AN AIRLINE passenger’s threat to bring an aircraft down with a bomb over the Atlantic was triggered by a demand that he pay €3.50 for a small bottle of wine, a court heard yesterday.
At Ennis Circuit Court, Judge Donagh McDonagh imposed a two-year and three-month jail term on Dutch national Jorge Flores (44) for knowingly making a false alarm by stating that he had a bomb on board a Caribbean- bound Boeing 767 flight with 231 passengers from Amsterdam on January 13th last.
Judge McDonagh suspended the final year of the jail term.
Flores will serve 12 months as he has been on remand since January.
Flores’s claims prompted the aircraft’s captain to divert to Shannon airport. Garda Sgt Michael O’Connor told the court yesterday that the request that Flores pay €3.50 for the wine “triggered” his threat that he had a bomb on board.
Stephen Coughlan, prosecuting, said the costs to Arkefly of diverting and securing a replacement aircraft totalled €90,040.
Sgt O’Connor said Flores has 80 previous convictions, comprising drug, assault and public order offences that also included “pages” of road-traffic convictions.
Throughout yesterday’s one-hour sentencing hearing, Flores cried and trembled, but Judge McDonagh said he was “not impressed by Mr Flores’s behaviour in court”, saying he was no stranger to the court system with 80 convictions.
“Tears do nothing where I am concerned,” said the judge.
Elaine Houlihan, defending, said her client had four cans of lager and a bottle of wine before he got on the aircraft and he was drunk on board.
She said Flores’s threat was on “a spur of the moment”.
Imposing sentence, Judge McDonagh said: “Stating that he had a bomb on board removed this incident from mere boorish behaviour to a heightened level where the safety and security of aircraft, crew and passengers was affected.
“In this day and age, a statement on board an aircraft that you have a bomb; that you will blow it up; that you will bring the aircraft down, must be taken seriously by all concerned and, ultimately, taken seriously by the courts.”
