A Grand Jury has indicted a 40-year-old man with cutting a flight attendant’s neck with a broken shot glass in a horrifying incident aboard a Delta Air Lines flight from Atlanta to New Orleans in August 2023.
Nelson Montgomery was originally arrested on suspicion of aggravated battery, but on Thursday, a Lousiana Grand Jury charged him with one count of interference with a flight attendant. The maximum sentence, if found guilty, is 20 years imprisonment plus a $250,000 fine.
Delta Air flight DL2432 departed Atlanta at around 3:50 p.m. on August 2, 2023, for the short one-hour flight to New Orleans. The flight seemingly passed off peacefully, but as the plane was in the final stages of the flight to the ‘Big Easy,’ things took a dramatic turn.
One of the passengers alerted a flight attendant to the fact that Montgomery appeared to be bleeding from the neck, but as crew members went to check on his welfare, he allegedly grabbed one of the flight attendants in a chokehold.
Holding a broken shot glass to the crew member’s neck, Montgomery then allegedly threatened to cut the flight attendant’s head off before a group of eight passengers leaped up from their seats and tackled him off the crew member.
The charge against Montgomery alleges that he “did knowingly interfere with the performance of the duties of A.G., a flight attendant of the aircraft, and lessen the ability of the attendant to perform those duties, by assaulting and intimidating the flight attendant, specifically, Nelson Montgomery caused lacerations to the attendant’s neck and hand with a broken shot glass.”
Several months before this terrifying incident, a passenger on a United Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Boston allegedly attempted to stab a flight attendant in the neck with a homemade shank, which he had fashioned out of a broken spoon.
Francisco Severo Torres was also charged with interference with flight crew members, but the trial has been delayed because a federal judge ruled that the suspect is currently “mentally incompetent” stand trial.
Following the incident aboard Delta flight 2432, a spokesperson for the airline said: “Delta has zero tolerance for unruly behavior on our aircraft and in our airports. Nothing is more important than the safety and security of our people and our customers.”
