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Unruly passenger who falsely reported hijacking on Seattle flight fined by FAA

The FAA announced fines against a total of nine unruly passengers Tuesday.

SEATTLE — An unruly passenger on a flight from Sea-Tac Airport to Ketchikan is being fined after falsely reporting his flight was being hijacked, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced Tuesday.

The Alaska Airlines passenger is being fined $10,500 following the Jan. 23 incident, during which he called 911 and the FBI.

According to the FAA, while the man’s flight was preparing to leave the gate, he called 911 to falsely report that his plane was being hijacked, telling the dispatcher that a man was holding a flight attendant at knifepoint.

As the flight was taxiing to the runway, the man got up from his seat to use the lavatory twice despite flight attendants telling him to remain seated, the FAA said.

Because of the 911 calls, the pilots drove the plane to a cargo ramp where it was met by law enforcement officers armed with rifles. At this point, the man called the FBI and suggested there was a bomb aboard, the FAA said.

The plane was taken out of service temporarily and was screened along with the passengers and crew. The investigation revealed that the passenger’s claims were false.

The more than $10,000-fine is among the latest round of fines, totaling $119,000, that the FAA announced Tuesday against other unruly airline passengers.

The fines come at the same time the FAA is releasing a new Public Service Announcement for its Zero Tolerance policy for unruly behavior. The PSA features a video of children explaining how to behave on a plane.

Since the beginning of 2021, the FAA has received 3,420 reports of unruly passengers. About 2,559 of those reports are for passengers refusing to comply with the federal facemask mandate.

The FAA has proposed more than $682,000 in fines against unruly passengers so far this year.

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