A British Airways pilot was fired after he bragged to a coworker about doing cocaine before an 11-hour flight, report says

• A British Airways pilot was fired after he boasted to a friend about doing cocaine, per The Sun.
• The flight attendant reported Mike Beaton to bosses after he told her about his partying, the report said.

A British Airways pilot has been fired after snorting cocaine off a woman's breasts hours before he was due to fly, according to a report in The Sun.

First Officer Mike Beaton was supposed to copilot an aircraft from Johannesburg to London last month, per The Sun.

But the British tabloid newspaper reported that he boasted about drug use in a series of lengthy text messages to a friend, who worked as a member of British Airways' cabin crew.

She then raised the alarm with BA bosses, who stopped Beaton from boarding the plane, according to The Sun.

In a statement provided to Insider, a spokesperson for British Airways wouldn't confirm the details, but said that: "Safety is always our top priority. The matter was referred to the CAA and this individual no longer works for us."

As a result, the 11-hour flight from South Africa to the UK was delayed overnight, the airline spokesperson added.

Both BA flight codes operating routes from London to Johannesburg — BA54 and BA56 — use Airbus A380, a double-decker jet that can carry up to 469 passengers.

According to The Sun's reporting, Beaton told his colleague that he had been "a very naughty boy" during his downtime before the scheduled flight from Johannesburg to London.

The British Airways pilot told the cabin crew member, a close friend of his, about meeting two men, a Welsh "chick," and a "young Spanish bird" at a nightclub in the city, according to texts reviewed by The Sun.

He then bragged in the texts about how the group "polished off a bottle of vodka," how the girls were "dancing topless," and how he decided to strip off too, the newspaper reported.

According to The Sun, one of the other men produced a few lines of cocaine.

"That's the story of how I ended up snorting coke off a girl's tits in Joburg," he wrote in a text, per the newspaper's reporting.

After being reported to the airline, Beaton was drug-tested, the newspaper said. The result came back positive and he was fired, according to The Sun.

He was sent back to London's Heathrow Airport as a passenger the following day, the outlet reported.

Beaton did not respond to Insider's request for comment.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) told Insider that an airline needs to inform the CAA if a UK pilot misused drink or drugs before boarding or being on board an aircraft.

"In these cases, we would immediately suspend the pilot's medical which means they cannot fly," a spokesperson for the CAA said in a statement.

If that pilot wished to return to flying, they would need to have an assessment with an expert medical team and a "comprehensive rehabilitation programme" would be put in place, the statement said.