Drunk Hovercraft Pilot Slumps At Controls

[BestWestern]

http://http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-29566304

A hovercraft pilot who transported passengers across the Solent while nearly three times the legal alcohol limit has been jailed for eight months.

A colleague had to take the controls when Richard Pease collapsed after missing the landing pad at Ryde on the Isle of Wight on 22 June.

The craft was carrying 36 passengers at the time. It had previously taken 95 passengers to Southsea in Hampshire.

Pease, 50, of Northwood on the island, pleaded guilty at a previous hearing.

An Isle of Wight hovercraft pilot has been locked up after allegedly being nearly three times the DD limit while trying to land it. A rather strange one; reports suggest he found an open bottle of what he thought was water in the messroom, topped it up with squash and went on his way, unfortunately however it transpired to be something rather more potent. Enough for him to end up slumped in the cockpit in fact, unable to complete the crossing and leaving the craft in the hands of a very junior crew member. Oddly the press also state that he continued to consume said substance once he realised it was alcoholic. Bizarre indeed. 18 years experience in what could only be one of the coolest jobs ever, and now in a cell for the forseeable. Very sad.