A 69-year-old man has been charged with abusive sexual contact after allegedly groping a teenager aboard a Delta Airlines flight from Atlanta to Seattle. Jack Allen Roberson, of Andrews, North Carolina, was arrested upon landing at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and remained in custody following a detention hearing last week. “According to records filed in the case, Roberson was seated next to the 15-year-old victim who was traveling with her guardian,” the Department of Justice (DoJ) said in a 17 July release. “According to the criminal complaint, while Roberson appeared to be sleeping, he allegedly slipped his hand onto the victim’s thigh and ran in up under her skirt and towards her genitals. The victim reported the unwanted touching to her guardian who contacted the flight attendant. Roberson was moved to a different seat. Law enforcement was contacted and met the plane on arrival. Roberson was arrested and taken to the Federal Detention Center at SeaTac.” Abusive sexual contact on an aircraft is punishable by up to two years in prison and a $250,000 fine, according to DoJ. The case is being investigated by the FBI. United States Magistrate Judge S. Kate Vaughan, in her detention order following Mr Roberson’s Thursday hearing, found that “release to an in-patient facility with GPS monitoring as a minimum would be required to mitigate the danger to the community, but Defendant is not able to access such a facility at this time.”<br/>
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National flag carrier Vietnam Airlines has announced it plans to sell three A321 CEO aircraft through an auction in the third quarter. The jets were manufactured in 2007 and would have a starting price of US$5m each, it said. The airline has chosen an asset auction unit to handle the sale of these aircraft, which bear Vietnamese nationality and are identified by their respective serial numbers: A350, A351, and A352. The jets are currently parked at Ha Noi’s Noi Bai International Airport and HCM City’s Tan Son Nhat International Airport. The auction is part of the carrier’s efforts to renew its aircraft that are more than ten years old and to improve its financial situation impacted by the economic turmoil and the pandemic. In 2020, the company successfully sold five A321 jets for a total of US$37m. In 2021, the airline also announced an auction for 11 Airbus A321 CEO aircraft that had been in service for over 12 years. <br/>