DENVER -- The United Airlines pilot from Lakewood arrested for alcohol violations at a London airport is receiving medical treatment in the United States, his attorney told 7NEWS Friday.

Erwin Washington's British defense attorney would not say if his treatment is for substance abuse, nor if Washington is back in Colorado.

"All I'm able to report is that he's receiving medical treatment. He's back in the states," the attorney, Chris Humphreys, said in a Friday phone interview.

Washington, 51, didn't attend his court hearing in London Friday, because his first appearance was postponed to Jan. 5. He will be in court that day to face a charge of "being aviation staff, performing an aviation function whilst exceeding the proscribed alcohol limit," the attorney said.

Washington's blood-alcohol level also will be read aloud in court.

"I know what (the blood-alcohol level) is, but I can't say," said Humphreys, citing attorney-client confidentiality.

The criminal defense attorney has developed a sub-specialty of defending airline pilots accused of violating the strict 0.02 blood-alcohol maximum under a 2002 British law.

He's defended most of the pilots accused of crossing that low threshold -- equal to a half-pint of beer for an average-size man. Along with Washington, he's represented another United pilot and an American Airlines pilot -- all three were arrested at Heathrow Airport for alcohol violations during the past 13 months.

The maximum penalty for violating the law can be two years in prison, especially if a pilot has a high blood-alcohol level. But Humphreys said the United pilot arrested in 2008 received a suspended sentence and the American Airlines pilot arrested in May was fined about $1,650.

One of the steeper sentences came from an Australian pilot flying for Emirates Airline. He served half a four-month sentence in 2006. He was arrested after stumbling around during a routine search at Heathrow, making incoherent jokes about "not blowing up my plane" and smelling of alcohol, according to press accounts.

Yet, Humphreys said the lurid news headlines about "drunk" pilots in the cockpit are often exaggerated.

"Certainly in the UK the press coverage has made it sound as if they were extremely drunk. But the limit is so low that you could almost cross over that limit with the residual alcohol that all of us have in our system, plus no more than maybe a half-pint of beer," he said.

"So I think that people have to be aware that, despite the headlines suggesting that the pilots are in some way drunk, quite often it's a very, very low reading," Humphreys added.

He said the American government and the commercial airlines' policy that encourages pilots with substance abuse issues to voluntarily seek treatment without jeopardizing their careers both helps the pilots and protects the public.

"The program ... is massively beneficial, and I just wish that we had something like that in the UK to assist pilots," he said.

Sometimes pilots, facing regular jetlag on long-haul international flights, will have a drink to unwind and get to sleep the night before a flight.

"A pilot can make a one-off miscalculation, which you or I might do. You drink the night before, you think the alcohol is out of your system but it isn't," Humphreys said.

The attorney said many of his clients are like Washington, veteran commercial pilots who also had "distinguished" military flying careers. Washington graduated from the Air Force Academy.

"The record of the individual is certainly taken into account" by British courts, he said.