Plane pilot charged with being drunk

LONDON. A United Airlines pilot has been charged after being arrested at London’s Heathrow Airport on suspicion of being drunk shortly before he was about to fly a transatlantic airliner, police said yesterday.

Erwin Washington, 51, from Lakewood, Colo., was charged with “being aviation staff, performing an aviation function whilst exceeding the proscribed alcohol limit,” a London police spokesman said.

Washington was arrested on Monday shortly before he was due to fly a Boeing 767 with 124 passengers and 11 crew to Chicago.