Aviation News

July 23, 2010
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Disgruntled American Airlines Flight Attendant Arrested After Threatening to Blow Up Planes

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By: Matt Molnar
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A former American Airlines flight attendant has been indicted on federal terrorism charges after mailing threats to his old employer’s corporate headquarters.

Rodney Lorenzo was fired by American a couple of years ago after tossing a coffee pot at a fellow attendant during a flight. Lorenzo maintained that he had tossed the pot at a door, and not at his colleague. He was later arrested for sending hate mail to the flight attendant who accused him, and served 41 days in a Maryland jail for harassment.

Apparently he did not learn his lesson.

According to the indictment unsealed in Brooklyn Federal Court on Wednesday, Lorenzo also mailed several letters to top executives at American in which he said he was going to ship copies of the airline’s in-flight security manual “to 25 Muslim charity organizations both here and in the U.K.,” and warned executives that “Karma will soon bite back and your aircraft will begin to fall from the sky like dead birds.” He allegedly signed the envelopes with “Boom!!”

Authorities traced the letters back to New York, where Lorenzo lives, and matched the handwriting to his earlier letters.

Lorenzo is free on $50,000 bail.