A student pilot is facing charges & prison time after trying to rush the cockpit of an Alaska Airlines flight between San Diego and Washington Dulles.
Information about this individual has been released to the press over the course of this week.
Without further ado, let’s get into it…
AS322 – San Diego-Washington Dulles…
Alaska Airlines flight AS322 is a routine scheduled flight between San Diego and Washington Dulles.
The flight, of which the incident took place on March 3, was operated by N471AS.
As per data from Planespotters.net, N471AS is a 9.5 year old Boeing 737-900ER.
This aircraft was delivered to Alaska Airlines back in October 2014.
Of the 737-900ER variant, AS has 79 in the fleet, of which 74 are in active service and five are currently parked.
They host an average fleet age of 8.1 years.
AS322 departed San Diego at 0754 local time on March 3 and proceeded eastbound to Washington Dulles.
The flight landed safely into Dulles at 1535 local time later that day without incident.
Intense Chain of Events on the Alaska Airlines Plane…
As per The Daily Beast, the student pilot, named as Nathan Jones, was responsible for this incident.
A criminal complaint made shows that Jones had tried to rush the cockpit on AS322 between San Diego & Washington Dulles three times.
After the third time, the flight attendant requested off-duty law enforcement to assist them.
Following that, Jones was placed in cuffs and was sat down either side of the two officers.
Furthermore, upon arrival into Washington Dulles, Jones was handed over to the authorities and formally charged on March 4.
It is understood that if found guilty, he faces a maximum imprisonment of 20 years.
The complaint states:
“One of the flight attendants had to move from his assigned area in the back of the plane to the front of the plane to help assist other flight attendants because of Jones actions”.
“The flight attendants also had to put the beverage cart out as a barrier to block the cockpit, and one of the flight attendants remained with the beverage cart.”
Also, in a harrowing development, Jones said that he “was testing them” in reference to security onboard.
Overall…
In conclusion, this was quite an intense event involving a student pilot onboard Alaska Airlines flight AS322.
Credit is due to the involved persons who helped restrain Jones, as if he entered the cockpit, it would have been a different story.
Looking ahead, all eyes will be on whether Jones is found guilty and sentenced to prison following this.
But for now, let’s see what comes from the court proceedings.
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