Co-Pilot Removed From Flight After Appearing Impaired

BUFFALO – A Jet Blue co-pilot has to be removed from a flight Wednesday after a TSA worker thought he might be drunk.

In happened on the tarmac in Buffalo. The flight was supposed to leave for Fort Lauderdale, Florida Wednesday morning, but that TSA worker reported him to police, and he was removed from the plane.

Police say he was immediately given a breathalyzer that clocked in at a .17 BAC, well over the .04 required by the FAA.

One passenger says it was unsettling once she learned the facts.

“Whatever the procedures are before you fly, they should have caught it before he got on that plane,” Desiree Breckenridge Barnes-Jean told WGRZ-TV. “And It is a sad situation, because something could happened to all of us up in the air there’s babies on this plane. There there’s severe handicap people”

The co-pilot is identified as 52-year-old James Clifton. Clifton was released to JetBlue security and may face federal charges.