Cricket: Jury clears pilot of drinking charge.

AN airline pilot accused of turning up drunk for a transatlantic flight was yesterday cleared by a jury after a three-day trial.

American James Yates, 46, was allegedly almost six-and-a-half times the drink limit to fly an aircraft, Minshull Street Crown Court, Manchester, heard.

Yates, a first officer with American Airlines, was to be one of the three pilots on a long-haul flight carrying 181 passengers from Manchester Airport to Chicago on February 11 last year.

The jury heard he had been out drinking in Manchester the night before he was due to fly.

He turned up for work dishevelled, red-faced and apparently drunk, the court heard. Yates told the court he never intended to be part of the crew.

He said he only turned up at the airport to inform the flight captain he would be unable to perform his duties.

He was cleared of a single charge of carrying out an activity ancillary to an aviation function while over the drink limit.

The court heard Yates, from Ohio, US, was arrested after a positive breath test and taken to a police station, where a blood test gave a reading of 129 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood, with the legal limit for flying an aircraft 20 milligrams.

Earlier yesterday, Brigadier General Thomas Botchie, a senior commander in the Ohio National Guard, said in a written statement: "I consider James to be a professional prepared to come to the defence of his country. I have always found him to be a person of high morals and trustworthy."