Unruly passenger arraigned over incident on Delta flight

Jace Radke

Monday, July 26, 1999 | 11:16 a.m.

An Atlanta-bound passenger is making his first appearance in federal court in Las Vegas today on charges that he tipped a beverage cart on the Delta Air Lines flight, burning a woman and her baby with hot coffee.

FBI agents and Metro Police greeted Delta Air Lines Flight 194 at McCarran International Airport early Saturday morning to arrest Hung Cong Duong, 30, after the Los Angeles-to-Atlanta flight made an unscheduled stop in Las Vegas.

The incident is part of the growing "air rage" phenomenon that Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., is hoping to limit with the Safe and Friendly Skies Bill.

"Right now the bill is being considered by the Senate Commerce Committee, and we are hoping it will be passed onto the House floor," Reid spokesman Jack Pannell Jr. said. "An incident like the one in Las Vegas Saturday morning is another reason why this legislation needs to pass."

Passengers face up to 20 years in jail and a $10,000 fine for interfering with a flight crew. The new bill would increase the civil penalty cap from $1,100 to $25,000 and would allow the secretary of transportation to ban abusive passengers from flying for a year.

That won't be an option in the case of Duong, a resident alien from Vietnam living in Florida who was booked into the Clark County Detention Center on federal charges of interfering with a flight crew.

He became upset when he wasn't served a drink first on the flight that left Los Angeles at 12:18 a.m. Saturday, FBI agent Kevin Caudle said.

"The plane left Los Angeles, and he just didn't want to wait his turn for a drink," Caudle said. "He got up and turned over the beverage cart spilling coffee on a woman and her baby. Then on the way back to his seat he hit a couple passengers in the head with his hand."

Passengers and flight attendants restrained Duong while the Boeing 767 made an unscheduled landing at McCarran about 1:21 a.m., Caudle said.

The 17-month-old baby was treated for burns at University Medical Center while its mother and the two passengers hit by Duong suffered only minor injuries.

The baby and its mother were provided a hotel room in Las Vegas Saturday night by Delta. The flight headed to Atlanta about three hours later.

The FBI usually responds to about one unruly passenger call a month at McCarran, Caudle said.

In June a Delta flight bound for Atlanta from Las Vegas had to turn around just 40 minutes after takeoff when two passengers exchanged blows.

A day before that a Southwest Airlines flight headed to Oakland, Calif., from Kansas City made an emergency landing at McCarran after a passenger punched a flight attendant in the chest.