VIDEO: Massachusetts man arrested for stabbing United Airlines flight attendant

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VIDEO: Massachusetts man arrested for stabbing United Airlines flight attendant | Secret Flying

Man charged with stabbing United Airlines flight attendant.

 

A man has been arrested after stabbing a flight attendant and attempting to open the emergency door on a United Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Boston.

 

Francisco Severo Torres, a 33-year-old man from Massachusetts, was charged with using a dangerous weapon and interfering with flight crew members and attendants after the plane landed at Boston Logan International Airport.

 

The incident began when the pilots were alerted to a disarmed side door between the first class and coach sections by an alarm in the cockpit 45 minutes before landing. Cabin crew confirmed the locking handle had been moved out of the locked position.

 

A flight attendant reported seeing Torres near the door and suspected that he tampered with it. When questioned whether he tampered with locking handle, Torres asked if any cameras recorded him doing so, prosecutors said.

 

Torres later allegedly struck a flight attendant three times in the neck with a broken metal spoon when they approached him.

 

Other passengers restrained Torres until the flight crew could take control. United Airlines has banned him from any future flights and is cooperating with law enforcement in the investigation.

 

Torres told investigators he broke off the end of a spoon in the bathroom before trying to open the door to try and jump out of the plane, a Boston police officer wrote in an affidavit, and that he knew people would die had he opened the door. He also said he thought one of the attendants was trying to kill him.

 

“We have zero tolerance for any type of violence on our flights, and this customer will be banned from flying on United pending an investigation,” United Airlines said in a statement. “We are cooperating with law enforcement in their investigation.”

 

Torres could face up to life in prison if convicted.

 

The flight attendants union, the Association of Flight Attendants, said in a statement that they were grateful for the FBI’s quick action and β€œproud of the crew of United Flight 2609 and relieved that no one sustained life-threatening physical injuries.

 

“Violence has no place anywhere and certainly not in a closed cabin flying several miles in the air.”

 

The Association of Flight Attendants has called on Congress to pass the Protection from Abusive Passengers Act to create a list of nationally banned disruptive passengers.