A passenger on an Alaska Airlines flight from Seattle to Las Vegas repeatedly stabbed his seatmate in the face with a homemade shank in a horrific attempt to kill him, according to recently released court documents.
Julio Alvarez Lopez has been indicted with assault with a dangerous weapon following a recent Grand Jury deliberation in a Nevada district court following the bizarre incident aboard Alaska Airlines flight 604 on January 24.
According to an FBI affidavit, Lopez had been sitting quietly for the majority of the two-hour flight to Las Vegas, but as the Boeing 737 started its initial descent, the suspect got up from his seat several times in quick succession before heading to the bathroom.
Lopez remained in the bathroom for a while, but when he returned, he suddenly launched into a frenzied attack on his seatmate, punching and hitting him with what appeared to be a homemade shank made out of pens tied together with tape.
One witness described a gruesome scene onboard with ‘blood everywhere’ as the victim’s wife screamed at Lopez to stop attacking her husband while trying to shield her seven-year-old son from the suspect.
Lopez suddenly stopped his attack and made his way to the front of the aircraft, where he was stopped by an off-duty police officer who ordered him to sit down before restraining him with flex cuffs provided by the flight attendants.
The victim sustained a number of puncture wounds to his face but thankfully wasn’t seriously injured, although Lopez told investigators that he had wanted to kill him.
In an initial interview, Lopez said he feared the victim was a member of the ‘cartel’ or ‘mafia’ that had been chasing him for several months. He said that he planned to kill the victim by stabbing him through the eye and into his brain using the taped-up pens.
On arrival in Las Vegas, Lopez was detained by law enforcement, and he has been held behind bars ever since. On February 21, a Grand Jury returned an indictment against Lopez, charging him with a single count of assault with a dangerous weapon.
Last March, a passenger on a cross-country United Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Boston allegedly attempted to open an emergency exit before attempting to stab a flight attendant in the neck with a homemade shank fashioned out of a metal spoon.
Francisco Severo Torres, 33, was charged with interference with flight crew members and flight attendants using a dangerous weapon, but a judge later ruled that Torres was unfit to stand trial due to a mental disease that rendered him “mentally incompetent”.
