Reinstatement for pilot in Napier sex romp case

A pilot has won back his job after being sacked for a late-night drinking spree during which he had sex with a 19-year-old flight attendant in Napier.
The pilot, the flight attendant and a male first officer, whose names are suppressed, were forced to abandon a flight out of the city in May 2008 due to heavy fog.
They booked a hotel, picked up alcohol and engaged in smutty, sexual banter on the way there, according to evidence given to an Air Nelson probe into the incident.
Because they had no overnight clothes, the pilot arranged for three bathrobes to be sent and the three met in his room for drinks and nibbles, wearing the robes and their underwear.
The first officer said at some point the woman went to the pilot's bed uninvited and lay next to him.
According to the pilot, who was married, the woman told the men she had had sex with at least one flight attendant previously and led them to believe she may do so again.
The first officer said when he left the woman was fully conscious and smiling suggestively.
She and the pilot had sex, which the pilot claimed was consensual but which she said was something she would never have consented to, although she said she had no memory of events after midnight due to the amount of alcohol she had consumed.
She laid a complaint and the pilot was sacked for serious misconduct, with Air Nelson general manager John Hambleton finding he had breached the trust the company had placed in him as a captain and that his actions amounted to sexual harassment.
A police investigation did not find any foundation to the allegations.
The Employment Court found the grounds for his dismissal were unjustified and ordered he be reinstated and paid $10,000 compensation and $51,000 for lost wages.
In his decision, Judge Mark Perkins said Mr Hambleton had come to his conclusion based on the woman's state of hysteria and anxiety but had failed to consider other possibilities.