Passenger sexually assaults woman, assaults crew members on Delta flight, feds say

A 32-year-old man recently pleaded guilty in connection with a 2023 incident onboard a Montana-bound flight, federal officials said.

Hunter Andrew Dietrich was on a Delta Air Lines flight from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Bozeman when he “disobeyed repeated instructions from the flight crew to behave himself,” according to a March 11 news release from the United States Attorney’s Office District of Montana.

Dietrich is accused of assaulting and intimidating flight attendants during the flight and “interfered with the performance of their duties,” according to a July 2023 news release by the district attorney’s office.

While onboard the aircraft, Dietrich went up to a woman and “touched her body in various places despite” her “telling him to stop,” prosecutors said.

McClatchy News reached out to Dietrich’s attorney and the airline on March 12 for comment and was awaiting a response.

In March 2023, a Delta Air Lines mechanic was accused of assaulting a sleeping woman onboard a flight from Arizona to Washington, McClatchy News reported.

If convicted, Dietrich faces a maximum of six months in prison, a $5,000 fine and one year of supervised release, the release said.

Dietrich is scheduled to reappear in court in July for his sentencing, officials said.

Bozeman is about a 100-mile drive southeast from Helena.

This story was originally published March 12, 2024 at 1:32 PM with the headline "Passenger sexually assaults woman, assaults crew members on Delta flight, feds say."