A Delta Airlines pilot was detained by federal agents just moments after landing a plane at a California airport — shocking passengers and plane crew alike.
The pilot was arrested on board Delta Flight 2809 around 9:35 p.m. Saturday, just as the aircraft touched down in San Francisco from Minneapolis and was preparing to deplane, according to a local report.
Before anybody could leave, about 10 federal agents — including officers from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) — boarded the full plane, then “stormed the cockpit, cuffed the co-pilot, arrested him, walked him down the aisle, and ushered him off the plane,” one alarmed passenger who saw the whole ordeal said.
“A group of people with badges, guns, and different agency vests/markings were pushing their way up
through the aisle to the cockpit,” passenger Sarah Christianson told the San Francisco Chronicle.
After the pilot was led away by the entourage of officers, another group came to cart his bags away.
And the flight crew had apparently no idea what was happening — with the other pilot telling passengers that he was as baffled as they were by the arrest, Christianson said.
Exactly why the pilot was arrested remains unclear.
HSI is a division of the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and has helped lead many of the immigration raids and arrests since President Trump began rolling out a mass crackdown on illegal immigrants.
Christianson called the incident “shocking and unnerving.”
“It was rage-inducing to see someone being disappeared right in front of me,” she said, borrowing language frequently used by critics to describe ICE arrests of illegal immigrants.
HSI has not clarified why the pilot was arrested or whether his immigrant status had anything to do with it, and did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publication.
Delta Air Lines deferred questions to law enforcement.
But it wouldn’t be the first time illegal immigrants have been snapped up at their workplace since Trump’s crackdown began.
In recent months, farms, factories and construction sites around the country have seen raids in the middle of the workday, with employees hauled off for deportation.
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