Topline
A 33-year-old man was arrested at Boston Logan International Airport on Sunday night after authorities said he tried to open an emergency exit door on a United Airlines flight from Los Angeles and had attacked a flight attendant with a broken metal spoon, in the latest case. incident involving flight from Boston.
A United Airlines flight prepares to land at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas in January … [+]
Highlights
Passengers overpowered the man – Francisco Severo Torres, of Leominster, Massachusetts – after he attacked a flight attendant, according at the Ministry of Justice.
The DOJ said a flight attendant confronted Torres after the crew received an alarm that a starboard side door between first class and the coach had been moved to the unlocked position about 45 minutes before the flight. landing in Boston, while its emergency slide arming level was changed to “unarmed”. .”
A flight attendant said he saw Torres near the door and believed he had tampered with it, while passengers said in post-flight interviews that he asked another passenger where an image of the handle was. door tag on the flight’s security card, according to the DOJ.
Torres reportedly fired back after being confronted, asking if there were cameras proving he tampered with the gate, how the flight crew determined he posed a threat and that the plane should land as soon as possible, prosecutors said in a statement.
He later rose from his seat and approached the flight attendants near the starboard door before lunging at one of the attendants’ neck, hitting him three times with a broken spoon.
Torres was taken into custody after the flight landed, and he is due to appear before a magistrate for the first time on Monday. It’s not immediately clear if Torres has an attorney.
What we don’t know
Authorities have not identified a suspect motive.
Key Context
The event happened just hours before two United planes passed each other on the tarmac at Logan Airport. The planes were able to take off “normally” after the brief low-speed collision, according to United. The incidents also came a week after a Learjet pilot allegedly deceased Logan “without clearance” from air traffic control, causing a JetBlue flight to perform a sudden maneuver to avoid a collision. No injuries were reported in any of the incidents.
Contra
Federal Aviation Administration reported an important increase in the number of unruly passengers on flights in 2021, opening a record 1,100 investigations. The problems persisted until 2022, when more than 800 investigations into unruly passengers were opened, but there has been a significant drop in reports of unruly passengers since the spring of 2022, when most major US airlines dropped mask mandates.
Further reading
Two planes cut to Boston Logan, following several close calls across the country (Forbes)