American Airlines mechanic pleads guilty to tampering with plane

A mechanic who worked for more than 3 decades for American Airlines Group pleaded guilty Wednesday to tampering with a plane in the middle of contentious contract negotiations. Abdul-Majeed Marouf Ahmed Alani admitted to gluing a piece of foam to block a module that reports speed, pitch and other critical flight data on a plane that was scheduled to carry 150 passengers from Miami to the Bahamas in July. Alani, who had worked for American since 1988, said that he didn’t want to harm passengers, but was trying to delay or cancel the flight in the hopes of getting overtime work. American earlier this year sued the unions that represent the mechanics, accusing them of causing an operational crisis by slowing down repairs and refusing overtime. American has said the slowdown caused more than 1,200 delays and cancellations. <br/>