A Puerto Rican man pleaded guilty to a federal charge of damaging or interfering with aircraft operations after opening the door of a plane that was about to take off from Boston’s Logan International Airport in 2025.

Ángel Luis Morales Torres, 24, will be sentenced on August 4 after being indicted by a federal grand jury in March 2025, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts said in a press release.

Morales Torres made the guilty plea before U.S. District Court Judge F. Dennis Saylor on Tuesday.

The incident was reported on January 7, 2025, when Morales Torres was traveling on a JetBlue flight from Boston to Puerto Rico. As the plane was taxiing down the runway at Logan Airport late at night, the passenger “who wanted to exit the plane suddenly and without warning opened the door,” police said last year.

“Morales got up from his seat, ran down the aisle and entered an empty emergency exit row, where he began attempting to open the emergency exit door. A flight attendant attempted to restrain Morales, but he was eventually restrained by another passenger,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in its press release.

The man managed to open the door, which caused the inflatable emergency jet to deploy, causing the operation to be halted from 7:30 p.m. until 10:30 p.m.

Witnesses told the media that Morales Torres got into an agitated argument with a woman who was accompanying him regarding a cell phone.

The Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s Office stated that the charge of damaging or disabling an aircraft carries a maximum penalty of up to 20 years in prison, up to three years of supervised probation and a fine of up to $250,000.

---

This content was translated from Spanish to English using artificial intelligence and was reviewed by an editor before being published.