The pilot, a resident of Longwood, Florida, retired three weeks after the incident, bringing to a close a 27-year career with the airline.ĭefense attorney Michael Salnick said in a court filing that Haak accepts responsibility for his behavior and “offers no excuses.”īut the lawyer argued that his client’s “lifetime of hard work and kindness” made him deserving of a lenient sentence. He pleaded guilty to the charges, which carry a maximum sentence of 90 days in jail. Haak was charged in April with intentionally committing a lewd, indecent or obscene act in a public place. “This is not the kind of aberrant behavior that anyone should accept,” the prosecutor added. Haak “had a duty to comport himself in a much more responsible manner,” Assistant U.S. The judge said the defendant’s actions had traumatized the co-pilot and risked the safety of passengers and other crew members. The first officer submitted a statement to the court, but did not speak during the hearing. “As the plane continued its flight, Haak further engaged in inappropriate conduct in the cockpit, as the first officer continued to perform her duties as an assigned aircrew member,” federal prosecutors said in a statement. Haak had never met the first officer before the Orlando-bound flight on August 10, 2020, when the incident took place, according to federal prosecutors.Īfter the plane reached cruising altitude, Haak got out of the pilot’s seat, “disrobed” and began watching pornographic material on a laptop computer in the cockpit, prosecutors said. I never imagined it would turn into this in a thousand years,” Haak said during the virtual hearing. “It started as a consensual prank between me and the other pilot. Mark Coulson ordered him on Friday to serve one year of unsupervised probation and pay a $5,000 fine. Michael Haak, 60, apologized and expressed remorse for his actions before US Magistrate Judge J. A Southwest Airlines pilot has been sentenced to probation after pleading guilty to watching porn and exposing his genitals to a female first officer during a flight from Philadelphia to Florida.
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