The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has referred 37 passengers to the Justice Department.
“We are referring the most egregious cases to the FBI for federal criminal prosecution consideration,” the FAA said in a social media post on November 4, 2021.
Cases of unruly passengers have spiked this year, with 5,033 unruly passenger reports up until November 2, 2021. Of those 3,642 are related to mask-wearing. The FAA has started 950 investigations and 227 enforcement cases.
“Unruly behavior is serious and has real consequences,” FAA administrator Steve Dickson said on Twitter.
