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30 Aug, 2016 09:54

Military crackdown on ‘buffoon’ pilots & drunken sailors

Military crackdown on ‘buffoon’ pilots & drunken sailors

Britain’s military is cracking down on bungling civilian pilots whose antics in UK airspace frequently cause fighter jets to scramble.

Drunken sailors also face reprimands after two ships had to cancel official engagements following boozy sessions.

Airlines will now face substantial fines for straying into unauthorized UK airspace in order to cut down on the number of times Royal Air Force (RAF) jets have to be scrambled to intercept them.

The Department of Transport is now poised to bring in new fines to deal with what they have termed “buffoonery” in Britain’s skies.

A Whitehall sources told the Telegraph that Typhoon jets had been deployed at considerable expense in terms of fuel with “alarming regularity” recently - sometimes as often as twice a month.

The most common reasons jets are scrambled is to respond to passenger jets or private aircraft using the wrong frequencies or flying at incorrect altitudes.

The fines will be directed at pilots or airlines depending on who is deemed to be responsible.

Pilots aren’t the only ones facing censure from military and government officials. Sailors aboard two of Her Majesty’s ships reportedly hit the rum ration to such an extent that trips ashore had to be canceled.

Survey vessel HMS Echo and the frigate HMS Sutherland were both reported to have canceled parades and runs ashore after sailors caused chaos on the Isle of Scilly after an earlier session.

After two nights of chaos they’ve probably been banned from coming ashore. They took and crashed a golf buggy last night,” locals reported to the Daily Mirror.

An evening parade was also canceled, leaving tourists disappointed.

We’ve trekked to the quay twice for our boat tour and walked up for the sunset procession,” one holidaymaker told the Mirror.

The only spokesperson was a red-eyed Navy guy who looked very sheepish telling us the crew couldn’t get ashore as we looked out to flat seas and boats coming and going,” the tourist added.

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