A former American Airlines mechanic charged with willfully damaging, destroying or disabling an aircraft at Florida’s Miami International Airport (MIA) was denied bail on Wednesday. According to an article from the Miami Herald, a federal judge cited evidence presented by prosecutors that Abdul-Majeed Marouf Ahmed Alani, 60, could potentially have links to terrorists as reasoning for the ruling. Evidence presented reportedly included shared ISIS videos along with a message wishing harm to non-Muslims found on his phone and failing to tell prosecutors about a trip made to Iraq to visit his brother in March.
On July 17, Alani allegedly tampered with the air data module on American Flight 2834, which was due to travel from MIA to Nassau, Bahamas, with 150 people on board. As previously reported by AVweb, investigators have said Alani admitted to the crime and told them that his intent was to cause the flight to be delayed or canceled so he could collect overtime pay to make up for financial hardship caused by stalled contract negotiations between American Airlines and its mechanics union. Alani began work as a mechanic at American Airlines in 1988.
