Federal agents arrested a Delta Air Lines co-pilot immediately upon landing at a California airport on Saturday.
Rustom Bhagwagar, a 34-year-old resident of Florida, was apprehended in the cockpit of a plane at San Francisco International Airport. According to KTVU, police in Contra Costa County, Florida, had been investigating Bhagwagar on allegations of child sex crimes since April.
Homeland Security confirmed to the San Francisco Chronicle that it assisted local officials in Bhagwagar’s arrest.
Bhagwagar was slated to pilot a flight from San Francisco to Minneapolis, Minnesota, later that same day. A passenger who claimed to have witnessed the event recounted to the San Francisco Chronicle that officials with badges and guns “stormed the cockpit, handcuffed the co-pilot, arrested him, marched him down the aisle, and led him off the plane through the cabin doors between first class and coach.”
Afterward, a second group reportedly entered the cockpit to collect the co-pilot’s belongings.
Bhagwagar, who is charged with oral copulation with a child under 10 years, remains jailed on $5 million bail.
[Feature Photo: Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office]
