{"id":105404,"date":"2024-05-02T00:03:25","date_gmt":"2024-05-02T00:03:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/belligerent-man-ordered-to-pay-united-airlines-20k-for-flight-diversion-doj\/"},"modified":"2024-05-02T00:03:25","modified_gmt":"2024-05-02T00:03:25","slug":"belligerent-man-ordered-to-pay-united-airlines-20k-for-flight-diversion-doj","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/belligerent-man-ordered-to-pay-united-airlines-20k-for-flight-diversion-doj\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Belligerent’ man ordered to pay United Airlines $20K for flight diversion: DOJ"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Getty Images – STOCK<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

(NEW YORK) — A British man who wreaked havoc on a United Airlines flight, forcing the flight crew to divert their landing location, must pay over $20,000 to the airline, prosecutors announced.<\/p>\n

The charges stem from a March 1 flight that departed from London, when passenger Alexander Michael Dominic MacDonald, 30, “began arguing with his traveling companion and causing a disturbance,” according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.<\/p>\n

“When flight attendants asked MacDonald to be quiet and attempted to calm him, he became belligerent, threatening and intimidating towards them,” prosecutors said.<\/p>\n

Despite an international purser onboard the flight attempting to intervene, MacDonald continued to be “belligerent and intimidating” toward the official as well, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n

In the release, DOJ noted that MacDonald threatened to “mess up the plane” amid the altercation.<\/p>\n

Due to the continued disturbance, flight crew restrained MacDonald in flex cuffs, and the flight diverted from the original destination of Newark, New Jersey, to Bangor, Maine, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n

The U.S. District Court in Bangor sentenced MacDonald to time served after being in custody since the March 1 incident and ordered him to pay United Airlines $20,638.00 in reimbursement for the flight diversion.<\/p>\n

When the flight landed in Maine, MacDonald and his companion were removed from the aircraft and arrested by local officials, United Airlines said in a statement at the time.<\/p>\n

The airline noted that both passengers appeared to be intoxicated during the altercation.<\/p>\n

The FBI, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the Bangor Police Department investigated the case, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n

The Federal Aviation Administration reports there have been 649 incidents of unruly passengers in 2024.<\/p>\n

“The rate of unruly passenger incidents steadily dropped by over 80% since record highs in early 2021, but recent increases show there remains more work to do,” FAA officials said in the report.
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Copyright \u00a9 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Getty Images – STOCK (NEW YORK) — A British man who wreaked havoc on a United Airlines flight, forcing the flight crew to divert their landing location, must pay over $20,000 to the airline, prosecutors announced. The charges stem from a March 1 flight that departed from London, when passengerRead More →<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[156,31,2],"tags":[273,271,276,274,270,123,275,133,124,272,102,103],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105404"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105404\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}