January 30, 2008 First Officer Removed From Air Canada Flight

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By Mary Grady, News Writer, Editor

An Air Canada 767 en route to London diverted to Shannon Airport in Ireland on Monday morning and the first officer was taken off the aircraft by medical personnel. Local news reports said the pilot was taken to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation and may have suffered a nervous breakdown, but officials would not confirm those reports. "This is an issue around one of our employee's health," airline spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick told reporters. "We're quite limited in what we can say. There are privacy concerns." The 146 passengers on board were never in danger, he said. "We have standard operating procedures in place to deal with these situations and at no time was the safety of anybody compromised." The passengers were transferred to another airplane with a fresh crew and arrived in London eight hours late.

Sources told the Irish Independent newspaper that the co-pilot began "acting in a peculiar manner and was talking loudly to himself," during the last hour of the trans-Atlantic crossing.