Four plead not guilty to disruption on Southwest flight

Four San Diego-area men pleaded not guilty in a Texas federal court Wednesday to charges of interfering with a flight crew on Southwest Airlines.

The four members of a Chaldean soccer league team were dressed in suits and appeared “somber-faced,” according to the Amarillo Globe-News.

Jonathan Khalid Petras, 20; Essa Solaqa, 20; Khalid Yohana, 19; and Wisam Imad Shaker, 23, were charged in the incident and each is free on $10,000 bail.

Charges against two other suspects, Saiman Hermez, 19, and Ghazwan Assad Shaba, 21, were dropped at a previous hearing.

The team members were on a Southwest flight from San Diego to Chicago when they became “disruptive and did not comply with instructions” from flight attendants to quiet down and stop asking for liquor, according to a complaint filed by the U.S. attorney for North Texas.

If convicted, each of the four men charged could face up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, prosecutors said.

Mark Arabo, a leader in the Chaldean community in eastern San Diego County, said Wednesday that the community “will stand wholeheartedly by the young men and their journey to justice.”

“We look forward to exposing the truth in the face of the wrongdoings committed by Southwest Airlines. The cultural insensitivity shown by this airline will not go without response by our community,” Arabo said.

Arabo said that the flight attendants had ordered the six men not to speak in their native language. Southwest says it has no record of that.

The team members were traveling to Chicago for a soccer tournament during the 82nd annual Assyrian Convention.

Federal prosecutors say they demanded alcohol and, when denied, “became aggressive by lunging forward at a flight attendant.”

A flight attendant who refused to provide alcohol was called a racist and a pig, according to the complaint filed in court. The men attempted “to incite other passengers to join their noncompliant behavior” and called passengers profane names, the statement said.

The plane made an emergency landing in Amarillo where the six men were taken from the plane by local police and FBI agents.

Twitter: @LATSanDiego