Southwest Airlines pilot arrested as he was about to fly plane after drinking alcohol
Bodycam footage shared by Savannah Airport Police on Thursday (14 August) shows Southwest pilot David Allsop, 52, speaking to police about his recent alcohol consumption after he was escorted off the plane earlier this year.
Allsop said that he drank a 'few light beers' the night before with his first officer, and the police officer then commented that he smelled of alcohol.
When he was asked to undertake a field sobriety test, he initially refused saying that it 'wasn't necessary' but later agreed. He failed two of three tests and was taken away for further questioning.
Allsop was charged with a DUI on 15 January and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) revoked his pilot certification.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Finextra
2 minutes ago
- Finextra
Blueacorn co-founder pleads guilty to PPP fraud scheme
Since the CARES Act was enacted in March 2020, 200 defendants in more than 130 criminal cases have been prosecuted and over $78 million in cash proceeds derived from fraudulently obtained PPP funds have been seized, in addition to several real estate properties and luxury items purchased with the proceeds. 0 This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community. Nathan Reis, 47, of Rio Grande, Puerto Rico and co-founder of lending service provider Blueacorn, pleaded guilty last week in connection with a scheme to fraudulently obtain Covid-19 relief money guaranteed by the US Small Business Administration (SBA) through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). Reis co-founded Blueacorn in April 2020 with claims to help small businesses and individuals obtain PPP loans. According to court documents, Reis conspired with others to submit fraudulent PPP loan applications by falsifying payroll figures to receive loan funds they were not eligible for. Through Blueacorn, Reis and others fabricated documents such as tax documents and bank statements and charged borrower's fees based on a percentage of the funds received. Reis pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, is scheduled to be sentenced on 21 November and faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew R. Galeotti of the Justice Department's Criminal Division says: "During a national emergency, this defendant exploited a taxpayer-funded program that individuals and small businesses desperately needed to survive. This conviction demonstrates the Department's ongoing commitment to bring to justice those who would steal from the public fisc to enrich themselves." Acting US Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Nancy E. Larson, adds: "This defendant had the opportunity to help small businesses overcome tremendous financial hardships during a time of national crisis but instead exploited the system to line his own pockets with taxpayer money. We will continue to pursue convictions against those fraudsters who preyed upon the generosity of the American people as we struggled through the pandemic." Assistant Director Jose A. Perez of the FBI Criminal Investigative Division, concludes: "The FBI takes our responsibility to investigate and pursue those who commit fraud for personal gain very seriously. Reis and others exploited a program meant to keep small businesses afloat during the pandemic. The FBI will continue to work tirelessly to prevent these programs from becoming targets and fight fraud wherever we find it."
The Guardian
3 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘100% luck': Minnesota fisherman evidently helps solve man's 1967 disappearance:
A fisherman who recently went out on the Mississippi River in Minnesota ended up spotting a submerged car and evidently helped solve a nearly 60-year-old missing person case, according to authorities and local news reporting. The fisherman at the center of the remarkable chain of events, Brody Loch, told Minneapolis news outlet WCCO that he called authorities after discovering the 1960s-era Buick in question with a sonar device on the weekend of 9 August. By Wednesday in the community of Sartell, local sheriff's office divers and a tow truck crew had recovered the vehicle. And investigators processing the car found human remains inside, the office of Steve Soyka, the Stearns county sheriff, said in a statement. Furthermore, Soyka's agency said, through the car's vehicle identification number (VIN), investigators were able to determine the car belonged to Roy Benn, who at age 59 was reported missing to the sheriff's office of nearby Benton county in September 1967 – and had not been seen since. Officials have sent the remains in Benn's car to a medical examiner's office for possible identification. Nonetheless, based on the items in the car and its VIN, Soyka's office said it believed the remains were that of Benn. Soyka's office added that it had turned the case over to the Benton county sheriff's office. Benton county's sheriff, Troy Heck, told CNN that his office had notified Benn's remaining family, who had previously been asked for DNA samples. 'We're just grateful that we may likely have finally gotten the break that we needed to bring closure to this family,' Heck said to the network. A missing persons bulletin published by Minnesota's public safety department said Benn was last seen on 25 September 1967 while 'carrying a large sum of money'. He was also driving his 1963 four-door, metallic blue Buick Electra, said the bulletin, which described the car missing alongside Benn. Benn owned an appliance repair service in St Cloud, Minnesota, when he went missing, according to reports at the time from the local daily newspaper. The St Cloud Daily Times also reported that Benn's wife had died the year before he went missing. Benn's brother, Walter, worked with authorities investigating Roy's disappearance, but leads back then never materialized into something definitive, as CNN reported. Walter Benn moved to sell his missing brother's personal possessions at an auction in 1968, the St Cloud Daily Times reported. Roy Benn was then declared legally dead in 1975, about eight years after he was last seen, the St Cloud Daily Times' reporting showed. After finally being located, Benn's car was 'filled with river sediment' and 'severely deteriorated' from being underwater for decades, yet it was 'intact', Sartell's municipal police department said in a statement. Loch told WCCO that he hoped Benn's family was finally closer to getting meaningful answers about what happened to him. He attributed it to good fortune that he and the friend with whom he was fishing didn't float by Benn's car without detecting it on sonar that fateful day. 'It was 100% luck,' Loch said.
Reuters
3 minutes ago
- Reuters
- Can Zuckerberg duck deposition in Meta privacy class action?
August 18 (Reuters) - Mark Zuckerberg has better things to do than sit for a deposition. Or so lawyers for Meta Platforms suggest in a pending petition, opens new tab to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, objecting to the billionaire CEO being forced to give testimony in a proposed privacy class action. The company invokes a controversial principle known as the apex doctrine to claim Zuckerberg should be spared the hot seat, arguing that he has no "unique" knowledge of the case, and plaintiffs' lawyers could get the same information from lower-level Meta employees. Plaintiffs want to question the CEO about allegations that Meta obtained private health information from millions of Facebook users without their knowledge or consent via its Pixel tracking tool. The claims echo those in a class action by users of fertility tracking app Flo Health, where a San Francisco jury on August 1 found Meta violated the California Invasion of Privacy Act. Damages are yet to be determined, but as I previously noted, the total could be huge. In June, U.S. District Judge William Orrick in San Francisco agreed with U.S. Magistrate Judge Virginia DeMarchi and gave the plaintiffs a green light to depose Zuckerberg, opens new tab. However, the judge limited the session to a maximum of three hours and narrowed the scope of allowable questions to center on a consent decree Meta entered into with the Federal Trade Commission involving the Flo app and Zuckerberg's role as a final decisionmaker on privacy-related matters. A Meta spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. The company in court papers has denied wrongdoing in both cases. Plaintiffs' lawyers from Gibbs Mura declined to comment for this column. Defense counsel from Latham & Watkins and Gibson Dunn & Crutcher in July asked the 9th Circuit for a writ of mandamus to nix the deposition, calling it 'a critically important issue of first impression' for the San Francisco-based court. Mandamus is a 'drastic and extraordinary' request, plaintiffs' lawyers say, arguing that the trial court judge in allowing the deposition committed no clear error to justify such relief. But defense counsel say there's a larger issue at stake than a one-off deposition. Multi-billion-dollar companies like Meta face scores of lawsuits, and their leaders have "uniquely crucial and demanding job duties, as well as limited time," they wrote. That makes being called to testify especially burdensome. District courts within the sprawling 9th Circuit are 'deeply divided' on exactly when and how to properly apply the apex doctrine, Meta lawyers said in asking for appellate guidance. Indeed, spats over deposing CEOs have arisen regularly in court within the 9th Circuit and beyond in cases involving companies including Microsoft, Tesla, Uber, and Alphabet. In some instances, execs were let off the hook, while others were compelled to sit for depositions. Such demands can be more about harassment than a legitimate need for information, the Meta lawyers claim, arguing that deposition testimony is only justified if the executive has unique, first-hand knowledge that cannot be obtained elsewhere. Here, they assert, the bid to depose Zuckerberg is 'a ploy to increase the burdens of this litigation and obtain perceived leverage." Plaintiffs' lawyers counter that state and federal procedural rules already allow subpoenaed witnesses to contest demands for their testimony. There should be 'no special dispensation from civil discovery for corporate executives simply because of their status as titans of industry,' wrote, opens new tab lawyers from Gibbs Mura; Simmons Hanly Conroy; Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll; Kiesel Law; and Terrell Marshall Law Group. The underlying litigation began in 2022, when plaintiffs alleged Meta violated a federal wiretap law and a California privacy law, as well as its own contractual promises governing user privacy on Facebook, my Reuters colleague Jonathan Stempel reported. According to the complaint, Meta Pixel -- an internet analytics tool that Meta makes available to website developers -- provided sensitive information about users' health to Meta when they logged into patient portals where it had been installed, enabling Meta to make money from targeted advertising. Meta in court papers has responded that it should not be held liable if certain healthcare providers allegedly misused Pixel, 'a publicly available tool that Meta did not implement or configure on the providers' websites.' Plaintiffs' lawyers, in justifying their request to question Zuckerberg, argue that from the start he's been implicated in the case. 'He had personal knowledge of Meta's intent to receive this information,' they allege, 'and he knew about and played a key role in Meta's collection of sensitive health data.' The appeals court has not indicated when it will rule on the petition, but Meta lawyers notified the district court that Zuckerberg's deposition may proceed this month in Palo Alto if the 9th Circuit denies its mandamus petition by August 21.
