Alitalia suspends pilot reported for gunshot at home

Italy's national airline Alitalia on Tuesday suspended one of its pilots after he allegedly fired a gun during an argument at his home on Sunday night.

Alitalia sources told Xinhua the pilot at the moment was relieved of flight and command duties after prosecutors in the central town of Todi reported him for the gunshot.

The pilot, named by local media as Maurizio Foglietti, was captain of the aircraft that transported Italian President Sergio Mattarella on a regular service on Feb. 14.

The sources explained to Xinhua the newly-elected Italian president has the habit to fly on a regularly scheduled airplane so it often happened also in recent times that he flew with Alitalia.

Tuesday's announcement, they noted, was unrelated to the fact the several airlines have changed their rules after an Airbus A320 of Germanwings, Lufthansa's budget airline, crashed in southern France on March 24, killing 150 people on board.

"We would have suspended the pilot in any case as security is our primary objective and someone who does what this pilot did must not fly a plane," the sources stressed.

Alitalia followed suit for the two-person rule to have two people in the cockpit at all times after the co-pilot of Germanwings was named by investigators as being solely responsible for the tragedy in French Alps, after locking the pilot out of the cockpit and forcing the plane to crash. Endit