Tourist in yoga airplane altercation sentenced to time served, $44K restitution
ASSOCIATED PRESS / APRIL 21
Hyongtae Pae stands outside the federal courthouse in Honolulu, after pleading guilty to interfering with a flight crew on April 21. A federal judge in Honolulu today sentenced Pae to time served, which was about 13 days. He’ll be under court supervision for three years, which is the amount of time he has to pay the restitution.
A Korean tourist who was arrested after he became violent when he wasn’t allowed to do yoga on a plane leaving Hawaii won’t get additional jail time. But he must pay United Airlines more than $44,000.
A federal judge in Honolulu today sentenced Hyongtae Pae to time served, which was about 13 days. He’ll be under court supervision for three years, which is the amount of time he has to pay the restitution.
Pae and his wife were celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary with a Hawaii vacation and the couple was headed home when he was arrested.
According to court records, Pae didn’t want to sit in his seat during the meal service on the March flight from Honolulu to Tokyo, so he went to the back of the plane to do yoga and meditate. Authorities say he refused to return to his seat, threatened crew members and passengers and shoved his wife. The pilot turned the plane around and returned to Honolulu. Pae told authorities after his arrest that he hadn’t slept in 11 days.
Court records say he threatened to kill passengers and was yelling that there is no god. Pae went into a rage because he felt the flight crew was ordering him around, prosecutors said.
He pleaded guilty in April to interfering with a flight crew and was allowed to return home to South Korea, even though prosecutors warned he might not return for his sentencing.
U.S. District Judge Helen Gillmor said she agrees with prosecutors that Pae’s actions constituted a violent felony. Because of that, it’s possible he may never be allowed to return to the United States. That’s fine by Pae, who is in his 70s and doesn’t intend to travel to the United States in the future, said his defense attorney, Jin Tae “J.T.” Kim.
“I think your client is getting off very easy” with the $44,235 restitution amount considering the costs of turning the plane around, including jet fuel and all the passengers who had to return to Honolulu, Gillmor said.
“I take this very seriously and I have a great deal of concern about this behavior,” she said.
It was a traumatic experience for the passengers and the flight crew, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Jill Otake, adding that it’s fortunate there were Marines on board who helped restrain him.
Pae tried to bite and head-butt the two Marines, prosecutors said.
Gillmor said Pae may return to home to Korea, but before he leaves must meet with a probation officer to work out restitution payments.
Pae declined to speak in court. “He didn’t say it but he does apologize for what happened,” Kim said outside of court. “This is a truly isolated incident.” Kim noted that Pae flew to Korea and back without incident.
3 responses to “Tourist in yoga airplane altercation sentenced to time served, $44K restitution”
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How do you say “idiot” in Korean?
He should have made restitution to each of the passengers for his threats against them and causing inconvenience to them.
This Korean farmer was likely experiencing a manic episode. Previous stories have reported that his wife said he had not sleep for days since arriving here for a rare vacation. For a Korean farmer on vacation, his bizzare,agitated hyperreligious behavior is also suggestive of an acute manic episode. This is seen, infrequently, in Travelers to Hawaii who develop acute mood disorder because of sleep deprivation from changing in time zones in the stimulation of being in a new culture and on vacation.
I suspect that reason his mental state was not made an issue in this case is that by law this could have compelled him to be unecessariily committed to the federal medical facility in Springfield for an extended. Of time, perhaps several years. Instead, he was ordered to get pretrial psychiatric care. Then, his defense attorney and the courts decided not to mention in this at trial.
This is another example of how our court system seeks justice, but has little interest in truth. The problem is the public is left with a distorted view of the facts upon which this sentencing decision was based, wondering what happened and why.