After flying drunk 25 years ago, Northwest pilot pitches recovery to alcoholics

Joe Balzer says he is a very different man from the one I covered 25 years ago.

Back then Balzer was one of three Northwest Airlines pilots arrested at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport for being drunk when they flew a plane from Fargo, N.D., with 91 passengers aboard.

It remains the most publicized incident of flying while drunk in aeronautics history.

All three men were sentenced to prison by U.S. District Judge James Rosenbaum after a spectacular federal trial in Minneapolis in which a parade of witnesses described how the men got drunk in a Moorhead, Minn., bar, staying late into the night, then boarded the plane in the morning.

"I have been sober for 25½ years," says Balzer, now 60. "Life keeps getting better all the time."

Balzer, who got a year in prison, has been an airline pilot for American Airlines for the past 16 years. He wrote a book in 2009 about his experience, "Flying Drunk," and speaks all over the country about his journey from alcoholism to recovery.

"People don't want to get help, because they are ashamed," he says. "The greatest desire of alcoholics is they want to drink like normal people and it's not going to happen."

Balzer said that after a blackout in 1989, he had quit drinking for a year. But he wound up at the Moorhead bar, got drunk with the other pilots, and took that notorious flight March 8, 1990.

Based on a tip, they were arrested when they disembarked in the Twin Cities. "I didn't have any business to be on that airplane," says Balzer.

The flight captain, Lyle Prouse, also turned his life around, became a pilot again and an advocate for recovery programs.

There is more open discussion today in the airline industry about addiction, Balzer said. "I think the FAA, the airlines and the unions are all working hard to reach out to pilots," he said.

In his talks, he says, you may be a Stage 1 alcoholic if you black out after drinking. If you want to discuss alcoholism or anything else with Balzer, you can e-mail him: joebalzer@gmail.com.

Randy Furst • 612-673-4224 Twitter: @randyfurst