A twice-deported illegal migrant from Honduras allegedly tried to hijack a United Airlines flight over New Orleans on Monday, telling crew members he had a bomb in his backpack — and the system that should have stopped him had already let him walk free.
This is the border crisis compressed into a single incident. Rony Gomez-Alberto, 34, was deported not once but twice. He re-entered the country illegally through California. A judge released him in 2020. And on Monday, passengers on United Flight 2174 from Newark were left scrambling on the tarmac while a man who had no legal right to be in this country allegedly breached the aircraft's rear door and tried to reach the cockpit.
Security audio obtained by 4WWL captures the scramble in real time. "We have him at the back door. The back door has been breached by him," one responder says. Dispatch units ask for a vehicle "with a cage." Pilots stayed locked in the cockpit. Flight attendants were pulled off the plane. The suspect, responders noted, "doesn't speak English."
One transmission reveals a passenger told responders that Gomez-Alberto "changed into all black before he started trying to reach the cockpit." Another: "Stay on the line with him and tell him to notify you immediately if he starts trying to move toward the front of the airplane."
He was eventually taken into custody. Jefferson Parish Sheriff's deputies booked Gomez-Alberto on charges of terrorizing, communicating false information of planned arson, and fugitive from justice. He is being held with no bond.
No one was physically hurt. This time.
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed to Fox News that Gomez-Alberto had been deported twice before re-entering illegally through California, and that a judge released him in 2020. Both the New York Post and Fox News reported the same core facts and audio. Neither outlet pressed on which judge released him, under what authority, or whether DHS tracked him at all after his release.
That is where the story widens. The federal government deported this man twice. A judge let him go. He came back. He boarded a commercial flight. He allegedly threatened to bomb it. Every official who signed off on his release, and every policy that makes catch-and-release the default, owns a share of what happened on Flight 2174. The question is whether anyone in Washington will be made to answer for it.
