JetBlue pilot preparing to fly from Boston to Paris arrested on warrant for sexual exploitation of a minor

BOSTON, MA- In the midst of increasing primarily media-driven wariness among the American public over the safety of air travel, we are being told that a JetBlue pilot was arrested at Boston’s Logan International Airport Thursday night as he was preparing to fly from Boston to Paris, CBS News reports. 

Jeremy Gudorf was taken into custody by Massachusetts State Police and U.S. Customs and Border Protection as he was preparing to leave at around 8:40 p.m. He is charged with second-degree exploitation of a minor, according to a prosecutor Friday. 

“In conducting their standard review of the manifest of a Boston-to-Paris flight, CBP identified an active North Carolina warrant lodged against a member of the flight crew, who was detained,” the MSP said in a statement. 

According to an attorney representing Gudorf in East Boston District Court, the 33-year-old Gudorf lives in Ohio but has ties to Massachusetts. 

The attorney asked a judge to release Gudorf on bond, while the prosecution, citing his ability to flee, wanted him held without bail. The basis of the North Carolina charges was not detailed. 

“These are serious charges,” Gudorf’s lawyer said. “The news is here. He’s not just going to be able to run away from this.” 

Meanwhile, prosecutors argued Gudorf’s ability to flee. 

“He is a commercial pilot, the warrant is obviously out of North Carolina, and he resides in the state of Ohio, so for those reasons, we ask that he be held without bail and surrender his passport.” 

As expected in bright blue Massachusetts, the judge allowed Gudorf to retain his passport and released him on a $10,000 bond, conditional on his reporting to North Carolina to answer the charges by Feb. 25. 

Along with the North Carolina charges, Gudorf is also charged in Massachusetts as a fugitive from justice without a warrant. However, if North Carolina waives the warrant, Gudorf will not have to return to the Bay State for a status hearing on the fugitive from justice charge. If the warrant is not waived, however, Gudorf will have to return to Boston to answer that charge on March 19. 

On January 29, an American Airlines CRJ-700 collided with an Army Blackhawk helicopter over the Potomac River while the passenger jet was on final approach to Washington-Reagan National Airport in Arlington, VA. Everyone aboard both aircraft was killed, with most sources blaming the Army crew. 

Since that time, an apparently obsessed media has focused on every crash involving any aircraft in an apparent attempt to politicize them and lay blame on the Trump administration, which is in the midst of an aggressive cost-cutting program. Some Democrat lawmakers even tried to blame the president for a crash in Toronto where a Delta Airlines regional jet had a hard landing and sheared off a wing, rolling onto its roof as it slid to a stop. Miraculously, nobody was killed. 

The recent obsessive reporting on every plane crash has frightened the flying public, and incidents such as the JetBlue pilot's arrest may do little to assuage those fears.