Nothing to See Here, Move Along

The Miami Herald reports that an American Airlines mechanic was charged with sabotage for having disabled a navigation system on an airliner earlier this summer. The airliner was scheduled to fly to Nassau, but had to abort the flight after the problem was detected. The article states that the reason for the sabotage, according to court filings, was because "Abdul-Majeed Marouf Ahmed Alani, a veteran employee, was upset over stalled union contract negotiations." The article continues:

       According to the complaint filed Thursday, Alani glued the foam inside the tube leading from outside the plane to its air data module, a system that reports aircraft speed, pitch and other critical flight data. As a result, if the plane had taken off that day from MIA, the pilots would have had to operate the aircraft manually because the ADM system would not have received any computer data.

       After his arrest Thursday, the affidavit says that Alani told federal air marshals assigned to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force that “his intention was not to cause harm to the aircraft or its passengers.”

       He said that his motive in tampering with the navigational system was because he was “upset” over stalled contract negotiations between the mechanics’ union and American Airlines that has raged for months — that “the dispute had affected him financially.”

      He further said he only tampered with the plane’s air data module “in order to cause a delay or have the flight canceled in anticipation of obtaining overtime work,” according to the affidavit.

Sure, that must be it (wink, wink, nod, nod).