


Federal authorities detained a Delta Airlines copilot at the San Francisco International Airport over the weekend, according to passengers aboard the flight he was working.
The copilot with Delta Flight 2809, inbound from Minneapolis, had barely touched down in California when at least 10 federal agents, including several from the Department of Homeland Security, “barged through and stormed the cockpit,” a passenger told ABC San Francisco affiliate KGO.
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“They removed the copilot, cuffed him, presumably arrested him, and brought him back down the aisle to deplane,” the passenger said of the incident that occurred Saturday evening.
The Delta pilot, whose identity remains unknown, was arrested by Homeland Security Investigations agents on charges of child sexual abuse material, according to Fox News, with other outlets later verifying the information.

Aviation blog View From the Wing shared video of the incident showing law enforcement, some of whom appeared to be in plainclothes, leaving the cockpit area of the plane as the lead pilot watched his colleague being arrested.
The Washington Examiner contacted DHS and the U.S. attorney’s office for comment.
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Delta made headlines earlier this month after one of the airline’s flights was forced to make an emergency landing in the Portuguese Island of Terceira after the plane experienced an engine problem. Passengers were forced to spend over 24 hours on the island before leaving on a new aircraft.
The airline’s latest incident involving a pilot being accused of viewing child sexual abuse materials comes weeks after the Supreme Court weighed in on minor access to pornography, ruling that a Texas law requiring pornography websites to verify the age of their users to ensure that only individuals 18 or older were accessing their material does not violate constitutional rights to free speech.