Three men in separate incidents this month have been arrested for alleged bad behavior on flights to or within Alaska.
The three recent arrests occurred over the span of 10 days.
According to charging documents filed in federal court, 42-year-old Eric Bruns was on an Alaska Airlines flight from Ketchikan to Juneau on April 1 when he refused to sit down during the plane’s final approach.
Bruns allegedly shoved a flight attendant before he was restrained and now faces charges of interfering with a flight crew.
On April 5, according to a different charging document, 37-year-old Adam Seymour was on an Alaska Airlines flight from Seattle to Anchorage when he made sexual advances toward the female passenger seated next to him and touched her against her will. The charges say Seymour appeared to be drunk, having apparently brought his own alcohol on the plane, and, at one point, started smoking a cigarette.
Seymour is alleged to have threatened other passengers who intervened and also had to be restrained. He’s been charged with assault.
According to yet another charging document, 61-year-old David Burk was flying first class on a Delta flight from Minneapolis to Anchorage on April 10 when he gave a flight attendant an unwanted kiss on the neck in the plane’s galley area.
A short time later, the charges say, Burk allegedly broke a tray and plate holding the pilot’s dinner before getting back in his seat and falling asleep. Altogether, the pilot determined Burk posed a security threat, and he now faces charges of interfering with a flight crew.
The Federal Aviation Administration says the number of such incidents has spiked in recent years.
In 2021, coinciding with coronavirus masking requirements, there was an all-time high of more than 5,900 reports of unruly passengers, according to the FAA. That dropped to about 2,500 reports in 2022, still far higher than any year prior to 2020.
Casey Grove is host of Alaska News Nightly, a general assignment reporter and an editor at Alaska Public Media. Reach him at cgrove@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Casey here.
