British Airways said that this "is a matter for the police". (File photo)
Three crew members of British Airways have been accused of lying to police about a robbery to cover up their night of excessive drinking in Rio De Janeiro. Independent said in a report that the claim of staffers caused flight BA248 to be abruptly postponed for 24 hours on September 5. It was scheduled to fly from Rio De Janeiro to London's Heathrow airport but the three workers reported being "too traumatised to work" after becoming the victims of a robbery. They also claimed their phones had been snatched.
The police have now said that the three crew members "invented" the armed robbery to avoid being punished by bosses. The cops said they found inconsistencies in their stories.
The police in Brazil said one of the crimes the crew members talked about did happen, but the three went to an abandoned police station to take drugs.
"After field investigation and intelligence work, data crossing and image analysis, the Special Tourism Support Delegation (Deat) found that three flight attendants from an English company, who reported having been robbed in September this year lied in their testimony when recording the incident," the Civil Police of the State of Rio de Janeiro told The Independent.
"According to Deat, of the various crimes reported by the trio, only one occurred, after a late night in which they consumed drugs and alcohol and went to an abandoned gas station, close to a community in Rio, where they continued their drug use," it added.
The three crew members are being investigated for falsely reporting a crime.
New York Post said that the crew members are accused of taking Class A drugs during their night of partying.
"What is surprising is how a crew that has such an important role spends the whole night drinking and using drugs, knowing that the next day they would have the responsibility of taking care of dozens of people who would travel for hours," Patricia Alemany, Head of the Special Tourism Support Police, told local news outlet Globo.
The police also reviewed the CCTV footage that shows them near the fuel station at 4.50am (local time).
British Airways, meanwhile, said that this "is a matter for the police" and that the flight attendants involved "were not scheduled" for the flight. The airline did not explain why BA248 was postponed.