The police arrested a man and charged him with criminal trespassing at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. The 39-year-old accessed the restricted area of the airport and activated the emergency slide of the airplane.

Zackaria Mohamud entered the secure area of Terminal 2 from the jet-way on the airfield at the third gate yesterday morning.

The area where Mohamud was coming from had a clear no-trespassing sign, and the police said the culprit gave different stories on the way he finally arrived there. Mohamud also told the authorities he had no plane ticket and no apparent reason to be at the airport at that time.

The TSA gave a statement, saying they consider the details on the way Mohamud accessed the restricted area as sensitive information. They are not going to reveal anything as yet.

He also failed to produce adequate identification and issued false names to the officers at the scene.
At present, it is still not clear whether there were passengers on board when he set off the emergency slide.

This is not the first time someone set off the emergency slide in an airplane though in the recent year. An agitated passenger onboard Frontier Airlines from Cancun set off the emergency slide by opening the cabin doors as the plane was taxing down the runway.

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airport runway Pixabay

The incident happened on October 22nd on the flight from Mexico to St Louis, Missouri. In this instance, the man became physically violent after a dispute with a flight attendant. He allegedly wanted to leave the plane.

Earlier on in February 2018, Troy Fattun, a United passenger, opened the emergency exit door and jumped down the slide in a bid to ditch the flight. His reason was he was on the wrong plane and had no choice other than exiting the aircraft while it was about to take off.

These instances are not very common, but they usually entail someone needing to stop a flight or escaping from one. The authorities have not released any possible motives from Mohamud on why he wanted to stop the trip as yet.

These stunts do cost a lot of money for the airlines, though. In this case, it cost the airline at least $40,000 in damages. They have not released information yet on whether they will be pressing charges.

Mohamud was taken to Maricopa County jail where he will be held until trial. He did admit to the authorities to activating the slide though.

Mexico United airlines