I could tell you hours worth of union stories from the Charleston Naval Shipyard. They actively sabotaged the ship getting out of refit. They would get paid overtime if the ship was extended in overhaul.
A previously low-profile labor dispute between American Airlines mechanics and the airlines was thrust into the spotlight on Friday following reports that one of the airline’s mechanics deliberately sabotaged a flight – allegedly in an attempt to force the airline to pay out more overtime, CNBC reports.
The incident, which amounts to a federal offense that could be tantamount to terrorism, occurred back in July. The mechanic deliberately inserted a piece of foam into the plane’s air data module, a sensor that measures the plane’s pitch, speed and other information, according to the affidavit.
The mechanic, Abdul-Majeed Marouf Ahmed Alani, is set to appear in court on Friday, the US Attorney’s Office in Miami said. He told investigators that he decided to sabotage the flight because the ongoing labor dispute had “affected him financially.”
Notably, Alani’s decision to tamper with the plane’s sensors comes at a particularly sensitive time for the industry. Faulty sensors were blamed for contributing to the two deadly crashes of Boeing 737 MAX 8s that forced the global grounding of the planes.
According to Alani, “his intention was not to cause harm to the aircraft or its passengers” but to “cause a delay or have the flight cancelled in anticipation of obtaining overtime work,” per the affidavit.