Delta passenger arrested for homophobic attack on flight attendant as he refuses to serve booze
A first-class passenger named Christopher Alexander Morgan, traveling home from Atlanta, became upset with a flight attendant who refused to continue serving him wine. Morgan started calling the flight attendant "gay" and "queer" before throwing ice at him and beating him with an onboard phone, according to an FBI affidavit acquired by The Daily Beast.
Morgan was arrested when Delta Air Lines aircraft 2908 landed at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on April 22, as per the affidavit. He is charged with interfering with flight crew personnel or attendants, a felony that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in jail.
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Morgan was reminded by two flight attendants that he needed to raise his seat back for takeoff, but he refused, becoming "uncooperative and would not comply with their instructions", according to the affidavit.
Morgan ordered and was served an alcoholic beverage once the jet was in the air. When he requested a second, the flight attendant, identified only as "H.D." in the complaint, handed him a non-alcoholic drink instead, which "angered Morgan," according to the affidavit.
"Morgan called H.D. the f-word and a 'queer' and threw a glass of ice at H.D.," the affidavit says. "When passenger R.O., who was sitting in seat 2G, said something to Morgan to deescalate Morgan’s display of aggression, Morgan became angry with the passenger R.O. and held the glass he was holding up to R.O.’s face." H.D., the flight attendant who had been the target of Morgan's wrath, walked to the galley to summon the captain and inform him of the situation in the cabin.
"According to H.D., Morgan then got out of his seat, grabbed the telephone from H.D., and hit H.D. in the chest with the telephone," the affidavit claims. "Passenger R.O. reported that he heard Morgan call H.D. a 'fag' and that he observed Morgan take the airplane phone from H.D. and throw it at him."
According to the affidavit, another flight attendant guarded the cockpit door for the remainder of the flight "out of security concerns for the flight crew. H.D. reported that he did not know what Morgan might do next." When the plane landed in Phoenix, FBI agents approached Morgan and interviewed him.
According to the affidavit, Morgan said: "the flight attendant was homosexual and that this made him uncomfortable." Morgan also acknowledged growing enraged after being denied another drink.
The affidavit ends, "Morgan said that he is homophobic and that it is possible he could have been intimidating to the flight attendants. He said that his homophobia may have caused his temper towards the flight attendant to escalate and he admitted that he called H.D. a queer." Morgan, on the other hand, "denied assaulting H.D. and said he never touched a telephone."
According to the most recent FAA data, the FAA has received 1,233 rowdy passenger reports in 2022, launching 370 investigations and submitting 80 instances to the FBI for criminal review. The FAA launched 991 passenger disruption investigations in 2021, up 441 percent from 2020.
