A woman who yelled profanities at a flight attendant and threatened to kill him caused an unplanned plane landing and was charged Monday in a federal court with flight crew interference.
The Alaska Airlines flight scheduled for Friday from San Francisco to Chicago landed at Kansas City International Airport in Kansas City, Mo., because the pilot had concerns about passenger safety, the Justice Department said in a statement Monday. declaration.
The woman indicted, Chloe M. DaSilva, 32, had asked to switch seats, but flight attendants told her the plane was full, according to an affidavit filed in the case. A few minutes into the flight, after sitting in the bathroom in the rear part of the plane for a long time, she started banging the bathroom door from the inside, the court said. At another point in the flight, she also banged on the overhead compartments.
Ms. DaSilva was held down with zip ties at the captain’s request by a flight attendant and two passengers, the affidavit said. She didn’t resist.
Six crew members and 177 passengers were on the flight, the airline said. As a precaution, a mother and baby sitting in front of Ms. DaSilva switched seats with another passenger. Ms. DaSilva never physically touched a flight crew member, a passenger said in the affidavit.
“After landing, the guest was removed from the aircraft by local law enforcement officials,” the airline said. “The flight then continued to Chicago without further incident.”
Flight attendants began watching Ms. DaSilva after she interrupted the initial announcements and safety briefing to ask when the plane was departing, according to the affidavit.
Once in the air, she went to the back of the plane and told a flight attendant that she couldn’t stay in her seat. She entered the bathroom and banged on the walls. When a flight attendant answered the door for a health check, Ms. DaSilva was seen sleeping and left there, according to the affidavit.
According to the affidavit, Ms. DaSilva banged the overhead trash cans as she returned to her seat. Some time later, she threatened to kill a male flight attendant, the court said.
Ms. DaSilva, who was arrested on charges of interfering with a flight attendant and was tried in the Western District of Missouri, faces a possible maximum sentence of 20 years and no mandatory minimum sentence, the prosecutor’s office said. The public defenders listed in court documents as representing Ms. DaSilva could not be reached for comment.
The episode is one of many that have involved unruly passengers on flights and raised questions about crew safety in recent years. The Transportation Security Administration will resume offering self-defense classes to flight attendants and pilots in 2021.
A November 2022 Frontier Airlines flight from Cincinnati to Tampa was diverted to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport after a passenger was seen carrying a box cutter. In September 2022, a woman was sentenced to four months in prison after spitting on a passenger and shoving a flight attendant on an American Airlines flight.
In 2021, an off-duty flight attendant took control of the speaker system and made an announcement about oxygen masks, leading to a violent confrontation, in which he was subdued.
