An airline passenger who allegedly tried to breach a plane cockpit door before he opened an emergency exit and jumped onto the tarmac faces a federal charge for interfering with a flight crew, the Justice Department announced Monday.
Luis Antonio Victoria Dominguez, a 33-year-old Mexican national, was about to take off on a Salt Lake City-bound United Express flight at Los Angeles International Airport on Friday when he allegedly told a passenger he needed to deplane, according to a complaint filed in federal court.
Victoria Dominguez got up while the plane was taxiing to a departure runway and ran to the front of the aircraft where he started “banging on the cockpit door and manipulating the locked doorknob,” fighting off a flight attendant who tried to stop him, the complaint alleged.
MAN IN CUSTODY AFTER DRIVING THROUGH FENCE AND ONTO TAXIWAY AT LAX
Other passengers tried to subdue Victoria Dominguez, who opened the emergency exit door and partially deployed the emergency slide while the flight attendant called the flight deck to tell the pilots to stop moving.
Victoria Dominguez freed himself from a passenger’s grip and jumped out of the aircraft, breaking his right leg, the complaint stated. LAX airport police arrested and transported him to the hospital, where he underwent surgery for the fracture.
The complaint included details from an interview between federal authorities and Victoria Dominguez, who admitted to using methamphetamine before boarding the flight.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
He “was coming down from all the drugs he had used the last couple of days and immediately started to doze off” when he heard passengers behind him joking about the flight going somewhere other than Salt Lake City and began to panic, he told investigators.
Victoria Dominguez faces a statutory maximum of 20 years in federal prison if convicted for interfering with a flight crew. He is due to appear in federal court in the Central District of California later this week, the Justice Department said.
