Police storm plane full of passengers and arrest pilot for child abuse images
Delta co-pilot hauled off plane and arrested for alleged child sexual abuse material
This is the moment police stormed a plane full of passengers and arrested a pilot over alleged child abuse images.
Passengers were stunned when federal agents stormed the Delta plane's cockpit just moments after it landed in San Francisco, California. The pilot was then arrested over alleged possession of child sex abuse images and later charged by several agencies, including Homeland Security and the Contra Cosa Sheriff's Office.
The arrest happened on Delta Flight 2809 at about 9:35pm local time on Saturday. The flight left Minneapolis earlier that day and had its landing delayed due to heavy fog around the airport.
Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin said the pilot was arrested on charges over child sex abuse materials. First class passenger Sarah Christianson told The San Francisco Chronicle: "A group of people with badges, guns, and different agency vests/markings were pushing their way up through the aisle to the cockpit."
She told the outlet that officers "stormed the cockpit, cuffed the co-pilot, arrested him, walked him down the aisle, and ushered him off the plane through the cabin doors located between first and coach." Ms Christianson said passengers were shocked and said the incident was "unnerving."
In another interview, Christianson said she was reduced to tears following the ordeal. She added: "It was scary. It was traumatic to watch. As soon as my husband picked me up from baggage claim, I jumped in the car and cried. Because who knows what's happening to that poor person? Why that happened? What did we just see?"
When the pilot was led away, officers remained on the plane to collect his belongings. He has not been identified.
The Mirror has contacted the Contra Cosa Sheriff's Office for comment. A video showing the moment of the arrest was uploaded to X/Twitter and has been viewed hundreds of millions of times.
A JetBlue pilot was arrested on board the plane earlier this year in a separate incident. Jeremy Gudorf, 33, had been due to fly the plane when a routine check of people onboard led to his detention.
The warrant for his arrest came from North Carolina and Massachusetts State Police responded to a request to detain Gudorf from US Customs and Border Protection. US State Police have confirmed the arrest took place in February earlier this year.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Metro
3 days ago
- Metro
Airline employee used family's Peppa Pig laptop to record porn videos
A young child's lost Peppa Pig iPad was taken by an airline employee and used to film homemade porn videos, according to court filings seen by Metro. The Brewer family allegedly began seeing x-rated masturbation videos featuring an 'employee of Delta Airlines' after they left their kid's iPad on a plane at JFK Airport in New York. Explicit pictures show a man wearing a Delta uniform and name badge filming the content with the child's device. The 'horrified' family told Metro they are hoping to raise awareness of how their dream holiday to England was turned upside-down. Brooke and Tory Brewer were en route to the UK from South Carolina with their two small children on July 19, 2023, when they handed one of their kids the Peppa Pig-themed iPad. However, at a stopover in JFK Airport, they left the device in a seat pocket. Once in London, Brooke began receiving random text messages about activity on the device. The family then used the 'Find My' app to track the iPad to Jamaica, Queens, where the New York airport is located. Photos then began syncing to Tory Brewer's iCloud, starting off with selfies taken by a man 'wearing a Delta uniform and name badge.' But a month later, the family discovered a string of porn videos on their iCloud. These videos show the man 'masturbating while in his Delta uniform and wearing his Delta name badge,' this is according to court filings from July 16 this year seen by Metro. The Delta employee allegedly wrecked havoc on the family's other accounts through the iPad. The man even allegedly accessed the Brewer's iTunes account and created his own personal profile. One of the young children also discovered that the iPad had been used to hack into the family's Amazon account and create a new profile called 'Gay'. The Brewer's claim they filed multiple reports to Delta which received only generic 'no-reply' emails. The devastated family told Metro in a statement they want to protect other families from going through something similar. They said: 'This experience has been horrifying and something we never could have anticipated. 'In the rush of de-boarding, our child simply left their device on the plane. We're sharing our story in hope we can help prevent this from happening to others. 'If speaking out can spare just one family from having to endure something like this, we would be grateful.' The kids' show filled with funny cartoon animals has gone from British TV show to a global franchise. Peppa Pig has hit over 180 countries, with sales from toys, theme parks and games totally £1.3 billion in 2022. The show hit TV on Channel 5 in 2005. Its premise was 5 minute videos which take on topics with humour and without villains. Now it has been translated into over 40 languages, with Peppa becoming a icon as far out as China. The cartoon was hugely popular among children, but also among adults as a source of counterculture and memes. The government subsequently removed Peppa Pig video clips from one of China's most popular social media platforms. Peppa Pig was the most popular kids show in the US, UK and France in 2023, according to Fortune. The hype was too good for others not to get on board. US toymaker Hasbro bought the studio behind the show for a huge £3 billion. There are now Peppa Pig theme parks across the world. In Romsey, outside Southampton, Florida, Texas and Germany. The world's biggest Peppa Pig theme park is due welcome children in Shanghai in 2027. The family eventually did have the iPad returned – but without the Peppa Pig casing, the law firm representing the family told Metro. Motley Rice also supplied a photo of this iPad. The family's attorney Tola Familoni said: 'What should have been a fun family getaway was riddled with confusion and anxiety over unauthorized access to their personal devices, a breach of privacy, and the transmission of highly inappropriate, explicit video recordings sent through their child's laptop, something they never would have expected. 'This was made worse due to the lack of response from Delta. Our firm, Motley Rice, seeks to hold Delta accountable for this. 'We hope this lawsuit can help stop something like this happening to any other families who fly with Delta — or any airline in the future.' More Trending The Brewers are suing Delta and Unifi Aviation for negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, harassment, and even sexual assault. Unifi Aviation is a ground handling service which is partnered with and partly owned by Delta airlines. Delta Airlines told Metro: 'Delta is aware of the complaint. The accused individual is not a Delta employee but one of a vendor company. We have zero tolerance for unlawful behavior of any kind but will decline to comment further on this pending litigation.' A Unifi Spokesperson told Metro: 'Unifi is aware of the complaint. Unifi holds all employees to high standards of professionalism and integrity, and any conduct that falls short of those standards is not tolerated.' Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: Moment manhole shoots fire onto street as terrified pedestrians run MORE: Divorcé awarded only £325k of wife's £60m fortune wins 'gender bias' appeal MORE: New York City skyscraper shooting victims identified: Everything we know
BBC News
4 days ago
- BBC News
US offers up to $50k bonus for would-be ICE deportation officers
US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, is offering recruitment bonuses of up to $50,000 (£37,700) and student loan help to "brave and heroic" Americans interested in helping with the Trump administration's deportation agency is specifically hoping to recruit deportation officers, along with attorneys, criminal investigators, student visa adjudicators and other roles. In total, ICE hopes to add 10,000 new personnel, doubling the agency's headcount as it ramps up deportations across the country. The funding for the recruitment drive comes from approximately $165bn allocated for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in Donald Trump's sweeping tax and spending bill. As part of a new recruitment drive announced on 29 July, DHS unveiled recruitment posters akin to those used during World War Two, with the words "America Needs You" and "Defend the Homeland" with images of Uncle Sam, President Trump, homeland security secretary Kristi Noem and other officials. "Your country is calling you to serve at ICE," Noem said in a statement. "This is a defining moment in our nation's history." In addition to the signing bonus and student loan repayment and forgiveness of up to $60,000, ICE is promising potentially hefty overtime pay for deportation officers and "enhanced retirement benefits". The students loans offer comes as millions of people signed up for a Biden-era relief payment plan will start seeing interest accrue to their accounts starting on Friday. Deportation officers, who would be tasked with helping apprehend and process undocumented migrants for removal from the US, receive salaries of between $49,739 and $89,528 per year, depending on experience and education. An image accompanying the job description for the role includes armed officers riding in an armoured currently has 20,000 officers and support personnel, spread across the country at 400 offices. The recruitment drive comes just weeks after President Trump signed the "One, Big, Beautiful" tax and spending bill into law. The bill included more than $76bn allocated to ICE - almost 10 times of what it had been receiving previously - and making it the highest funded federal law enforcement agency. President Trump, Secretary Noem and other administration officials have vowed to ramp up the pace of deportations to one million per year. Approximately 150,000 people have been deported in the first six months of the Trump administration, according to data obtained by CBS, the BBC's US news that pace - of about 800 a day - continues, ICE will have carried more than 300,000 deportations in Trump's first year in office, well below the administration's self-imposed goal. In an interview with the Associated Press, former ICE chief staff Jason Houser said that while the agency has long needed more staff, he is concerned that standards may fall amid the deportation drive, comparing it to the enlargement of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in the early 2000s. "If they start waiving requirements there like they did for Border Patrol, you're going to have an exponential increase in officers that are shown the door after three years because there's some issue," he is unclear how many people have so far applied for the newly advertised jobs with ICE. The BBC has reached out to ICE and DHS for comment.
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Daily Mail
Delta worker 'took child's Peppa Pig iPad then took naked photos of himself on it'
A Delta Airlines worker filmed a sexual video of himself on a child's Peppa Pig iPad he found left behind on a plane in New York City. The unidentified man was seen masturbating in a video that was uploaded to the iCloud account attached to one of Brooke and Tony Brewer's children's iPads, a complaint viewed by Daily Mail revealed. The man was seen fondling his penis while wearing a lanyard that contained a red Delta ribbon and making facial expressions at the camera, screenshots of the video in the complaint showed. The Brewer family, of Daniel Island, South Carolina, was flying from Charleston to London, England, on July 19, 2023, the 2025 complaint said. While traveling, they had a layover at John F. Kennedy International Airport, where one of their children left their iPad in the seat pocket after departing Delta Airlines Flight 4963 - a mistake they didn't realize until they had landed at Heathrow Airport. Brooke realized the tablet wasn't in their possession after she started to get notifications about the device being logged out of its iCloud account. GPS tracking located the iPad in Queens, New York. Innocent photos of a person wearing a Delta uniform were uploaded from the device, and the family filed a lost-and-found report the following day. More than a month later, pornographic videos of the same man wearing a Delta badge were uploaded to the family's iCloud account. The family filed a second report with Delta. On September 3, 2023, another pornographic video was uploaded was uploading of the man. The man also allegedly tried to get into the iPad's iTunes account and he allegedly hacked into the family's Amazon account, where he made a profile titled 'Gay.' One of the Brewers' children notified Brooke of the Amazon account. The family is now suing Delta and demanding a trial by jury for the company's negligence from preventing an employee from accessing customers' personal devices. 'Defendants' treatment of the Plaintiffs and their property fell below the high standard of care owed to the Plaintiffs as well as all ticketed passengers,' the complaint read. The family also accuses the airline of causing them emotional distress from the experience. 'Before their trip, during their travel, and after their journey ended, the Plaintiffs had no expectation that they would be subjected to vile and disturbing pornographic material as a result of their choice to be ticketed passengers on one of the Defendants' flights,' the complaint said. A Delta Air Lines employee told Daily Mail the company is 'aware of the complaint. While traveling, they had a layover at John F. Kennedy International Airport, where one of their children left their iPad in the seat pocket after departing Delta Airlines Flight 4963 - a mistake they didn't realize until they had landed at Heathrow Airport (pictured: stock image of Delta plane) 'The accused individual is not a Delta employee but one of a vendor company. We have zero tolerance for unlawful behavior of any kind but will decline to comment further on this pending litigation.' The Brewer family is requesting compensatory and punitive damages, costs of the suit and attorney fees, and a jury trial.
