To bring you uptodate, Eder H. Rojas, a Mexican citizen and a Woodbury, Minnesota resident, is (was) a 19 year old Compass Airlines flight attendant. He got ticked off at being put to work on the Minneapolis to Regina flight, and on May 7 2008, decided to express his displeasure by using a lighter to set fire to the paper towel box in the plane’s rear bathroom, whilst in-flight. The photo you see is a snap-shot from Rojas’ MySpace page.

The fire was put out, but the plane made an unscheduled stop at Fargo, North Dakota after smoke filled the plane’s back. All 72 passengers and the 4 crew members were safe and uninjured. Rojas was arrested in Minneapolis and is being prosecuted in Fargo.

After being initially held in Minneapolis without bail, he was later released into the custody of his father, Juan Rojas, who lives in Chicago, subject to Eder’s following certain conditions. Which conditions were subsequently violated, and Eder was moved on July 1st 2008 to Center Inc., a Fargo Halfway House, pending trial.

Now, it seems, Eder has skipped town and did not appear for a federal court appearance of Friday. His trial was scheduled to begin Monday, but has been postponed while federal Marshalls search for him.

Sad part is that when the plane’s pilot Steve Peterka told Rojas to check out the smoke in the plane’s back, it was Rojas himself, along with another attendant and a passenger, who put out the fire quickly. Add this to the fact that he’s just 19, and claims he’s not guilty, plus the fact that even accepting that he did light the fire, his motive was not to actually blow up the plane, but just to attract some attention.

Means that basically he was unfit for the job, and should not have been in that position in the first place, where his stupidity and childishness put lives at risk. Realistically speaking, he’s probably in Mexico by now, and he’ll be telling his grand-kids about his American adventure in a few decades.

Hopefully, this should alert Compass Airlines (a subsidiary of NortWest Airlines) to verify that all their employees are fit to handle flight pressures, and to make sure that their hiring practices set a higher qualifying bar. And also hopefully, other airlines will wake up to this danger before people actually get hurt.

Posted on September 8th, 2008 by Thomas
Filed under: News