Drunk or just suffered a stroke?

A disturbing but somewhat hilarious article in the Moscow Times about a Russian Aeroflot pilot who was incomprehensible and could barely stand on his feet before a flight. Passengers on the flight - which was going from Moscow to New York - demanded that he be taken out of the cockpit but were told to stop causing trouble. The pilot was eventually removed, but only after Ksenia Sobchak started getting concerned and complained. Ksenia is the daughter of former St. Petersburg mayor Anatoly Sobchak and she is the Russian equivalent of Paris Hilton. After the pilot was taken from the cockpit he was seen to have had bloodshot eyes and denied being drunk, stating he had suffered a stroke.

There are so many good quotes from this:

"His speech was so slurred it was hard to tell what language he was speaking."

...

while pilots are forced to undergo a battery of medical tests before each flight, a test determining blood alcohol level is not among them.

...

"I don't think there's anyone in Russia who doesn't know what a drunk person looks like," said Katya Kushner, who, along with her husband, was one of the first to react when the pilot made his announcement. "At first, he was looking at us like we were crazy. Then, when we wouldn't back down, he said, 'I'll sit here quietly in a corner. We have three more pilots. I won't even touch the controls, I promise.'"

...

an Aeroflot representative sought to assure them that "it's not such a big deal if the pilot is drunk."

"Really, all he has to do is press a button and the plane flies itself," the representative said. "The worst that could happen is he'll trip over something in the cockpit."

Keep in mind that in September an Aeroflot plane crashed, killing 88 people. The pilot was found to have had alcohol in his system.