Authorities charged Alexander Tung Cuu Le on Thursday with interfering with a flight crew. Le, of Westminster, Calif., faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. The incident happened on Wednesday on a flight from San Jose del Campo in Mexico to Los Angeles International Airport. Video posted by another passenger shows a man running after a male flight attendant and punching him as the crew member walked in the other direction. According to an FBI agent’s affidavit, shortly after takeoff, Le grabbed another flight attendant by the shoulders and asked for coffee. He was told to wait. When Le, 33, moved from the back of the plane to an open seat near the first-class cabin, the male flight attendant asked him to return to his assigned seat. Instead, Le stood in a two-fisted fighting stance and shook an arm at the crew member but missed, according to the affidavit. The flight attendant was on her way to report the incident to the pilot when she was hit in the back of the head. Several passengers “arrested” Le and handcuffed his hands and feet with restraints provided by a different flight attendant, according to the FBI agent. The injured flight attendant, who spent the rest of the flight with an ice pack on his head, was taken to hospital. The president of the Professional Flight Attendants Association, the union that represents America’s cabin crew, said the passenger had displayed “dangerous, life-threatening behavior.” “Thankfully, the crew and passengers subdued the passenger and the flight landed safely,” union official Julie Hendrick said. “This violent behavior endangers the safety of all passengers and crew and must stop.” Airline spokesman Curtis Blessing said American has barred the man from ever traveling on the airline. He said the American was helping law enforcement investigate the incident. According to Federal Aviation Administration data, airlines have reported nearly 2,000 incidents of unruly passengers this year, up from nearly 6,000 last year, even with a 38 percent increase in U.S. air travelers. Most of the incidents in 2021 and early 2022 involved passengers who refused to wear face masks, but the federal requirement for masks on planes and on public transportation was struck down by a federal judge in April. Government figures do not indicate how often incidents turn violent, although it appears to be rare. The most infamous case involved a young woman who punched a Southwest flight attendant, breaking some of her teeth, on a plane in California. The woman was sentenced to 15 months in prison.
