A pilot has been arrested on board his plane on suspicion of being drunk, reportedly minutes before he was due to fly a passenger jet across the Atlantic.

Police have confirmed that they boarded a United Airlines flight at 9am yesterday and arrested a 44-year-old man as the aircraft prepared for take-off from Heathrow's Terminal One.

According to The Sun, the man was the first officer of a plane about to fly from London to San Francisco. He has been suspended from flying, pending police and internal inquiries.

“The man arrested is bailed to return to Heathrow police station on January 16 pending further enquiries,” said a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police.

A police source said that the man had been arrested on suspicion of “being aviation staff performing an aviation function whilst exceeding the prescribed alcohol limit”.

The legal limit for pilots is nine micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath, more than three times stricter than the drink-drive limit, which is 35 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath.

A United Airlines statement read: “United’s alcohol policy is among the strictest in the industry and we have no tolerance for abuse of violation of this well-established policy.

“Safety is our No1 priority and the pilot has been removed from service while we are co-operating with authorities and conducting a full investigation.”

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