MSP the Hard Way

A man wanted by authorities for suspicion of felony domestic assault, drug dealing, trespassing, and felony violating a no-contact order attempted to elude arrest by opening the emergency door of a parked Sun Country 737 aboard which he was traveling and fleeing across the ramp at Minnesota’s Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP).

Aware MSP Airport Police were waiting to apprehend him, 44-year-old Jeremiah Raymond Hoskins of New Brighton, Minnesota, a passenger aboard Sun Country Flight 346, opened one of the 737-800’s emergency exits, scrambled onto the aircraft’s wing, jumped to the tarmac, and fled.

Some forty-minutes after his dramatic leap from the Sun Country 737, Airport workers discovered Hoskins hiding in an airline food-service truck, and turned him promptly over to law-enforcement personnel.

In addition to the MSP ramp staff, Airport police were aided in Hoskins’s apprehension by officers of the Minnesota State Patrol, the Bloomington Police Department, and the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metro Transit Police.

MSP Airport Police reported they’d been alerted Hoskins—who’d previously been arrested on a first-degree controlled substance charge in September 2002—would be arriving from Orlando, Florida on 09 July aboard Sun Country Flight 346.

In addition to the aforementioned felonies, Hoskins now faces charges of trespassing and tampering with an aircraft.

Sun Country Airlines set forth in a post-incident statement: “Fortunately, passengers and crew are fine.”

According to the criminal complaint filed against him in Wright County, Minnesota, Hoskins assaulted the mother of his children, pouring diesel fuel over the woman. Court records show he was arrested but subsequently released after posting a $50,000 bond.

Addressing the worrying number of unruly U.S. airline passengers, Airport Law Enforcement Agencies Network president Jason Wallis stated "a lot of security incidents" occur aboard commercial aircraft and in major terminal airports, “and it’s becoming a concerning issue.”

In 2021, the FAA recorded six-thousand cases of unruly passengers—the majority of which involved COVID pandemic mask disputes. In 2022, the number of incidents involving unruly passengers dropped to approximately 2,400. To date, 2023 has seen 890 cases of unruly passenger behavior. While 2023 is on track to have fewer such incidents than 2022, the number of unruly passengers is still higher than pre-pandemic levels.

"I do see it moving in a positive direction,” Mr. Wallis opined, “so we will have to see where the statistics end up at the end of the calendar year.”

According to the FAA, the incidence of unlawful and unruly behavior aboard commercial aircraft is currently 1.6 incidents for every ten-thousand flights.

FMI: www.faa.gov/unruly