An American Airlines mechanic in Miami was arrested and faces sabotage charges. He has confessed to deliberately disabling a navigation system on an aircraft in hopes of securing overtime pay.
On July 17, Abdul-Majeed Marouf Ahmed Alani allegedly tampered with the air data module (ADM) system, causing a warning message to appear when pilots powered up the aircraft for takeoff.
While none of the passengers or crew were injured, AA2834 from Miami to Nassau was forced to abort takeoff and taken out of service for maintenance. It was during inspection in a maintenance hangar that tampering was discovered. Per the Miami Herald.
An AA mechanic found a loosely connected tube in front of the nose gear underneath the cockpit that had been deliberately obstructed with some sort of hard foam material.
Alani will appear in court today and has been charged with “willfully damaging, destroying or disabling an aircraft”.
Alani glued the foam inside the tube leading from outside the plane to its air data module, a system that reports aircraft speed, pitch and other critical flight data. As a result, if the plane had taken off that day from MIA, the pilots would have had to operate the aircraft manually because the ADM system would not have received any computer data.
After his arrest, Alani told the FBI that his intention was not cause harm to airline passengers or crew. Instead, he was angry over stalled union contract negotiations. Specifically, he claimed the “dispute had affected him financially.” He added that he had sabtoaged the aircraft in order for the flight to be cancelled, knowing that he woudl likely opbtain overtime hours from it.
Alani was quick to confess because the evidence was damning. Security camera footage caught him in the act. The Nassau-bound aircrafft had arrived earlier from Orlando. Alanai, who walks with a distinct limp, was caught in the act on the camera. The sabotage took seven minutes.
CONCLUSION
This is a despicable act that undermines everything the American Airlines mechanics have worked for. Alanai’s reckless actions should put all AA mechanics on guard and also incentivize American Airlines to install more security cameras. The relationship between AA mechanics and management is so toxic that this level of micromanagement seems a tragic but necessary step.
> Read More on American Airlines:
- American Airlines Mechanics May Now Be Fined For Declining Overtime
- American Airlines Suing Mechanics Isn’t Helpful
- Union Warns Members Not To Fly “Unsafe” American Airlines
- Mechanics Slowdown Makes American Airlines Safer, Not Enjoyable
- American Airlines Mechanics Making Their Mark
image: American Airlines
At this point there needs to be management personnel or security assigned to all mechanics until this bumbling contract negotiation is complete. It’s bad enough I have endured these crap delays on American flights all summer. Now I find out I might have been my putting my life in danger because of their behavior? This is truly incredible and I don’t care if it’s the actions of one employee…it’s the actions of one employee that was created by the whole of the chaos they have put forth the past few months.
Lets not forget the airline’s part in the contract negotiations. Airlines are reaping billions of dollars in profits and still stonewall the mechanics. I in NO WAY condone what this idiot did. The mechanics already have the FAA breathing down their necks and they could lose their license to work for some small misstep. It takes two to tango and also two to have an impass in negotiations.
On a wholly different notes, EASA refuse to acknowledged FAA assessment and approval to 737Max8 and therefore refused to send representatives for a scheduled approval. EASA shall do its own inspection. That’s make sense, not to trust a liar who was caught red handed previously.
Why you didn’t wrote about this? Because it is not in favour of Boeing?
I’ll maintain that both the company and the TWU/IAM need to quit digging their heels in and put an end to this labor dispute. On that, I don’t single out one or the other and I don’t take any sides. It takes two to tango — and, in most labor disputes, the core obstacle to resolution is that both sides present a rigid, uncompromising position…both are certain they’re 100% right and neither wants to be seen as having “caved.”
But that said, I don’t see how John Samuelsen doesn’t have some culpability for this incident. No, I’m not saying that he or anybody else from the union put this man up to what he did. But everybody saw the video of Samuelsen promising “the bloodiest and ugliest battle” to Robert Isom. He shouldn’t be surprised then, when one of his members takes it upon themselves to draw actual blood….
…and not even from the American Airlines executives, but from ordinary people who are just trying to get from point A to point B.
The mechanics and their unions should be ashamed of themselves for this incident. But they’ve fomented it by encouraging the slow-downs and other “soft strike” actions.
To be honest, I’m not so convinced that he did this due to the labor issues. Terrorism may have been the really reason here.
Do you say that purely because of his name or do you have another reason for saying that?
I would pretty much assume SF was focused on the name.
Interesting though that the CNN aviation analyst is now saying that he suspects something more nefarious. That the mechanic wanted to take the aircraft down and not just create a maintenance issue. His reasoning being that there were thousands of other options he could have taken to delay the plane and “fix”- yet he chose the one thing (messing with the pitot tubes) that could have created a very difficult situation for the pilots.
It seems like I’m not the only one who thinks so.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/airline-news/2019/09/18/american-airlines-sabotage-mechanic-accused-terrorism-ties/2365985001/
Whoops. Can you please switch my name to SF and delete this comment?
Saw that earlier. Will be writing about that tomorrow.
I am really confused. The mechanic was male but your photo shows a female mechanic.
That is an AA stock photo genius.
If that’s the closest thing you had to a relevant stock image, Matthew, you might have been better to run this article without an accompanying photo. (Why not just a picture of an American Airlines plane?) I can’t imagine the above female mechanic would appreciate having her photo used in conjunction with “Shocking” story.
Some proof reading really needs to be done. “He added that he had sabtoaged the aircraft in order for the flight to be cancelled, knowing that he woudl likely opbtain overtime hours from it.”
Please correct it soon. Thanks.