A United Airlines passenger who forced a Newark-bound flight back to Las Vegas due to a “hijacking threat” blamed the incident on alcohol and told authorities his comments were a drunken joke.
“I’m going to hijack this bitch and just crash your boat,” Dante Milne texted a friend on a United Airlines flight from Las Vegas to Newark over the weekend, according to a criminal complaint obtained by police. new york post.
A flight attendant told police she saw a text message received from a passenger that said “I want to hijack the plane,” and later identified Milne as the sender after checking seat assignments, News 3 LV reported, citing an arrest report.
“The message conveyed a first-person statement of intent to commit violence, involving hijacking a plane and crashing the recipient’s seat,” the report said. “Both individuals were passengers on the plane named in the communication.”
The flight attendants later alerted the captain, causing the plane to be blocked and returned to Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas due to “security concerns,” Fox 5 Vegas reported.
Milne was arrested on the tarmac on Saturday and later told authorities he was drunk and was joking with a friend in another seat. He said he had a beer and several drinks at the airport bar before boarding the flight because he had planned to sleep during the flight.
The 25-year-old man was reportedly woken after dozing off and told the Boeing 737 flight, carrying 150 passengers and six crew members, would be returning to Las Vegas just 15 minutes after takeoff.
Milne, who was on his way home from a three-day underwater welding apprenticeship program in Las Vegas, told detectives his hijacking text messages were just a poorly worded “co-worker joke,” according to the arrest report.
The New Jersey native insisted he never intended to hijack the plane, crash it or harm anyone and apologized for how things turned out.
According to reports, no one confronted Milne during the flight. Instead, the welding apprentice was arrested by Las Vegas Metropolitan Police after getting off the plane onto the tarmac.
Milne was charged with one count of threatening or communicating false information about an act of terrorism. He was later released from the Clark County Detention Center on $10,000 or $20,000 bail, according to conflicting news reports.
Milne’s attorney, James Gallo, told the judge on Tuesday that his client planned to plead not guilty. His next court appearance is scheduled for January 5.
Alana Mastrangelo-Wrask is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and @ARmastrangeloand on Instagram.