Nov. 11 (Bloomberg) -- A United Airlines pilot was charged with operating an aircraft while under the influence of alcohol after failing a breath test at London’s Heathrow airport in the second case there this year involving a U.S. carrier.

UAL Corp.’s United canceled Flight 949 to Chicago and rebooked the 124 passengers after the Nov. 9 incident, said Megan McCarthy, a spokeswoman. Erwin Vermont Washington, 51, of Lakewood, Colorado, was charged yesterday, U.K. police said in a statement.

“There are no legitimate reasons for airline pilots to show up with alcohol in their systems,” said Louis Smith, a retired Northwest Airlines captain who is president of FltOps.com, a career-advisory company for pilots.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration bars pilots from consuming alcohol within eight hours of a flight, or flying with a blood-alcohol level of 0.04 percent or more. A spokesman for the London Metropolitan Police, who by department policy couldn’t be quoted by name, said he didn’t have details on U.K. aviation-alcohol rules and couldn’t release breath-test results.

McCarthy wouldn’t comment on the circumstances of the arrest, and the police spokesman said he didn’t know. The arrest occurred at 12:30 p.m. local time, the spokesman said.

“Safety is our highest priority and the pilot has been removed from service while we are cooperating with authorities and conducting a full investigation,” McCarthy said. She said Chicago-based United’s alcohol policy is “more strict” than the FAA’s, while declining to elaborate.

Attempts to reach Washington were unsuccessful. The address cited in the U.K. police report has an unpublished phone number, according to the Switchboard.com Web site. A call to a business listed at the same address went unanswered. Laura Brown, an FAA spokeswoman, didn’t respond to messages left for comment.

Pilot Accountability

The charge filed yesterday refocused industry attention on pilot accountability after a Delta Air Lines Inc. jet overshot its destination last month while the cockpit crew used laptop computers. In May, an American Airlines pilot was arrested after security personnel at Heathrow, Europe’s busiest airport, said he smelled of alcohol before a flight bound for Chicago.

United Flight 949, a Boeing Co. 767 jet that carried 11 crew members in addition to the passengers, had been scheduled to depart at 12:05 p.m. local time, McCarthy said. That was about 25 minutes before the time of the arrest as given by the police spokesman.

The pilot must appear in a magistrates’ court on Nov. 20, the police said in a statement. The charge was “being aviation staff performing an aviation function whilst exceeding the proscribed alcohol limit,” police said in the statement.

Heathrow’s Importance

Heathrow is the London airport long favored by business travelers because it is 15 miles (24 kilometers) west of the city, while Gatwick airport is 28 miles to south. American and United were the only U.S. carriers able to serve Heathrow until the European Union eased trans-Atlantic flying rules in 2007.

Airlines typically prohibit drinking 12 hours before a flight, said Michele Halleran, an associate professor at Embry- Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. Layovers on international routes may be longer than the 10 to 12 hours typical for domestic flights, creating an opening for some pilots to drink off duty, she said.

“It’s not the norm for pilots to be drinking on overnights,” Halleran, a former commercial pilot, said in an interview. “You may only be on the ground for 10 to 12 hours; you don’t have time to drink.”

Mordechai Levin, a master flight instructor from Richmond, Illinois, who has flown for more than 20 years, said his personal standard is to abstain from drinking 24 hours before flying.

“I tell my students to set their own personal minimum limit to be greater than what the law requires,” Levin said.

FltOps.com President Smith, who is based in Stone Mountain, Georgia, said instances of pilots reporting for duty in violation of airline or FAA alcohol policies are “very rare.”

“Still, with 60,000 pilots in the U.S. flying around, you know it occasionally happens,” he said. “With so much security, it’s much easier to get caught if you drink.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Mary Jane Credeur in Atlanta at mcredeur@bloomberg.net; Mary Schlangenstein in Dallas at maryc.s@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 10, 2009 19:57 EST