An Ohio man has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison after pleading guilty to interfering with the performance of the duties of a flight crew.
On November 11, 2022, Allen Liebisch, 43, of Cincinnati arrived at the Cincinnati airport with a ticket for Frontier Airlines Flight 1761, which was traveling from Cincinnati to Tampa, according to the Northern District of Georgia U.S. Attorney’s Office.
While going through a security checkpoint, TSA confiscated a box cutter from Liebisch which the agents “mistakenly believed they had disabled by removing the blade,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Once on the flight, Liebisch (pictured above) inserted a spare blade he kept in the handle of the box cutter and said he was going to “stab someone.”
A passenger on the flight reported Liebisch’s threat to a flight attendant, who then informed the captain and other flight attendants of the situation.
While the captain decided to make an emergency landing at the nearest airport, which was Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, two male passengers were asked to keep Liebisch calm and under control while confined in his seat for the remainder of the flight due to the lack of law enforcement on the plane.
Once the plane landed, the passengers were instructed to deplane immediately and to leave their belongings on the plane while Atlanta Police Department (APD) officers positioned themselves at the gate and waited for Liebisch to exit.
However, as the final remaining passengers neared the exit of the plane, Liebisch charged forward towards a flight attendant while wielding the box cutter before being tackled from behind by a passenger and arrested by APD officers.
Liebisch’s disturbance on the flight, his arrest, and TSA’s baggage re-inspection protocols forced Frontier Airlines to delay the flight to Tampa until the following morning, the U.S. Attorney’s Office notes.
In addition to his 30-month prison sentence, Liebisch was sentenced to three years of supervised release.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Ohio Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
