DALLAS (AP) — A person accused of punching a flight attendant later kicked a police officer within the groin and spit on officers who had been eradicating him from the airplane in Texas, in response to a newly launched report by an FBI agent.
Keith Edward Fagiana faces costs of interfering with a flight crew and will resist 20 years in jail if convicted. He’s scheduled to make his first federal court docket look Monday in Amarillo, Texas.
Fagiana was a passenger on an American Airways flight Wednesday from Fort Price, Texas, to Bozeman, Montana. Pilots landed the airplane in Amarillo as an alternative.
The FBI agent’s account was in unsealed court docket paperwork Friday.
A flight attendant instructed the FBI that one other passenger complained that Fagiana was violently kicking their seat. The flight attendant mentioned when he requested Fagiana to cease, the person swore at him, punched him within the abdomen, then stood up and hit him three extra instances.
The attendant and different passengers subdued the person and put flex cuffs on him till the airplane landed in Amarillo.
An FBI agent mentioned in an affidavit that whereas officers had been placing metal cuffs on Fagiana, he spit at officers and kicked one. They put a “spitting masks” on his face.
The agent wrote that Fagiana mentioned he didn’t bear in mind something concerning the flight however “admitted he had drunk some ‘Captain Morgans’” — a model of rum — at bars earlier than the flight.
It was not clear whether or not Fagiana has a lawyer; court docket data Friday didn’t checklist one.
Video taken by one other passenger captured the confrontation with the flight attendant.
“Cease, cease, cease. What the (expletive) are you doing?” the flight attendant yelled at a person hitting him.
Airways reported greater than 2,000 incidents of unruly passengers to the Federal Aviation Administration. That’s down from a peak of practically 6,000 in 2021, when far fewer individuals had been touring due to the pandemic.
In probably the most severe circumstances, a California girl was sentenced to 15 months in prison and ordered to pay practically $26,000 in restitution for punching a Southwest Airways flight attendant within the mouth and breaking her enamel.
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