Rules For Air Travel Are Put to Test
By Michael Laris and Lori Aratani
After consuming several beers and a couple of shots before takeoff, a miner started urinating near his seat on an Alaska Airlines flight, an FBI special agent recounted. Instructed to cover himself, he responded: âI have to pee.â
Two weeks later, a shirtless musician with a history of mental illness tried to fling open an exit door during a flight to Los Angeles as five people fought to stop him. âHe advised that he wanted to kill everyone, including himself, on the aircraft,â another agent wrote.
Both men were arrested earlier this year in Denver, charged with the same broad federal crime: interference with flight crew members and attendants.
They were, in many ways, the exceptions.
The system for keeping the peace in Americaâs skies is creaking under the pressure of what airlines and regulators say is an unprecedented proliferation of misbehavior.
The Federal Aviation Administration has received more than 3,400 reports of âunrulyâ passengers this year. But despite launching a âzero-toleranceâ enforcement policy in January â amid a rise in conflicts often tied to mask requirements in the air â the agency said that as of mid-July it had âcompletely closedâ just seven cases.
The sprawling, multitiered system for enforcing regulations and federal laws covering passengers can take years to play out. As travel rebounds, that structure is being strained by confrontations fueled by alcohol, hostility to mask mandates and small conflicts that careen out of control. One passenger hit a woman holding an infant amid an apparent dispute over a window shade. Another ran through business class and stomped on a flight attendantâs foot after the power outlet at her seat wouldnât charge her phone, according to court records.
The system involves airline employees, FAA inspectors and lawyers, Transportation Department judges, local authorities, state and federal courts, FBI agents and U.S. attorneys, who all have roles in a sometimes messy and protracted process.
An escalation in âair rageâ
The incidents that take place miles high in pressurized cabins are filled with many of the same pathologies and clashes that occur on the ground.
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A review of federal cases by The Washington Post points to alcohol, drug use and mental illness as key factors in outbursts that have terrified passengers and crew members, sometimes leaving them hospitalized. The tools for dealing with those problems in the air are more limited than on land.
Court records describe ad hoc policing teams made up of passengers recruited by flight attendants to help subdue rampaging fellow fliers using plastic handcuffs and seat belt straps. The records detail several instances of passengers trying to pry open doors on planes, leading to scenes of panic and violence.
âI am waiting for a signal,â a distressed passenger declared on a Hawaiian Airlines flight from Los Angeles in October before lunging for the emergency door and smashing a flight attendantâs head against it, causing a âping pong ball sized hematomaâ on her temple, federal prosecutors said.
A traveler enters a terminal at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. (Nam Y. Huh/AP)
After the third lunge, passengers and crew members zip-tied the manâs ankles to a seat. His lawyer said he âwas in an altered state of mind when he tried to exit a commercial aircraft mid-flight. ⌠This activity was not violent and was not driven by anger towards any other person.â
The flight attendantâs injuries, after she âproperly blocked him,â were minor, the lawyer added. Authorities said that after the manâs arrest, he choked a nurse at a Hawaii hospital until he lost consciousness. The passenger, in his early 30s, was detained for eight months and released to his parents with an order that he take medication pending a March trial.
Earlier this month, a woman tried to open an airplane door on a flight from Dallas, then bit a flight attendant, according to American Airlines. She was
duct-taped to her seat. In May, a Southwest Airlines flight attendant had
two teeth knocked out, allegedly by a passenger who refused to remain seated.
Video shows a woman punching a Southwest flight attendant in the face, knocking out teeth: âIt was all badâ
Aviation experts say cases of âair rageâ are nothing new, but verbal attacks are turning physical more quickly.
âWhat weâre really seeing is an increased level of hostility on the aircraft, which is something I donât think weâve ever seen before in this industry,â said Paul Hartshorn, spokesman for the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, which represents American Airlines employees. âItâs just incredibly dangerous.â
âMy life is changed foreverâ
Federal prosecutions in cases where âinterference with flight crew members and attendantsâ is the lead charge were down sharply in the past decade following a rise after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to a Post examination of federal prosecution data housed at Syracuse University, raising questions about resources and priorities.
For most of the 2000s, there were more than 50 such prosecutions annually, with case counts sometimes topping 70, according to data compiled by the universityâs Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. Over the past decade, that number has been in the teens and 20s each year, according to the research center, which built a vast database through decades of public records requests.
The Justice Department said prosecutions under the âinterferenceâ statute â by its count there were 20 in fiscal year 2019, 16 in 2020 and 14 through this month in 2021 â do not reflect the scope of its efforts because other charges are also used. At a Senate hearing in June, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department takes the recent onboard assaults âextremely seriously.â
âEven if not intended to bring the plane down, you can imagine the kind of pandemonium on planes that weâve seen in some of these videos that people have taken that can cause an incredibly dangerous accident,â Garland said
In a June
letter to Garland, a consortium of airline industry and labor groups called on the Justice Department to âdirect federal prosecutors to dedicate resources for egregious cases.â It noted inconsistencies in which cases are prosecuted in different jurisdictions, and said more criminal prosecutions are needed. The department is reviewing the letter, an agency spokesman said.
In selecting which airborne cases to pursue, federal prosecutors said they weigh damage to victims, airlines and threats to public safety. Considerations include whether flights were diverted, lives were endangered, the quality of the evidence and a suspectâs mental health status, federal prosecutors said.
In Congress, some lawmakers want the Justice Department to create a new âno-fly listâ for passengers convicted of assault or who have paid civil penalties in such cases. Airlines, which have banned more than 2,700 customers for refusing to wear masks, donât share information about customers who cause problems. Someone barred by one carrier can simply book a flight on another airline.
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The incidents can leave a lasting mark.
Delta Air Lines flight attendant Eunice DePinto was shoved after trying to pull a first-class passenger off the airplane door he was fighting to open on a 2017 flight from Seattle. A second flight attendant was punched in the face, prosecutors said. The raging passenger â and another customer who aided flight attendants â were smashed in the head with bottles of red wine during the struggle, according to court records. Airline employees said the pressure at high altitude would have kept the door from opening, but it could have opened as the plane descended.
âIn the galley there were flying objects, toppled galley equipment, yelling, physical blows and blood,â DePinto told a federal court in Washington state.
(That's the first half or so of the article. It was too long to get it all in one note.)
