Former Delta Air Lines First Officer Jonathan J. Dunn faces up to 20 years in prison after allegedly pulling out a gun in the cockpit and threatening to shoot the captain if he diverted the flight due to a medical emergency onboard.
Report: Delta Air Lines First Officer Threatens To Shoot Captain “Multiple Times” If He Diverted Flight (With A Gun He Was Licensed To Carry In The Cockpit)
There are still more questions than answers, but a disagreement between a Delta captain and his co-pilot led to threats of violence by the first officer.
As noted by the AP, a TSA Inspector General report claims:
- The disagreement was over whether to divert due to a medical emergency onboard involving one of the passengers
- Dunn warned the captain he would be shot “multiple times” if he diverted the flight
- Dunn was authorized to carry a gun in the cockpit as part of the US Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Flight Deck Officer (FFDO) program
“After a disagreement about a potential flight diversion due to a passenger medical event, Dunn told the Captain they would be shot multiple times if the Captain diverted the flight.”
The report does not identify an airline or the route the incident occurred on, but public records reveal Jonathan J. Dunn is a California resident who formerly was a commercial airline pilot for Delta.
Interference with a flight crew is a classified as a felony and punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
It should go without saying that Dunn is innocent until proven guilty, but this whole incident strikes me as the sort of “machoism” that still characterizes many cockpits (I mean, the name cockpit itself…). But even if Dunn was not serious or would have never followed through once he cooled down, there are certain lines that cannot be crossed and this is one of them.
So while reserving final judgment on this specific case, if the fact pattern is as suggested, it seems to me that Dunn is wholly unfit to operate as a commercial airline pilot.
CONCLUSION
Jonathan J. Dunn, now a former pilot at Delta, faces a lengthy prison sentence for purportedly pulling out a gun and threatening to shoot the captain over a disagreement about whether a medical emergency onboard required a diversion. Stories like this suggest the FFDO program may need to be re-examined.
Anger issues with pilots scares me far more than true mental illness. Anger can be hidden and bottled up until triggered. No exam is going to show it. There are many more examples beyond this such as the UA pilot who took an axe to a parking gate and the WN pilot that went on a rant about Californians on an open mic. These dudes need to chill before they kill a bunch of people.
While they have the safest flight record in history of any transportation medium. Geez. Maybe, just possibly, things aren’t what they are being portrayed as. Further, maybe if the low IQ sheep that run this planet were smart enough to do their jobs, things that “set people off” wouldn’t happen like in Denver. I have no issue with what that pilot did to that gate and he should be lauded for finally having enough to do something about it.
Well…..they are America’s “premium” airline!
Incident happened in August, 2022. Insane!
Matthew- Isn’t cockpit an antiquated term for single seater planes? The more widely used/common terminology is now flight deck.
Hey Bob, that’s a good one. Really good!
According to the book Cabin Pressure, reportedly written by flight AAtendAAnts, when the pilot staffing for your flight is all female, the term used is “box office.”
We are an older couple of native Californians. Husband an attorney in perfect standing since 1988 and a former pilot who had a plane with his dad at the John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, Orange County, CA. I worked for two of the best DA’s in Orange County, when they were in private practice. They came to our wedding. We have been together since 1987.
Very important facts: We live in Mission Viejo. There is not one flight path over Mission Viejo from anywhere at any time. There are no international flights in Orange County and our airport is closed at night between 10pm and 7am. We have one flight path North, one flight path South. That’s it.
In 2009, my wife was visiting with our neighbor in our driveway. Student pilots were doing stall maneuvers over our homes, which was a regular event. Our neighbor was distressed over this taking place many times a day. My wife will help anyone and said “lets call them. Im sure they’ll stop”. When my wife called the airport, she wasn’t aware that it’s illegal to do any maneuvers over residential areas. When I came home that night, she told me the story and I told her (I use to fly and had a plane at JWA) it’s illegal to do maneuvers over any residential area for good reason, its dangerous. She made a very polite call to noise complaint and asked if the stall maneuvers could stop. Maria in noise complaint lied to her and told her “you live in a designated area for student pilots to practice these maneuvers”. Within 15 minutes of her polite call, the then director of the John Wayne Airport, Alan L. Murphy, was over her and our neighbor still standing in our driveway, doing figure eights feet above them over and over and over until they both ran inside. Alan L. Murphy recruited Barry Rondinella who until 2015, worked at LAX and flew jets over our home all night long every night for Alan L. Murphy. Then Rondinella came here to Orange County. And my god, he is the sickest human being on earth. Wait until the world see the footage from just his first week here after starting in the paper (I won’t call it a news paper because in orange county, they don’t report the news if its against a government employee) that he would respect the curfews in Orange County. He didn’t respect our curfew for one day or night. He couldn’t wait to kill with Murphy. Youll see that so clearly. One month without sleep is devastating, 15 years is murder.
The directors of the John Wayne Airport recruited every government employee to maliciously harass us as a favor. We have been stalked from San Diego to Lake Pilsbury by sheriff, police, fire, calfire, coast guards, military and of course, the FAA. Fire trucks pull up to restaurants, stores, bank and when we come out, turn on their sirens and horns. We have so many clips on tape and in every one of those clips, every one of the firemen in the fire trucks are all looking at us just to drive it home that we are being stalked and preyed on. They’ve stalked us into restaurants, grocery stores and shaken our home so many times for intimidation. They park fire (just yesterday) and airport vehicles across the street from our front window so we can’t have our drapes open without seeing it. When we began wearing earplugs or headphones, they went to chem trails and fire and camp pendleton went to shaking our home so we would feel the sickness. There should never be chem trails over Orange County. Big Xs over our home, over restaurants, beach. We have been dive bombed by military helicopters on the beach so many times, we stopped going. They have had our electricity shut off during the hottest weeks of the year, our mail diverted, our street dug up at 1:30am several times, our emails erased, our home is dive bombed all day every day and we are kept from sleeping every night, stalked every single place we go. THE FIRE DEPT AFTER 13 YEARS OF SICK ILLEGAL PREDATORY ABUSE, RENTED THE HOME ONE DOOR FROM OURS AND HAD KIDS RUN AT OUR VEHICLES, “WORK OUT IN FRONT OF OUR DRIVEWAY”. Can you even imagine your predators moving in one door from you. They loved this so much. Breaking every law, stalking and preying on women as a favor to Murphy and Rondinella. Our ex chief of police, former Lt. Binning, uploaded porn to our computer, left messages on our phone machine repeating the sounds we just made in our home so we would fully understand that they are spying on us. Dive bombed us hundreds of times with police helicopters. Called our home at night to keep us from sleeping. He was only demoted and still came after me. We are 7 months into the 15th year. My wife has attempted suicide while begging Newsom for help. Not one day or night off in this the 7th month of the 7th year of Gavin and Jennifer Newsom knowing fully about every detail. The FAA has infiltrated our lives so fully, we get grocery bags from Amazon (Bristol Farms) that have TANGO, BRAVO, CHARLIE , ALPHA written in big black letters. If that’s not scarey to you, I wouldn’t know what was.
This is not hyperbole. This is true Nazi Germany stuff and thats not hate speach. One of the women they have ruined the life of is Lisa Beerli. She was raised in Nazi Germany until 22 years old and says “this is exactly how it started. The government employees turned on the citizens and then started using the military”. We have written everyone we can think of, filed complaints (which we have learned they don’t take complaints in OC) with the DA, FAA, CIA, FBI, DOT. DOJ… with every politician in this state and many others in this country. The former mayor of Mission Viejo took us to court for restraining orders because we threatened to recall him in an election year and he was going to make sure we couldn’t. Thats how they do law here. Our courts are corrupt. There is no law and order California. Just look at GPS over our home since 2009, and remember, we are not under any flight path from anywhere. Via Santiago, Mission Viejo, CA.
We tried to move to another county for 8 months. Mr. Alan L. Murphy sent military jets screaming over every home we looked at basically telling us he’ll kill us wherever we go. There are four other women that we know of that are suffering this same fate here. Keri Berriga, another victim Murphy, Rondinella, Newsom, Biden has written articles in a local Laguna Beach newspaper about this insanity.
YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS IF NO ONE WILL FIGHT FOR THEM.
NO ONE SANE AND SOBER DOES THIS TO ANYONE FOR ANY REASON.
AND NO GOOD LEADER WOULD ALLOW THIS TO CONTINUE.
NEWSOM S HAVE KNOWN EVERY GORY DETAIL FOR THIS THE 7TH YEAR.
Not one day or night off in a county where the airport is closed.
DON’T LET THE NEWSOMS IN THE WHITE HOUSE.
Lady, seriously, learn brevity. No one is going to read this mess. Also you seem unhinged. Seek help.
Karen is karening. I hope you get the mental help you need.
You basically copy pasted this: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1435457510079945/, facebook post?
This, friends, is what untreated mental illness looks like. God Bless Cali-forn-i-a.
Of course her name is Karen……
The good news is I now hand my baton over to Karen as the wordiest person commenting at LALF.
You lost me once you admitted to living in Orange County. Also, you sound insane…..
What a premium airline
Clearly the First Officer was just concerned with ensuring the passengers got to their destination on time. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one.
You’re so right. I admire his dedication
We all know DL cult members hate to connect!
How did they know what home you were about to look at when they sent fighter jets? Seems hard to believe.
aw man are we gonna have fun with this one and all of the sweet irony.
Cockpit has nothing to do with male anatomy (at least according to Wikipedia).
“The word cockpit seems to have been used as a nautical term in the 17th century, without reference to cock fighting. It referred to an area in the rear of a ship where the cockswain’s station was located, the cockswain being the pilot of a smaller “boat” that could be dispatched from the ship to board another ship or to bring people ashore. The word “cockswain” in turn derives from the old English terms for “boat-servant” (coque is the French word for “shell”; and swain was old English for boy or servant).”
I agree with her do not let the Newsoms into the white house its bad enough with JOE now.
You sound insane too.
So, where did the plane wind up going?
The captain and ONLY the captain makes decisions regarding diversion. I’m glad that he stood his ground and the maniac F/O was arrested. We pilots go through extensive psychological screening before being accepted to the airlines. Clearly this bad apple managed to evade the truth. This is certainly a black eye on the FFDO program, but I do hope that it doesn’t cause the destruction of the program which has proven to be very safe and effective in preventing terrorist attack.
BTW: “Cockpit” originated from the ancient sailing ships. The steering was set up in a recessed area of the deck. Often times, live chickens were running around there to be kept fresh until needed. The word “coxswain” is still in use to refer to the captain of a small vessel.
Not enough guns on board. We must give every pax and employee flying a gun at the gate