A former American Airlines mechanic was sentenced to 37 months in prison on Wednesday for “attempted destruction of an aircraft.” Abdul-Majeed Marouf Ahmed Alani, 60, had previously pleaded guilty to tampering with the air data module (ADM) on American Airlines Flight 2834, which was scheduled to fly from Florida’s Miami International Airport (MIA) to Nassau, Bahamas, on July 17, 2019, with 150 people on board. A cockpit error message alerted pilots to the problem before the aircraft left the ground and it returned for maintenance.
Alani, who began working for American in 1988, was arrested on July 18 after being identified on security camera footage. As previously reported by AVweb, he told investigators that his intention 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. Wednesday’s ruling found that there was no evidence to support allegations made by prosecutors that Alani might have links to terrorist organizations.
