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Unruly Passenger Swallows Rosary Beads on American Airlines Flight
A satanic disciple had stowed away on a flight to Florida, as one passenger saw it, and something had to be done.
Less than a minute after an American Airlines flight took off from Savannah, Ga., for Miami on Monday night, a passenger began yelling and shaking. Flight attendants initially thought he was having a seizure.
But it turned out he was struggling because he believed a demonic spirit had invaded the cabin — and, at some point during the flight, began swallowing rosary beads to ward that spirit off.
As attendants approached the man, Delange Augustin, 31, he kicked one of them in the chest so hard that the attendant tumbled across the aisle and into a window on the other side of the plane, according to an arrest affidavit.
That’s when the cabin crew realized that Mr. Augustin, who was traveling with his sister, was not having a medical emergency. “Augustin’s choices appeared purposeful, though difficult to describe,” Savannah Solomon, a special agent with the F.B.I., wrote in the affidavit filed in the United States District Court in Chatham County.
The pilots turned the plane around when they heard the commotion and landed it safely in Savannah. But that was not the end of the episode.
Disembarkation from the jet spiraled into chaos when Mr. Augustin stormed to the front of the plane and threw several wild punches at a flight attendant before the door had been opened, the affidavit said. Several passengers helped to wrestle him and his sister to the ground.
Then the authorities learned that Mr. Augustin had swallowed the rosary beads. So he was taken to a hospital, where he was evaluated and discharged to a county detention center. His medical condition was not immediately clear as of Tuesday night.
In the detention center, Mr. Augustin’s sister told the authorities that they had been traveling to Haiti to “flee religious attacks of a spiritual nature,” according to the affidavit.
Mr. Augustin had told his sister “to close her eyes and pray because Satan’s disciple(s) had followed them onto the plane and the legion did not want the Augustins to make it to Haiti,” it said. He swallowed the rosary beads “because they are a weapon of strength in the spiritual warfare,” Mr. Augustin’s sister told Ms. Solomon.
Only about eight passengers were on the plane, the affidavit said. No one was seriously injured.
“We appreciate the professionalism of the entire crew and thank our passengers for their understanding,” American Airlines said in a statement on Tuesday night.
Envoy Air, which operated the flight, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Mr. Augustin was booked into jail on a misdemeanor battery charge, a misdemeanor obstruction of law enforcement charge and a felony count of criminal property damage, according to the jail’s records. Ms. Solomon said in her affidavit that there was also probable cause to arrest him for interfering with the flight crew.
No lawyer for Mr. Augustin was listed in court records. His place of residence was not immediately clear.
Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.
Boone County Prosecutor Kent Eastwood announces charges against Whitestown homeowner
Boone County Prosecutor Kent Eastwood announces charges against Whitestown man who shot Maria Florinda Ríos Pérez de Velasquez.
The 62-year-old man who shot and killed a house cleaner who mistakenly arrived at his Whitestown home has been charged with voluntary manslaughter.
Boone County Prosecutor Kent Eastwood has charged Curt Andersen with a Level 2 felony in the Nov. 5 shooting death of Maria Florinda Ríos Pérez de Velázquez, a 32-year-old wife and mother of four, after she showed up for a housekeeping job.
The charge, announced Nov. 17, is a step below murder and means investigators believe Andersen “knowingly or intentionally” killed Ríos Pérez “while acting under sudden heat,” according to Indiana law.
Officials said they believe in and strive to uphold Indiana’s “Stand Your Ground” law that protects a person’s right to self-defense. But in this case they “determined that Curt Andersen’s actions do not fall within the legal protections” offered by that statute.
The facts show that “Curt Andersen fired one shot through a closed locked door from the top of his stairs knowing two individuals were on the other side of the door, fatally striking Maria Florinda Ríos Pérez de Velázquez,” police found.
His defense attorney, prominent Indiana 2nd Amendment lawyer Guy Relford, disagreed with the charge being filed and said on social media he “[looks] forward to proving in court that his actions were fully justified by the ‘castle doctrine’ provision of Indiana’s self-defense law.”
What the probable cause affidavit filed in Whitestown shooting says
Andersen told police that he went to bed around 2-3 a.m. Nov. 5 and woke up a few hours later when he heard commotion at the front door of his home on Maize Lane in Whitestown, according to charging documents.
He walked from the second-floor loft where he and his wife were sleeping to the top of an indoor stairwell. Looking through his front windows, he saw two people outside who appeared to be trying to open the door.
“Oh no, this is happening and they are going to get in,” Andersen told police he said aloud. “What am I going to do? It’s not going away and I have to do something now.”
Andersen had prepared for what he would do if someone broke into his home by watching videos and trading in his handgun for a Glock 48 9mm handgun this September, he told police. He said he had never fired the new weapon and bought it solely to protect his home.
While he retrieved the gun from a lockbox, the noises outside his door seemed to intensify and “terrified him.” He told officers that 10-15 seconds after he finished loading the gun, he stood at the top of the stairs and pulled the trigger.
He fired one round through the closed front door. He did not announce himself beforehand, he said. Moments later, Andersen and his wife both heard a man crying out and weeping on the front porch, they told police.
After the shooting his wife called 911, and Whitestown Metropolitan Police Department officers were dispatched to the home at 6:50 a.m. They found Mauricio Velázquez kneeling over the body of his wife next to a large pool of blood on the front porch. A bullet had ripped a hole through the front door and struck the woman in the right side of her head, police say.
Andersen’s wife told police that neither she nor her husband had gone to the front door. She told police she had tried, but her husband stopped her because he worried the people outside might have a gun.
How the cleaners got the house wrong
Ríos Pérez and her husband were scheduled to clean a model home in the same area as Andersen’s property, a representative of Ryan Homes, the builder of the nearby Windswept Farms Subdivision, told police.
Velázquez told investigators that he and his wife, both Guatemalan immigrants whose primary language is Spanish, had received an address from their boss that brought them to Andersen’s home when they entered it into the GPS. They believed it was a model home without any residents. When police entered the address into Google Maps, the directions led to the recently built house just east and behind Andersen’s home.
Ríos Pérez was trying to unlock the front door with a key they were given when the gunshot rang out. Her husband said they were on the porch between 30 seconds to a minute before the gunshot, while Andersen told police it was “over a minute.”
“Mauricio mentioned that in the past, when the keys wouldn’t work, they would just call his boss and inform him,” police state, “but he didn’t have the opportunity to do so today.”
After initially refusing a police order to exit the home, Andersen and his wife walked out the back door and were detained. Ríos Pérez was pronounced dead at the scene.
When police told Andersen that Ríos Pérez was part of a cleaning crew who went to the wrong address, he “became upset and immediately put his head down on the table.” He told police he “didn’t mean for anything to happen to anybody.”
Hours after the shooting and the interrogation, officers took Andersen home and he reenacted the events.
Email Indianapolis City Hall Reporter Jordan Smith at JTsmith@gannett.com. Follow him on X: @jordantsmith09
new video loaded: Border Patrol Descends on Charlotte, N.C.
transcript
transcript
Border Patrol Descends on Charlotte, N.C.
Border Patrol agents deployed across Charlotte, N.C., over the weekend, sparking protests and stoking fear in the community.
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“Good morning.” “Sir.” “Get the hell out of my yard, you [expletive].” “I got to go.” “We’ll take care of your, this. You go.” “This is not making us safer. It’s stoking fear and dividing our community. I know this is a stressful moment, but please stay peaceful. And if you see something wrong, record it and report it to local law enforcement.”
By Shawn Paik
November 17, 2025
An American Airlines aircraft takes off from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Lynne Sladky/AP
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Lynne Sladky/AP
The Federal Aviation Administration said Sunday it is lifting all restrictions on commercial flights that were imposed at 40 major airports during the country’s longest government shutdown.
Airlines can resume their regular flight schedules beginning Monday at 6 a.m. EST, the agency said.
The announcement was made in a joint statement by Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy and FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford.
Citing safety concerns as staffing shortages grew at air traffic control facilities during the shutdown, the FAA issued an unprecedented order to limit traffic in the skies. It had been in place since Nov. 7, affecting thousands of flights across the country.
Impacted airports included large hubs in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Atlanta.
The flight cuts started at 4% and later grew to 6% before the FAA on Friday rolled the restrictions back to 3%, citing continued improvements in air traffic controller staffing since the record 43-day shutdown ended on Nov. 12.
The number of flights canceled this weekend was at its lowest point since the order took effect and was well below the 3% cuts FAA was requiring for Saturday and Sunday. Data from aviation analytics firm Cirium showed that less than 1% of all flights were canceled this weekend. The flight tracking website FlightAware said 149 flights were cut Sunday and 315 were canceled on Saturday.
The FAA statement said an agency safety team recommended the order be rescinded after “detailed reviews of safety trends and the steady decline of staffing-trigger events in air traffic control facilities.”
The statement said the FAA “is aware of reports of non-compliance by carriers over the course of the emergency order. The agency is reviewing and assessing enforcement options.” It did not elaborate.
Cancellations hit their highest point Nov. 9, when airlines cut more than 2,900 flights because of the FAA order, ongoing controller shortages and severe weather in parts of the country. Conditions began to improve throughout last week as more controllers returned to work amid news that Congress was close to a deal to end the shutdown. That progress also prompted the FAA to pause plans for further rate increases.
The agency had initially aimed for a 10% reduction in flights. Duffy had said worrisome safety data showed the move was necessary to ease pressure on the aviation system and help manage worsening staffing shortages at air traffic control facilities as the shutdown entered its second month and flight disruptions began to pile up.
Air traffic controllers were among the federal employees who had to continue working without pay throughout the shutdown. They missed two paychecks during the impasse.
Duffy hasn’t shared the specific safety data that prompted the cuts, but he cited reports during the shutdown of planes getting too close in the air, more runway incursions and pilot concerns about controllers’ responses.
Airline leaders have expressed optimism that operations would rebound in time for the Thanksgiving travel period after the FAA lifted its order.
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