Unruly air passenger is sentenced to time served

A federal judge Monday sentenced a man to six months and one day in jail — the time he has already served — for disrupting a Hono­lulu-bound flight.

Anil Uskanli, 25, was arrested last year after his interference with the flight crew prompted the scrambling of a fighter jet escort.

Uskanli remains in custody, however, on an immigration hold. His immigration lawyer, Gary Singh, said he expects to have a hearing in front of an immigration judge sometime next week, at which Uskanli will agree to leave the country and return to his native Turkey.

In addition to the jail term, U.S. District Judge Derek K. Watson ordered Uskanli to pay American Airlines the $8,525 the airline says it spent because its return flight to Los Angeles was delayed. And in case Uskanli is able and chooses to return to the United States, he will have to submit to three years of court supervision.

Uskanli apologized Monday for what happened and thanked the American government for his care since his arrest.

Criminal defense lawyer Richard Sing says Uskanli was previously diagnosed with a mental illness in Turkey but was suffering from the onset of a different mental condition, which a federal prisons forensic psychologist recently diagnosed, when Uskanli purchased a plane ticket at Los Angeles Airport on May 19 and boarded a flight to Hono­lulu.

When he pleaded guilty last month, Uskanli told Watson that because he was ill, he was hallucinating and believed he was chasing and trying to kill a butterfly on the American Airlines flight to Honolulu.

Uskanli purchased his ticket to Honolulu at an airline ticket counter at LAX in the middle of the night with no checked or carry-on luggage. Before boarding, he was cited for entering a restricted area where he asked about getting something to eat, then escorted to the gate because officials believed he was under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

When he boarded the airplane, he attempted to sit in the first-class section before getting escorted to his assigned seat toward the back of the aircraft. During the flight, other passengers asked to move away from where Uskanli was sitting because he was talking to himself.

Uskanli had previously said a butterfly suddenly came out of the pocket of the seat in front of him, so he followed it to the bathroom, where he tried to kill it. Another passenger walked in on him as he was yelling and slamming the bathroom’s walls. He then went back to his seat and wrapped a blanket around his head, he said, to cover his eyes because he wanted to sleep.

He later alarmed flight attendants when he headed toward the front of the aircraft carrying his laptop computer. The flight attendants, fearing the computer might contain explosives, blocked the aisle, then barricaded the laptop in the back of the plane. An off-duty Los Angeles police officer escorted Uskanli to his seat and sat with him for the rest of the flight.

The captain dropped the aircraft to a lower altitude and called for assistance. Two Hawaii National Guard fighter aircraft from Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam escorted the flight to Honolulu Airport.

On the ground in Honolulu, Uskanli threatened to kill an FBI agent during questioning. He later threatened to kill his mental competency examiner.

Uskanli was in the country on a student visa while attending acting school in California. Immigration officials have since revoked the visa.

According to his pre-sentence report, which Watson read in court, Uskanli has also studied film production in England and Massachusetts for the past seven years and is close to getting his degree.