THE Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines on Thursday clarified there was no flight attendant of Philippine Airlines arrested for carrying illegal substance during a flight for Australia early this week.
Both CAAP and PAL management described the report that went viral on social media as wrong information or fake news.
“In response to a recent supposed news post of an alleged arrest of a PAL flight attendant for carrying illegal substances, the CAAP denies this apparent fake news item on a PAL flight attendant who was caught carrying P1.6 million of methamphetamine on board a PAL flight bound for Australia recently,” the aviation regulatory board said in a statement.
“Reports” showed that on Tuesday, a 23-year-old flight crew was arrested for carrying almost half kilo of methamphetamine aboard a scheduled flight for Australia.
The female crew, whose name was reported withheld while investigation was ongoing, was said to have been nabbed inside the aircraft around 8:30 p.m. after authorities received a tip-off from a reliable source.
The news item said the attendant was prevented from boarding a flight bound for Perth.
PAL management immediately sought the assistance of the Philippine National Police and the National Bureau of Investigation to ensure that two bogus posts on two blogspots were taken down immediately.
The airline is also considering taking legal action against the blog sites for posting a picture of a PAL cabin crew member in her uniform with a fictitious story titled “PAL FA arrested for PHP16M worth of meth.”
PAL also denounced any misuse of all forms of media by way of fake news that aimed to malign its personnel, who it said were responsible and highly trained professionals.
The airline will not tolerate any act that will injure character and reputation of its people and stands by the integrity of its cabin crew roster, it said in a statement.