An attendant on a commercial aircraft bound from Chicago to South Bend, Indiana, is accused of being intoxicated while working on a flight earlier this month.
Julianne Elizabeth March, 49, of Waukesha, Wis., was charged Thursday with public intoxication stemming from the Aug. 2 incident on an Air Wisconsin flight, the South Bend Tribune reported.
March was arrested after the plane landed in South Bend and was released the next day, the newspaper reported. She no longer works for the airline, Air Wisconsin officials said.
According to court documents, March was part of an Air Wisconsin crew working a United Express flight when passengers became "scared for their lives" after the plane left Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, the Chicago Tribune reported.
One passenger tweeted to United Airlines about March's condition during the flight.
"Our flight attendant appears to be quite drunk," Aaron Scherb tweeted. "She is slurring her speech (she couldn't make it through the security announcement), couldn't walk straight/was bumping into everyone in the aisle, and kept dropping things."
Scherb also said March fell asleep in the plane's jump seat after takeoff. Passengers at one point fastened her seat belt.
"All the passengers seem to realize this (March's condition," Scherb tweeted. "This is appalling."
When the plane landed, airport police officers and United Airlines employees boarded the aircraft and met with March, the South Bend Tribune reported. She was escorted off the plane and arrested, according to the newspaper.
A breath test showed March's blood-alcohol content level was .204, prosecutors told the Belleville News-Democrat.
March has an initial hearing Aug. 29, according to court records. She could serve up to six months in jail, a spokeswoman for the St. Joseph County Prosecutor’s Office told the newspaper.
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