Flying drunk no joke, says prosecutor

By Alan Gathright, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published June 23, 2008 at 11:26 p.m.

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Christina E. Szele must stay off airliners, undergo drug, alcohol testing.

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U.S. Attorney Troy Eid on Monday vowed to get tough with a record number of often-drunk passengers behaving badly on commercial airliners.

"The message is: We're not going to put up with this," Colorado's top federal prosecutor said.

Eid spoke outside U.S. District Court in Denver after a court hearing for Christina E. Szele, 35, a New York woman accused of disrupting a JetBlue flight by punching a flight attendant and screaming curses and racial slurs after a cigarette was snatched out of her mouth.

The pilot diverted the New York-to-San Francisco flight to Denver International Airport last week because the flight crew and passengers were fearful of Szele, who allegedly broke free of plastic flex cuffs and threatened to kill a flight attendant.

Szele, of Woodside, N.Y., faces federal charges of assaulting a flight attendant and interfering with a flight crew.

"We have a record number of incidents involving interference with flight attendants. We see it all over the country," said Eid, noting that U.S. attorneys have been holding meetings on how to combat the air rage epidemic.

"I think sometimes people think this is a joke. They think it's funny. And they're going to find out otherwise as we do more and more of these cases," he vowed.

While federal prosecutors asked that Szele remained locked up because she posed a threat to public safety, federal Judge Michael J. Watanabe allowed her release on $10,000 bail while requiring her to not use alcohol or drugs, stay off airliners and undergo drug and alcohol testing.

"The government's position, obviously, was that Miss Szele should stay locked up," Eid said. "But we're pleased that she won't being flying on airplanes any time soon."

Eid said controlling alcohol could help stem the problem, saying drinking was involved in the Szele case and other air rage convictions in Denver, including a woman accused of beating her young children on a flight and arguing with a flight attendant who cut off her alcohol and a male passenger who reached across a husband to grope the man's wife.

"It's a very unpopular position for me to talk about, but I'll say it: People drink too much on flights."

During the 30-minute court hearing, a subdued Szele was clad in blue-and-white-striped jail garb and handcuffs.

FBI Special Agent Joel Nishida testified that Szele allegedly became violent after flight attendants repeatedly stopped her from smoking onboard.

Things reportedly got worse when the flight attendant asked her to move from an emergency exit row because he was worried about her safety.

"She was out of control," the agent recounted, ". . . kicking, screaming (and) yelling racial epithets and profanities."

Szele, who is white, reportedly used profanity and racial slurs against the black flight attendant who stopped her smoking before punching him in the jaw.

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