A flight attendant in training was arrested for calling in eight fake bomb threats to United Airlines.
Patrick Cau was training in Fort Worth to become an American Airlines flight attendant when he was arrested and federally charged. He was indicted and taken into custody in Texas in May. His case was transferred to Los Angeles, where he lives. Cau is expected to plead guilty in California federal court next week, KHOU reports.
A plea agreement claims that Cau made eight bomb threat calls to United between October 2012 and January 2013. He first started making calls on October 4 from a pay phone near his home. He called an internal United crew-scheduling number to make the threat.
During the seven other occasions, he called 911 from payphones in Los Angeles, New York City, Las Vegas and Seattle to say that there was a bomb on a specific United flight. Six of those flights were between Los Angeles and London.
The calls disrupted several flights. In many cases, the flights had to be evacuated, the aircraft was towed to a safe area and then searched while passengers had to be re-screened along with their luggage.
Due to Cau's actions, United had to cancel and delay flights and it cost the airline at least $267,912.
According to the plea deal, Cau must pay $250,000 in restitution to the airline. The judge will determine his sentencing but the U.S. Attorney says Cau should face 21 to 27 months in prison. He could have up to five years.
American Airlines claims that nothing suspicious was found in Cau's background check. Cau was immediately terminated when his actions were discovered. However a letter claims that Cau was on a TSA no-fly list after his background check was completed and he wasn't investigated until after he was already in training.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
