#9- Devshi Kulshreshtha
Devshi Kulshreshtha, an Indian Jet Airways stewardess, was arrested while trying to smuggle
500,000 US dollars in her luggage on January the 8th of 2018.
The 25-year-old had boarded a flight from New Delhi to Hong Kong with the currency in
tow.
Upon landing, officials from the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence searched her bags
after receiving an anonymous tip about her.
In Kulshreshtha’s luggage, underneath shoes and cosmetics, they found a large quantity
of $100 bills.
The contraband had been wrapped in foil in an attempt to keep x-ray scanners from detecting
it.
Kulshreshtha told investigators that she’d been working with Amit Malhotra, aged 40,
the leader of a smuggling network based in New Delhi.
The flight attendant had participated in multiple smuggling operations during the five months
prior to her arrest.
She was paid $1,400 for each trip, having managed to smuggle over $1.4 million in total.
#8- Julianne March
Flight attendant Julianne March, of Wisconsin, was charged with criminal intoxication after
boarding a United Express flight from Chicago to Indiana while drunk on August the 8th of
2019.
Passengers recorded the 49-year-old woman slumped over in her seat, apparently passed
out.
The video was uploaded online, at which point the authorities caught wind of the situation.
According to eyewitnesses, March had begun acting erratically during the boarding process,
making security announcements in a slurred speech and bumping into passengers as she
walked up and down the aisle.
Once she took her seat, March didn’t wake up for the remainder of the flight.
Upon landing, March was approached by police officers.
She seemed disoriented, and when asked if she knew what city she was in, she responded
Chicago, where the plane had departed, not South Bend, Indiana, where it had since landed.
When administered a breathalyzer test, her blood alcohol level was determined to be 0.204,
five times over the legal limit for flight attendants in the state.
Air Wisconsin, March’s employer, fired her when news of the incident surfaced.
She was released from custody on her own recognizance, and was later ordered to undergo alcohol counseling
and evaluation.
March’s criminal charges would be dropped if she followed the court’s requirements
for a year.
#7-Sam Thompson
26-year-old flight attendant Sam Thompson was arrested after footage of him drinking
during a flight surfaced on May the 18th of 2022.
The incident occurred during a flight from Rzeszow in Poland to Stansted Airport in the
UK.
One of the passengers recorded Thompson, who was working as a member of the cabin crew,
drinking a 187-milliliter bottle of wine, as well as a shot of Jack Daniels from the
trolley.
The passenger, whose identity wasn’t disclosed, stated that Thompson looked as though he’d
been drinking before the flight had even begun as well.
Thompson’s employer, Ryanair, reportedly requires its employees to abstain from consuming
alcohol at least eight hours prior to any flight, as well as during the entire duration
of their shift.
The captain on board the flight in question performed a breathalyzer test on the flight
attendant, after being informed of his drinking.
Thompson’s blood alcohol level was 0.05, above the legal driving limit.
He was promptly fired and arrested upon landing, charged with performing an aviation function
while impaired.
#6-Carla Alvarado
On September the 28th of 2013, JetBlue flight attendant, Carla Alvarado, agreed to go undercover
for the authorities after being caught smuggling illicit substances disguised as candy on a
flight from Colombia to Florida.
The 33-year-old, who was wearing a bodysuit beneath her flight attendant uniform, immediately
confessed to her wrongdoings after being selected for inspection by customs officers.
She explained that she’d been paid $10,000 to smuggle the illegal products into the US
by 43-year-old Jorge Luis Alomar, whom she was supposed to meet in Orlando.
Alvarado subsequently agreed to work with investigators on a sting operation.
She met with Alomar the following day, delivering a bag, which he believed contained the illicit
substances she’d smuggled.
The man was arrested upon accepting the delivery, and a search of his Davenport home revealed
the presence of two additional bags of contraband, one hidden underneath a dresser and the other
inside a bathroom’s ceiling vent.
Alvarado pleaded guilty on January the 3rd of 2014 and was granted a lesser jail sentence
of 2 years due to her cooperation with authorities.
Alomar received a harsher sentence of 15 years in federal prison.
Both were ordered to pay $10,000, considered by the court to be the proceeds of the smuggling
operation.
#5-Nancy Bray
On January the 14th of 2014, 58-year-old flight attendant Nancy Bray boarded a plane for work
at the Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Kentucky, with three times the legal blood alcohol limit.
Bray already had a criminal record at the time of her subsequent arrest, having faced
a DUI charge four years earlier, in Florida.
Officers tested her blood alcohol level on the plane, registering it to be 0.258, three
times the legal limit in Kentucky.
They also discovered prescription pills outside of their original container.
Her arrest delayed the flight’s takeoff for two hours.
She was charged with being an aircrew member under the influence, and possession of a controlled
substance, to which she pleaded not guilty.
As of the most recent available updates, it’s unclear how the case ultimately played out.
#4- Marsha Gay Reynolds
On March the 23rd of 2016, former beauty queen and air hostess Marsha Gay Reynolds was arrested
in New York after escaping from a security screening at the Los Angeles International
Airport.
The 33-year-old Miss Jamaica runner-up had arrived at an LAX checkpoint wearing a crew
member badge, expecting to bypass security, but was selected for a random screening.
Reynolds grew agitated when airport officials informed her that she’d be subjected to
a secondary check, and began speaking in a foreign language before abandoning her bags
and kicking off her shoes.
She then sprinted out of the terminal and down an escalator, outrunning patrol officers.
When her discarded bag was inspected, airport security discovered roughly $2 million worth
of illicit substances.
The woman managed to get on another flight to New York without being detected, but ultimately
surrendered to the authorities several days later.
Although the minimum possible sentence for her charge, conspiracy to possess and distribute,
was reported as 10 years in prison, the court took the JetBlue flight attendant’s cooperation
into account when doling out her punishment.
After spending 3 years behind bars during the case’s legal proceedings, Reynolds was
sentenced in April of 2018, to time served in exchange for pleading guilty and providing
information about her co-conspirators.
#3- Carlos Alberto Munoz-Moyano, Maria Isabel Wilson-Ossandon, Maria Beatriz Pasten-Cuzmar
and Miaria Delpilar Roman-Strick
On May the 21st of 2019, four American Airlines flight attendants were arrested on money laundering
charges after landing in Miami, Florida onboard a flight that departed from Chile.
In the resulting police reports, the suspects were identified as Carlos Alberto Muñoz-Moyano,
aged 40, María Isabel Wilson Ossandon, aged 48, and 55-year-old María Beatriz Pasten-Cuzmar
and María del Pilar Román-Strick.
The first to be searched by the authorities was Muñoz-Moyano, who caught the attention
of customs and border patrol agents by claiming to only be carrying $100.
Inside his bag, officials discovered $9,000.
Airport agents decided to search the rest of the aircrew’s luggage, uncovering $6,371
in Wilson-Ossadon’s bag, and $7,300 in Roman-Strick’s.
Although no money was found in Pasten-Cuzmar’s possession, she admitted to having participated
in the smuggling plot along with her coworkers.
$22,671 were discovered in total.
The four suspects told authorities that they were supposed to get a 1% cut of that sum.
Today's topic was requested byI PUNCH POLITICIANS, C Flight Attendant and Tinisha Hinton.
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comments section below.
#2- Melissa Nosti
Australian flight attendant Melissa Nosti was released from jail after serving only
a week of her 18-month sentence, having been convicted of engaging in intimate relations
with a minor in 2010.
Nosti was 23 years old and working as an attendance officer at a Sydney high school at the time
of the illegal relationship.
It wouldn’t be until October of 2020 that she ultimately pleaded guilty to her criminal
charges and was sentenced for the abuse.
However, only a few days into her incarceration, Nosti’s lawyer issued a bail appeal, arguing
that his client was unlikely to reoffend and had been able to gain employment outside of
the education system.
Judge Susan Horan agreed with the defense’s request but set a number of conditions for
Nosti’s release.
The 33-year-old flight attendant was forbidden from making contact with her victim and could
not be in the company of anyone under the age of 16 alone.
Although she was allowed to own a cellphone, she was required to give the police complete,
unfettered access to the device.
#1-Cory Lee
Cory Lee, an award-winning travel blogger who suffered from spinal muscular atrophy,
was mistreated and threatened by Delta’s aircrew during a flight from Santiago de Chile
and Atlanta, Georgia on November the 13th of 2022.
Because of his medical condition, Lee used a specialized wheelchair, which weighed over
400 pounds and thus wasn’t allowed on flights.
Used to being the last one to deboard since his wheelchair was hard to maneuver, Lee waited
until everyone else had left the cabin before asking flight attendants if his power chair
had already arrived at the bridge.
He was told that it hadn’t, but that he’d have to deboard anyway and wait in one of
the aisle chairs.
Lee asked to instead remain on the plane, according to his rights under the Air Carrier
Access Act, indicating that the chairs would cause him to develop pressure sores.
Airplane personnel subsequently became hostile toward the man, and one of the stewards then
informed a supervisor that Lee didn't want to leave the plane.
The argument escalated until one of the flight attendants warned Lee that the TSA would force
him to “get off the aircraft with all their guns and stuff.”
Fortunately, as tensions continued to escalate, another employee entered the cabin to inform
Lee that his wheelchair had arrived.
The whole interaction was recorded and uploaded on social media in the aftermath.
Delta apologized for the flight attendants’ behavior, stating that "the exchange in this
video does not reflect the high standard of care" expected from employees and that they’d
gotten in contact with Lee to personally apologize.
Thanks for watching!
Would you rather be a school bus driver for kids with behavioral issues or a flight attendant
on an airline that serves free alcohol to its passengers?
Let us know in the comment section below!