A Delta Airways pilot was detained by federal brokers simply moments after touchdown a airplane at a California airport — surprising passengers and airplane crew alike.
The pilot was arrested on board Delta Flight 2809 round 9:35 p.m. Saturday, simply because the plane touched down in San Francisco from Minneapolis and was making ready to deplane, in response to a neighborhood report.
Earlier than anyone may depart, about 10 federal brokers — together with officers from Homeland Safety Investigations (HSI) — boarded the total airplane, then “stormed the cockpit, cuffed the co-pilot, arrested him, walked him down the aisle, and ushered him off the plane,” one alarmed passenger who noticed the entire ordeal stated.
“A group of people with badges, guns, and different agency vests/markings were pushing their way up
through the aisle to the cockpit,” passenger Sarah Christianson instructed the San Francisco Chronicle.
After the pilot was led away by the entourage of officers, one other group got here to cart his baggage away.
And the flight crew had apparently no thought what was occurring — with the opposite pilot telling passengers that he was as baffled as they had been by the arrest, Christianson stated.
Precisely why the pilot was arrested stays unclear.
HSI is a division of the Division of Homeland Safety’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and has helped lead lots of the immigration raids and arrests since President Trump started rolling out a mass crackdown on unlawful immigrants.
Christianson referred to as the incident “shocking and unnerving.”
“It was rage-inducing to see someone being disappeared right in front of me,” she stated, borrowing language incessantly utilized by critics to explain ICE arrests of unlawful immigrants.
HSI has not clarified why the pilot was arrested or whether or not his immigrant standing had something to do with it, and didn’t reply to a request for remark on the time of publication.
Delta Air Traces deferred inquiries to legislation enforcement.
However it wouldn’t be the primary time unlawful immigrants have been snapped up at their office since Trump’s crackdown started.
In current months, farms, factories and development websites across the nation have seen raids in the course of the workday, with staff hauled off for deportation.
