Miami Airline Mechanic Who Pleaded Guilty To Jetliner Sabotage To Be Sentenced In March
MIAMI (CBSMiami/AP) – Abdul-Majeed Marouf Ahmed Alani, the American Airlines mechanic with possible ties to Muslim extremists, will be sentenced in March for trying to sabotage a plane at Miami International Airport.
On Wednesday, the 60-year-old pleaded guilty to attempted destruction of an aircraft, which carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence.
Alani, who was fired in September, previously admitted his sabotage plot was an attempt to get overtime pay to work on the American Airlines jet.
Court documents show the sabotage involved gluing Styrofoam inside the nose of the Boeing 737 so that it disabled a component pilots use to monitor things such as airspeed, altitude and the pitch of the plane.
The tampering caused the pilot to abort the flight after noticing something was wrong.
Alani is a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Iraq who had been an airline mechanic for 30 years.
Prosecutors said he has a brother in Iraq who may be involved with the Islamic State extremist group and that he had made statements wishing Allah would use "divine powers" to harm non-Muslims.
Investigators said Alani also had Islamic State videos on his phone depicting mass murders and that he traveled to Iraq in March but did not disclose that to the FBI after his arrest.
Despite that evidence, Alani was never charged with any terrorism-related crime.
(© Copyright 2019 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)