Uruguayan Bank Worker Charged in Flight Scuffle

An airline passenger who was subdued with an ax after he kicked in the bottom of a cockpit door and tried to wriggle through said later that he had “wanted to destroy everything,” according to the FBI.

Pablo Moreira Mosca, a 29-year-old bank employee from Uruguay, was arrested after Thursday’s incident aboard a United Airlines flight from Miami to Buenos Aires with 157 people on board.

Argentine authorities said they were investigating whether he was under the influence of drugs or is mentally unstable. U.S. officials said that he did not appear to be drunk and was not armed and that it did not appear to be a terrorist act.

“His brother said he often becomes upset when there is turbulence, and passengers told us he had been drinking a lot on the plane. But when I asked him about it, he told me he had one whiskey prior to getting on the plane,” Argentine air force spokesman Jorge Reta said.

Moreira was sent back to the U.S. and appeared in federal court Friday. He was held without bail on a charge of interfering with a flight crew, which carries a maximum term of 20 years in prison.