Student pilot tried bum-rushing plane’s cockpit mid-flight: complaint

A student pilot on an Alaska Airlines flight from San Diego, California to Washington, D.C. is facing charges after allegedly trying to rush the aircraft’s flight deck multiple times during the five-hour flight. Nathan Jones told flight attendants that he “was testing them,” according to a criminal complaint obtained by The Daily Beast. It was filed in Virginia federal court March 4, the day after Jones was arrested for interference with flight crew members, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. On March 3, Jones took his assigned seat—6A—aboard Alaska flight 322, the complaint states. He then proceeded to make “three separate attempts to go to the front of the plane and open the aircraft’s cockpit door before flight attendants requested the assistance of off-duty law enforcement officers, who restrained Jones in flexcuffs and sat on either side of him for the remainder of the flight,” according to the document. The cockpit was “locked down for the remainder of the flight.”<br/>