by Donald Wood
Last updated: 5:18 PM ET, Tue September 5, 2017
A former airline baggage handler in Australia has pleaded guilty to making fake calls to pilots and air traffic controllers, including one hoax that caused a plane to abort its landing at Melbourne Airport in 2016.
According to ABC.net, 20-year-old former Virgin Australia employee Paul Sant admitted in court to making unauthorized radio transmissions to the crew onboard five Virgin, Jetstar and Qantas flights. Sant also admitted to making a fake mayday call to air traffic controllers.
The Australian Federal Police said the fake calls could have potentially caused a major aviation incident. Flight crews and air traffic controllers took the calls very serious before determining them to be hoaxes.
One of the incidents gaining the most attention featured Sant telling a Virgin Australia plane to go around as it prepared to land. The pilot heard the warning over the radio and aborted the landing to fly a loop around the airport.
Sant was responsible for transmitting to the airline during his time with Virgin and a witness said he had made the radio calls from a lookout point near Melbourne Airport.
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Police arrested Sant in November and seized a radio earpiece, connector and two small handheld radios. Court documents revealed that several witnesses claim he dumped the radio transmitter into a lake.
Sant pleaded guilty to charges of endangering the safety of an aircraft in flight and transmitting a false mayday call knowing it was likely to endanger the safety of another person. He faces up to 20 years in prison.
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