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Jet Blue employee Steven Slater, 38, was working on Flight 1052 from Pittsburgh to Kennedy Airport, which landed at around 12 p.m., when he got into a verbal altercation with a passenger, law-enforcement sources said.

Following a heated exchange, the flight attendant told off the entire plane on the public address system, activated an emergency chute near the back of the plane and jumped down the evacuation slide and ran for it.

The argument began when one of the 100 passengers on the flight, got up early to get her luggage from an overhead compartment, according to sources. Slater told the passenger to sit back down — but, as he approached, the woman continued to pull her belongings down and struck him in the head with her bag, authorities said.

Slater asked for an apology but the woman cursed him out, saying in effect “go f–k yourself” and calling him a “mo-fo,” according to law enforcement sources who are still sorting out the specifics. Then Slater got on the flight’s announcement system and allegedly cursed out everyone on the plane — especially the person who mouthed off to him, according to law enforcement sources.

When his tirade was through, he then took a some beers from the galley and pulled the emergency chute and slid off the Embraer 190 plane. According to police sources, he threw his luggage down first and said something to the effect of “there goes 28 years,” before he took the plunge.
After getting down the slide, Slater took off into the terminal, law-enforcement sources said.

Slater was later arrested at his home in Belle Harbor, Queens by Port Authority officials. He was found by police in a sexual embrace with his partner, sources said.

The steward was “having a bad day,” sources said.

He is being charged with 2nd-and 4th-degree criminal mischief, 1st- and 2nd-degree reckless endangerment and criminal trespass in the 3rd degree, according to a spokeswoman for Queens DA Richard Brown. Slater faces up to 7 years in prison if convicted.

No one was injured in the incident. JetBlue, in a statement, added, “At no time was the security or safety of our customers or crewmembers at risk.”

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Inspectors for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) discovered live roaches, dead roach carcasses “too numerous to count”, ants, flies, debris, bacteria, and employees preparing food with their bare hands in numerous catering facilities responsible for preparing a huge chunk of the country’s airline meals, USA Today reported.

The stomach-turning inspections were conducted over the last two years at the U.S. facilities of two of the world’s biggest airline caterers, LSG Sky Chefs and Gate Gourmet, and another large caterer, Flying Food Group.

Combined, the three companies provide more than 100 million meals every year at U.S. airports, serving major carriers like Delta, American, United, US Airways and Continental.

Sickening details from the reports, obtained by USA Today through the Freedom of Information Act, include countless occasions when food prepared for airline meals was exposed to contamination.

In a 2009 inspection of an LSG Sky Chefs’ facility in Minneapolis, an FDA inspector “spotted a mouse, rodent nesting materials and rodent feces under a pallet of food and in other areas.”

A Connecticut facility of LSG Sky Chef’s was issued a warning letter for fish meals “prepared, packed or held under insanitary conditions” that may be “injurious to health.” The FDA cited concerns that the food could cause botulism, caused by extremely poisonous toxins.

Gate Gourmet was slapped with a warning letter in April 2005 when FDA inspectors found cockroaches and fruit flies in its Honolulu facility, food stored at the wrong temperatures, mold in a refrigerator and “a pink, slimy substance” dripping on kitchen machinery.

Prior to the warning, between 47 and 116 passengers had fallen ill after eating food on 12 flights from Hawaii catered by Gate Gourmet, according to the Hawaii State Department of Health.

Gate Gourmet Vice President Norbert van den Berg says the company has an excellent system to ensure safe food, and that his company’s food-safety standards are better than any restaurant. “We can guarantee the safest product out there,” he told USA Today.

Glenn Caulkins of Flying Food Group said his company also used an independent auditor to monitor its facilities, and a spokeswoman for LSG Sky Chefs told USA Today that it employs “comprehensive and multilayered quality-control standards…to ensure our customers receive safe, healthy and high-quality food.”

(from Meena Hartenstein of the New York Daily News)

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