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- In August, British Airways pilot Mike Beaton went out on the town during a layover in Johannesburg, The Sun reported on Wednesday.
- He sent a colleague text messages describing the drinking, the cocaine, and the sex that lasted into the early hours.
- He was due to co-pilot a flight to London the next morning. But his colleague alerted their bosses, and the flight was delayed by a day.
On a Monday in August, a plane full of passengers travelling from Johannesburg to London was delayed for 24 hours while British Airways sorted out a staffing emergency.
That emergency, it now turns out, involved a night of drugs, drinking, and marathon sex by one of the airline's pilots.
On Wednesday, British tabloid The Sun reported on Mike Beaton's wild night out based on texts he sent to a stewardess friend, recounting his Joburg party. What he described left little doubt that he would not be fit to act as first officer for a flight out the next day – after he "couldn't even lift my head" until 14:00 the next day.
She reported him, and the flight was cancelled. Beaton, said The Sun, was flown home the next day as a passenger, subjected to a drug test, and then fired.
Beaton's reported texts describe a "standard Joburg setup" that went from a bar to "Grillhouse", thought to be the steakhouse branch in Melville Arch, and then to the Tiger's Milk restaurant.
At the bar he met a "young Spanish bird" and a "Welsh chick", and at the club their group of three met "two local lads who live in the compound", likely Melrose Arch.
The married Beaton said he snorted cocaine from the breasts of one of the women (after starting a debate about which woman's breast would be best for this exercise), before he started to think "things were getting way out of hand". So he returned the women to their hotel, where he had drug-fuelled marathon sex with his new Welsh acquaintance.
Beaton continued to boast about his exploits even after his friend, who initially solicited the story, expressed discomfort at the cocaine use.
In response to a News24 request, BA stressed that there had been no risk to passengers, and repeated a short statement it had issued to the British press: "Safety is always our top priority. The matter was referred to the CAA [the UK Civil Aviation Authority] and this individual no longer works for us."
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