A judge sentenced a man from Massachusetts on Tuesday after he tried to open the emergency door on board a plane. Then he attacked a flight attendant with a broken metal spoon.
According to a report by the United States Attorney’s Office, the incident occurred on March 5, 2023. 35-year-old Francisco Severo Torres was a passenger aboard a United Airlines flight to Boston. Forty-five minutes before landing, an alarm in the cockpit was triggered. It told the crew that a door between first class and coach sections was disarmed. A flight attendant investigated and noticed the door handle had moved. The emergency slide arming lever was also set to “disarmed.”
A fellow flight attendant claimed they saw Torres near the door, believing he tampered with it. Torres was defensive when confronted and asked if there was any camera proof that he had done so. Flight attendants then notified the captain of the situation, saying they needed to land the aircraft as soon as possible.
Passengers also reported that Torres asked a person on board about the safety card before takeoff. He wanted to know if it showed where the door’s safety handle was located.
Torres Attacked A Flight Attendant With A Broken Spoon
The report explains that Torres approached two flight attendants near the door. A video recorded by a passenger “depicts Torres yelling at points that he would ‘kill every man on this plane’ and ‘I’m taking over this plane.” He then attacked a crew member by thrusting a broken metal spoon “in a stabbing motion,” hitting them three times in the neck area.
Passengers and flight crew tackled Torres to the ground and held him down until the plane touched down. Authorities took him into custody at Boston airport. The news release explains that Torres pleaded guilty to “one count of interference and attempted interference with flight crew members and attendants using a dangerous weapon.”
The judge sentenced Torres to time served (approximately 26 months in prison) to be followed by five years of supervised release. During that time, Torres is barred from flying on any commercial aircraft.