A US pilot has been indicted for threatening to shoot the captain if a flight was diverted due to a passenger medical emergency.
A former Delta co-pilot was federally indicted earlier this month, accused of threatening to shoot the captain of a commercial flight last year if he diverted the plane because a passenger on board may have been suffering a medical emergency, authorities confirmed Tuesday.
According to court documents, a Utah grand jury indicted Jonathan Dunn with one count of interference with a flight crew.
The purported incident occurred on an Aug. 22, 2022, flight, the Department of Transportation’s inspector general’s office said in a news release Tuesday, but did not specify the airline where the flight originated from, or its destination. However, a Delta Air Lines spokesperson confirmed that Dunn was working for Delta as a Delta first officer at the time of the incident.
According to the inspector general, Dunn, the co-pilot, had “a disagreement” with the captain, who wanted to potentially divert the flight “due to a passenger medical event.”
Dunn then allegedly “told the captain they would be shot multiple times” if the flight was diverted, the inspector general said.
Dunn was authorized to carry a gun as part of the Transportation Safety Administration’s Federal Flight Deck Officer program, the inspector general said.
Federal flight deck officers are airline pilots authorized by the TSA to be armed in the cockpit on domestic flights. They undergo special training to do so and are provided with a TSA-issued weapon to defend the flight deck against an attempted hijacking.
The two-page indictment alleges that Dunn “did assault and intimidate a crew member of an aircraft…and did use a dangerous weapon in assaulting and intimidating the crew member.”
In a statement Tuesday evening, a spokesperson for the Transportation Security Administration said “TSA is aware of an incident involving a Federal Flight Deck Officer.”
Delta toldin a statement Tuesday evening that Dunn was no longer employed by the airline and refrained from commenting further pending the investigation.