A Co Armagh man who claimed he was a terrorist on board a transatlantic flight will be deported from the United State, authorities said today.
Aiden Mackle (44), from Portadown was yesterday sentenced to 116 days in jail, time he has already served, for disrupting a flight from Atlanta, Georgia, to Dublin on March 1st. He was also fined $20,000.
Mackle told flight attendants he was a terrorist who knew Osama bin Laden and assaulted a Delta Air Lines employee who tried to calm him down after he was caught smoking in the toilet.
The US district court in Bangor, Maine, heard he was a recovering alcoholic with a mental health disorder. He had pleaded guilty in April to interfering with a flight crew and assaulting a member of a flight crew.
Sentencing Mackle yesterday, Judge John Woodcock told him: "By invoking the name of the most notorious terrorist this country has ever seen, you could not have been more provocative."
Mackle told the judge: "I completely and totally apologise to the people on this flight. This is something they should not have had to put up with, but the people who have suffered most are my parents and sister. My life has changed for the better (because of my arrest)."
The court heard Mackle, who was on his way home after visiting family and friends in California, was not taking his medication and was drinking heavily when he left Atlanta for Dublin at about 9.10pm on February 29th.
After drinking four small bottles of wine he became unruly and had to be pinned down by the crew on board.
The judge said that the airline bore some responsibility for the incident for continuing to serve Mackle alcohol when he apparently was clearly intoxicated. But he added that he would not blame the victim and that Mackle was responsible for his actions.
He also ordered Mackle to pay $20,030 to Delta Air Lines for the cost of diverting the plane from its intended destination of Dublin to Bangor International Airport.
Mackle has been held without bail at the Piscataquis County Jail since his arrest and is expected to be deported by immigration officials, a spokesman for the US Attorney's Office in Bangor, Maine, said.
He is expected to be back in Northern Ireland within four to six weeks and will be prohibited from re-entering the US without permission from immigration authorities.