The American Airlines’ mechanic who admitted to sabotaging a plane in Miami was previously fired from Alaska Airlines.
Abdul-Majeed Marouf Ahmed Alani was arrested by the FBI last Thursday and purportedly confessed to tampering with the Air Data system on an American Airlines aircraft bound from Miami for the Bahamas. Alani told investigators his hope was not to harm others, but for the aircraft to be taken out of service so that he would be assigned more overtime work.
That little ploy, if true, backfired when video surveillance easily identified him sabotaging the aircraft. He faces an extended prison term and fine.
But now it has been revealed that this is not Alani’s first problem with an airline employer.
Amani has been a mechanic for American Airlines since 1988 but simultaneously became a mechanic for Alaska Airlines in 1998. Ten years later, in 2008, he was fired by Alaska for several maintenance mistakes, including some that prompted Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) investigation. This led to the brief suspension of his mechanic’s license.
Alaska also claimed, when firing him, that in at three instances he was caught clocked in for American Airlines and Alaska at the same time.
CONCLUSION
One thing I’ve learned in my own businesses is to always perform background checks and ask for references when I am thinking about hiring someone. And these checks must occur not only at the point of hiring, but on an annual basis.
Alani may not have put anyone in actual danger with his maintenance stunt, but his reckless behavior had a long paper trail…
> Read More: American Airlines Mechanic Charged With Sabotaging Aircraft
image: Tomás Del Coro / Wikimedia Commons
Hindsight is always 20/20
Small correction. It was the Air Data system he tampered with not GPS.
Thanks!
Annual background checks? If you feel the need to do that, you’re hiring the wrong people. The exception is for extraordinarily sensitive work, such as jobs requiring a top secret government clearance.
It’s not government work, but it is extremely sensitive.
Why is the article about American Airlines but the image shown in an Alaska Airlines airplane. Oh, they both start with an “A”
Read the entire headline and maybe the article. American Airlines AND Alaska Airlines are both contained within.