Interview by Campbell Brown

Imagine being a passenger on board a jet where the flight crew was so drunk, so trashed, the airport had to yank them from the cockpit. Campbell spoke with a pilot who got caught. He went to prison for it and he says it is still happening.

BROWN: In 1990, a Northwest Airlines crew got so drunk in the hours leading up to their flight, they were pulled from their plane, fired, and they each spent time in federal prison. Well, now, a member of that crew, Joseph Balzer has written an extraordinary book about what happened and about his own struggles with alcoholism. It’s called “Flying Drunk.”

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: So you spent a year in prison after you were caught flying drunk. Tell us about the incident. What happened?

JOSEPH BALZER, AUTHOR, “FLYING DRUNK”: Well, I was basically trying to quit drinking on my own for a year prior to the Northwest incident. And I had a blackout out in Los Angeles on a layover with Eastern Airlines. I told my best friends at that time that I wanted to stop drinking, that for some reason I couldn’t drink like other people. So I basically white knuckled it for a year.

But just — this was a five-day trip, this particular incident that occurred in March of 1990, I was — went out on the last night of a trip, tried to work some things out with one of the crew members and we all decided to get together and try some things and talk about some things and the whole thing ended up backfiring.

BROWN: So you got on that plane and you were inebriated.

BALZER: Yes, I was convicted of actually flying under the influence of alcohol. If you have a blood alcohol content over 0.04 under the federal aviation regulations, you are — you don’t have any business being on an airplane for sure.

BROWN: And you mention these other incidents, I mean, this wasn’t a one-time thing for you. You had done this before, gotten on a plane, flew a plane drunk.

BALZER: Yes, this is true. After I was sober for three years, I started to get a lot more clarity on things that occurred in the past, which is common for people who are alcoholic and stop drinking. And what I realized was there were some times that Eastern Airlines where I had gone out the night before a flight and ended up having way too much to drink and that’s the problem. I can’t predict how much I’m going to drink when I do or don’t drink, and that’s one of the indicators of early stage alcoholism.

BROWN: I know and not to — you know, I just want to stress this, I think, for a lot of us watching, you know, it’s not about you. It’s about the other people whose lives you put at risk. I’ve got to ask you what you were thinking.

BALZER: I can’t defend what occurred. You know, I embarrassed my company. I embarrassed my profession and my licenses were revoked by the FAA. And for that I spent five years in the system, a year on bond, one year in federal prison. Some of that time was spent behind a 30-foot wall at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. It was very, very hard, difficult time. And I’ve paid my debt to society. Today, I’m part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

BROWN: Do you believe today that there are other pilots out there who are flying drunk?

BALZER: Well, I was approached just this past week I launched my book at EAA Oshkosh (ph). And there’s always people that approach me and want to tell me their stories. There are people in every profession that come to work and have had too much to drink the night before.

BROWN: Yes. You’re flying again. You’re a pilot now for American Airlines. And I know they’re going to be some people who say I don’t know if I’d want my pilot to be the author of a book called “Flying Drunk.” Should you have gotten your job back?

BALZER: Well, I think that we’re a lot better off if we’re helping people who suffer from a disease. It’s 100 percent fatal disease, and if people don’t stop drinking, they end up dead.

The fact that so many pilots have been rehabilitated is a wonderful sign. Let me reference prior to 1972, there was a rule where pilots were caught or diagnosed as alcoholic, they lost their career forever.