafficking," said the group's director of campaigns Adrian Lovett.

Her father has denied the paper's claims.
Police called Rubina and her father to a police station on Sunday night and recorded their statements.
"On Sunday, Rubina's mother Khurshid complained to us that her ex-husband was trying to sell her daughter, saying she saw some reports on television to that effect," Deputy Commissioner of Police Nisar Tamboli told Reuters.




There seems to be so much wrong with this situation. I remember when we discussed in class the movie Sulmdog Millionaire. One of the things we talked about was how supposedly these child actors who were used in the movie still haven't seen the money they were supposed to get. That is obviously rough because that money can deffinitely be important to families who don't have much to begin with. But....where do you get a right to start asking for people to bid on your child!

I can understand the concept of adoption and that whole process because when a family has a child they can no longer take care of and then want a better life for them, then it makes sense to put them up for adoption. But when you start asking for a person to buy your child from you, it is absolutely absurd. And what makes this rediculous is that her father is banking on more money because his child is a star!

This father is absolutely nuts. He isn't the only one in a tough living situation and now out of desperation you want to sell your child to the highest bidder? That is the epitome of a great father right there. Look at my little girl, she has made our family proud and being in this movie is a great thing....by the way, if anyone is interested the bidding starts at $75,000. I seriously hope this guy is thrown in jail or police take some sort of action. This guy should be ashamed of himself, his family deserves alot better.

-Kyle

Help!! I'm stupid and locked in my car!

Orlando - A 911 dispatcher had to tell a woman how to unlock her car on Sunday. A woman called Kissimmee police to say she was locked inside her car at the Walgreen's on John Young Parkway near Poinciana. "My car will not start. I'm locked inside my car," the unidentified woman said. "Nothing electrical works. And it's getting very hot in here, and I'm not feeling well." The dispatcher asked the woman if she was able to manually pull the lock up on the door. The woman said she would try, and then, she said, "Yes, I got the door open."


Wow, sorry for the two 911 moron posts back to back but this one was too good to pass up. Now I realize this was posted on April 1 but it seems legit to me. Listen to the 911 call. So after listening to that you must be pretty impressed at the complete stupidity of this woman. First of all how old is she, I mean its not like electric locks have been the standard for the past 50 years. And how come she was never curios why that little knob on her door would always go up and down when she hit the lock button.

This is crazy, I am so impressed at how good the 911 respondents are at keeping cool. Now I realize they probably get some pretty bad calls but this has to be up there with the dumbest. How the hell do you lock yourself inside a car? If I was on the other end of that 911 phone call I would make sure this girl knew how dumb she really is. And maybe it should be looked into if she should even have a license. If you cant operate the locks, how the hell are you working the pedals and steering wheel?

I know if I was dumb enough to lock myself inside a car I wouldn't call the police and tell them I was dumb enough to lock myself inside the car. Doesn't this lady have any friends or family that coulda helped her out with this situation.

I imagine the conversation going something like this.

"Hi mom"

"Hi Sarah, how are you?"

"Not good....I locked myself inside the car again mom."

"Oh sweetie, I know how tricky those darn locks are. Here I'll walk you through it again. Run your hand across the top of the door panel."

"Okay, I'm doing that"

"Now when you get to the little piece of plastic sticking up out of the door, pull it up"

"Okay, found it, pull it up?"

"Ya pull it up, and then try using the door handle. It should open."

"Yup, I'm out, thanks mom, I was about to call 911 again."


Danny